The 14th ranked Quinnipiac Bobcats defeated ninth-ranked St. Cloud State University as they defeated the Huskies (4-2-0), 4-1, after two explosive periods of scoring. This extended Quinnipiac’s (6-0-0) winning streak to six games to start the season, and completed a weekend sweep of the Huskies—which is the first time the Bobcats have done so since the teams first played each other in 2010.
Additionally, Quinnipiac senior goaltender Michael Garteig had another solid performance. He made a career-high 41 saves, and kept the Huskies yearning for a goal for most of the night.
He and the rest of the Bobcats found themselves in an unfamiliar spot as the Huskies had 14 shots in the first period as Quinnipiac only rifled off 11. It was just the second period this year where the Bobcats were outshot and the first time all season where the Bobcats have been outshot during the whole game (42-30).
Quinnipiac head coach Rand Pecknold acknowledged Garteig’s impressive night after the game.
“I think Michael Garteig stole the game for us tonight” Pecknold said. “He was as good as he has ever been, maybe one of the better games he has ever played for us.”
Travis St. Denis got his first of the night, and third of the weekend, with just more than five minutes to play in the first period. He scored a put-away goal to the left of Huskie’s goaltender Charlie Lindgren.
“He’s been playing great,” Pecknold said about St. Denis. “Both goals were great.”
Senior captain Soren Jonzzon continued the Bobcats scoring as he corralled a long pass from junior defenseman Connor Clifton and found himself all alone in the offensive zone with just Lindberg to beat. He rifled a slap shot over Lindberg’s right shoulder to send the Bobcats into the first intermission up by two goals.
The Bobcats added two in the third period when they scored two goals just 36 seconds apart. The first goal came from St. Denis, his second of the game. He buried a power play goal off a rebound shot from junior defensemen Devon Toews. This was the Bobcat’s nation-leading 10th power play goal of the season.
“We obviously work on it a lot,” said Pecknold about the power play, “We work on it a lot and in the end we have a lot of great players on the ice.”
Following up St. Denis’ goal was Tommy Schutt, who scored just a little more than half-a-minute later when he received a pass at the offensive blue line.
The Huskies scored their only goal in the second period. Ben Storm scored a rebound goal off Blake Winiecki’s shot to cut the Bobcats’ lead in half with less than six minutes to play in the period. But the Huskies could not capitalize on momentum or a power play to tie the game up at two.
However, despite the seemingly lopsided score, Pecknold thought the Bobcats were mostly outplayed.
“I give a lot of credit to St. Cloud,” Pecknold said. “I thought they were awesome for two periods…we haven’t been dominated like that in a while”
The Bobcats are likely to see a boost in the USCHO poll on Monday after the weekend sweep of the Huskies. After some time off, Quinnipiac picks play back up on Nov. 6th when they travel to Colgate for a game against the Raiders to start conference play.
