If there’s one thing the Quinnipiac Bobcats (6-10-2 overall, 3-5-1 ECAC Hockey) need right now, it’s a break.
Luckily for them, that’s exactly what they’ll have after another devastating loss to the Maine Black Bears (8-7-1 overall, 4-4-1 Hockey East) Saturday, a game that saw them squander another early lead, fight all the way back, and ultimately lose 5-3 in the final minutes.
Losses in five of their last six, including a two-game sweep at the hands of the Black Bears this weekend, the Bobcats head into exams on crutches as Rand Pecknold and Co. will try to fix the kinks and hit the ground running in January.
“I think the break will be big for us…guys are going to go back and see their families, I know I’m excited to see my family,” senior forward Tanner MacMaster said on what impact the break will have in the team.
The Bobcats, like last night, grabbed an early lead in the first period which they carried into the intermission. Logan Mick, fresh off serving a one-game suspension for a big hit against Dartmouth, got a pass right off the faceoff from Scott Davidson and beat Maine goalie Jeremy Swayman’s glove hand to put Quinnipiac ahead. The lead was quick to vanish, however, as three goals in the second period for the Black Bears had them in a convincing spot with twenty minutes left to play.
“We struggled again with defending, [we didn’t get] a lot of zone time, and then the one time we make a mistake, it’s in the back of the net,” head coach Rand Pecknold stated on his team’s performance. “It gets frustrating. But we’ll go into exams here, and then we’ll try to reload for the second half.”
Tanner MacMaster scored a goal early in the third period to cut the Black Bear lead in half, and quickly, the Bobcats had life. They ramped up the aggression, started to make the extra pass, and made some key pokeaways at crucial times to keep the Black Bears at three. Twelve minutes later, it was MacMaster again, as he tapped a Swayman save that got too far away into a wide open left side of the net to level the score at three.
“I did like tonight how when we were down 3-1, which we shouldn’t have been, but we were, we battled back to 3-3. But again, two of our better players [Cukste and McKernan] are out there and we’ve got an hour and a half to make a play, we allow a turnover and bang,” Pecknold said.
Just as the game looked like it was going to go to overtime, Maine forward Patrick Shea was left unmarked and rifled a rebounded shot past goalie Andrew Shortridge’s left side with just twenty-four seconds left. The Bobcats then pulled Shortridge to have an extra skater, but the man advantage didn’t pay off, as Cedric Lacroix scored on the empty net from the Quinnipiac zone.
“We have guys that are here that have done it and aren’t doing it now,” Pecknold said on what’s been going wrong. “There are plenty of ways as a coach that you can get them to toughen up, but in the end, it’s about accountability. Players have to realize that each one of them has deficiencies in their game that they have to work on.”
The Bobcats will have close to a month to regroup before hitting the ice again, when they take on the Connecticut Huskies on January 2. The game, at the XL Center in Hartford, Connecticut, is set to start at 7 p.m.
