Even with the absence of senior captain Connor Clifton, the Quinnipiac Bobcats (10-4-2, 6-1-1 ECAC) did not seem to miss a beat as they hit and scored early and often against the Rensselaer Engineers (3-13-1, 1-6-0 ECAC). Less than five minutes into the game, junior forward Tanner Macmaster scored in between the goalie’s legs on a two on one. The goals did not return until the third period as Rensselaer junior defensemen Jared Wilson scored just four and a half minutes into the third. Quinnipiac would retaliate with three power play goals to cruse to a dominating four to one win.
Scoring early is nothing new to the Bobcats as they outscore their opponents in the first period 17 to 10, but throughout the Friendship Four tournament the Bobcats were only able to sneak across one goal. The goal came from the stick of sophomore left wing Craig Martin in a 5-1 loss against the University of Vermont. After a lack of offense in Belfast, Ireland, the Bobcats returned to the States in a roaring fashion scoring three goals in the third period with each coming off the power play.
“We were really dialed in, obviously, what happened against Vermont was tough, but we showed up this week in practice, and we really battled hard,” Landon Smith said about his team’s preparation.
A Connor Clifton hit to the head in the tie against St. Lawrence caused the Eastern Collegiate Athletic Conference to suspend him for one game. It was anticipated that the senior captain’s offensive role would be missed, but Quinnipiac was able to fire a cumulative 51 shots on net. Even with so many shots though his presence on the ice was certainly missed.
“He is probably logging the most minutes from any of our guys, he was a big loss, he does so much for us,” Quinnipiac head coach Rand Pecknold said. “He is one of the better defensemen in our league.”
After a slow start to the season the Quinnipiac power play seemed to be find its stride as the power play unit found the back of the net three times all in the third period.
“We made some adjusts, we thought RPI was doing a great job at taking certain things away so we adapted and adjusted, I give both units credit we really executed on the rush and in the zone, we got some good looks,” Pecknold said.
Besides the abnormal amounts of scoring in the third period another aspect to the game was the amount of penalties. There was a total of 22 penalties called in the game, three of which Quinnipiac was able to capitalize on.
“You got to be ready for anything really, there’s been a lot of penalties in every game, you really can’t prepare for that, the most you can ask for is you have a good power play and penalty kill and both those things were going,” Smith said about how penalties affect the gameplay.
The unsung hero of the game was Rensselaer sophomore goaltender Cam Hackett. Hackett saw a total of 51 shots, and for the first and second periods of the game kept his team within one goal of the lead. Hackett had only played a total of 18 games in his career and was faced with a very tough task taking on the No.5/7 team in the nation in Quinnipiac in Hamden.
“He’s a good goaltender, I thought we were all over him,” Pecknold said. “He made some huge saves, he was on his angle, I thought he was excellent tonight, I thought he was one of the better players on the ice.”
The Quinnipiac men’s ice hockey team will try and obtain a weekend sweep and improve its conference record to 6-1-1 as they take on No. 20 in the nation Union at home at 7 p.m. Saturday night.
