Quinnipiac Bobcats men’s ice hockey head coach Rand Pecknold didn’t mince words after his team’s 3-2 loss to the Clarkson Golden Knights on Friday night.

“I just think we lack maturity,” Pecknold said. “We’re an immature team. We’re good at times. We need to realize this is what we’re good at and we need to do it every game. When we have passion and care and are willing to be selfless we can beat anybody in the country.”

The Bobcats started out slow, allowing the Golden Knights to take complete control of the ice for the first six minutes. In that span they scored two odd goals, setting the tone for the whole game.

The first goal occurred when first-year forward Mathieu Gosselin poked the puck in the net but the referees didn’t see it. After another two minutes of play, the goal was finally reviewed at a stoppage and the no-goal call on the ice was overturned.  Three minutes later, the Golden Knights caught another break when junior forward Zach Tsekos’ shot deflected off the skate of Bobcats senior defenseman Karlis Cukste and into the net.

“We have to put 60 minutes together if you’re going to beat anybody, let alone the number five team in the country,” Pecknold said. “So that was frustrating. We just didn’t have the energy or the care factor in the first period. We got it later in the game but you’ve got to bring it every game.”

The Bobcats turned the momentum around by creating turnovers in the neutral zone for the remainder of the period. The pressure finally came to fruition with just over three minutes left in the period when sophomore forward Michael Lombardi intercepted a pass in the Bobcats attacking zone and took a wrist shot that slipped past the goaltender for his third goal of the season.

“It was kind of a weird play,” Lombardi said. “It bounced off the glass and [Zach] Metsa came down and I was really just trying to get it on net. I knew we had traffic there and lucky enough it went in there.”

A penalty on sophomore forward Josh Dunne early in the second period gave the Bobcats a chance to test the Golden Knights penalty kill, ranked number one in the country coming into the game. The Bobcats controlled the puck in the attacking zone for the duration of a power play that ended with first-year forward Ethan Leyh slotting the puck through the five-hole for his sixth goal of the season

The game remained tied until another odd bounce gave the Golden Knights a 3-2 lead. Sophomore forward Anthony Callin poked at the puck in traffic causing it to go airborne and fly just over the back of Bobcats junior goaltender Keith Petruzzelli. Callin’s third goal of the season would be the game-winner after the Bobcats couldn’t capitalize on a fast-paced third period.

The second period will haunt the Bobcats as they couldn’t take advantage of their control of the period. They outshot the Golden Knights 19-6 and won the faceoff battle 14-6 but managed just one goal.

“This team, when we’re going like that, I don’t think there’s a lot of people who can play with us,” Lombardi said. “We dominated them for that 15-minute span.”

After Friday night’s game, the Bobcats share third place with the Harvard Crimson and sit four points behind the Golden Knights and the Cornell Big Red in the ECAC Hockey standings. With five games left in the regular season, the Bobcats will need to turn their flashes of greatness into their normal style of play if they want to fulfill their potential.

“If we want to make the NCAA Tournament and we want to win championships we need to be better,” Pecknold said. “We need to be more consistent and prepare better for games. And that will come.”