The Quinnipiac men’s ice hockey team clinched their second consecutive ECAC regular-season championship title Friday night after a 4-1 victory over Brown. In the past four years, Quinnipiac has won the Cleary Cup three times.
“It’s awesome,” junior forward Sam Anas said. “But it will mean a lot more when we win the Whitelaw (Cup) when we do some damage in the playoffs.”
Along with clinching the regular-season title, the Bobcats (24-2-7, 15-1-5 ECAC) used Friday night to honor their six seniors.
Over the past four years, this graduating class of players has helped the Bobcats earn 101 wins, the most in NCAA Division I men’s ice hockey since the start of the 2012-13 season.
“It’s a great group, they know how to win,” head coach Rand Pecknold said. “Even more importantly, they are good people. They get great grades, they do the right thing when no one is watching. Character all the way through.”
Quinnipiac started rolling early when they found themselves on the power play just 17 seconds into the game.
Moving behind the net, Anas found senior forward Travis St. Denis who put it home to give the Bobcats the lead just over a minute into the game. St. Denis’ goal was his sixth goal in seven games, extending his point streak to eight games.
“Our focus going into the game was to have a good start,” St. Denis said. “And going forward that is the goal for our team heading into playoffs.”
St. Denis is currently second in the nation in power-play goals and continues to be a crucial part of a Quinnipiac team that has been lethal all season.
Anas’ assist on the goal extended the Maryland native’s point streak to a commanding 16 games. Over that stretch, Anas has netted 12 goals and 13 assists.
Anas is currently one of five NCAA Division I men’s ice hockey players with at least 20 goals and 20 assists on the season.
“The puck has just been going my way,” Anas said.
The Bobcats added to the lead when junior Tim Clifton tallied his 16th goal of the season. Clifton threw the puck on net where it landed just above the crease. After a commotion in front of Brown (5-16-6, 3-13-5 ECAC) goaltender Tim Ernst, Clifton found the puck again and put it in the back of the net to give Quinnipiac a 2-0 lead.
Just a little over two minutes into the final period, Tanner MacMaster found a streaking Thomas Aldworth as he crossed over the blue line.
Aldworth made a beautiful pass across the crease and found Kevin McKernan, who scored his third goal of the season. A little over a minute later, Brown got on the board after Davey Middleton connected on a rebound to cut Quinnipiac’s lead down to two.
But freshman forward Luke Shiplo helped to solidify the victory with a late third period goal to put Quinnipiac up 4-1.
The Bobcats will return to action tomorrow night when they take on the Yale Bulldogs at 7 p.m.
