The Quinnipiac men’s ice hockey team secured their first in-conference win against the Colgate Raiders in a 3-2 come-from-behind victory Friday night. 

Each team displayed exemplary defense and penalty-kill ability as the first period came and went. Quinnipiac fired 11 shots on goal, almost doubling Colgate’s total of six, but the goaltenders on both ends worked through the offensive onslaught to keep the game scoreless. 

In the latter half of the period, the Raiders failed to capitalize on four straight minutes of man-advantage play after back-to-back Quinnipiac penalties from graduate students Jacob Nordqvist and TJ Friedmann. The Bobcats were no strangers to the power play themselves, finding good opportunities but ultimately no goals following a Colgate tripping call. 

The following 20 minutes of hockey looked completely different from the previous 20. Colgate skated quickly and gracefully en route to their first goal of the game. Six minutes into the period, they turned defense into offense, successfully killing a power play and then moving into the offensive zone. Sophomore Alex DiPaolo found senior Matt Verboon for a quick shot past Quinnipiac’s Yaniv Perets to give the Raiders a 1-0 lead.

No more than 90 seconds later, Colgate’s Alex Young took matters into his own hands, as he skated with the puck through the neutral zone and up the left side of the ice. Young made a move past a Quinnipiac defender and flicked a quick back-handed shot by Perets for Colgate’s second goal of the period. 

Quinnipiac moved to respond promptly, as they took the opportunities that were given to them. In the final five minutes of the period, Colgate committed two penalties in 23 seconds, which allowed a 5-on-3 man advantage for the Bobcats. It was senior and team captain Zach Metsa who cut the lead to just one goal, with a wrist shot that spun into the back of the net for the Bobcats’ first score of the game. 

Early in the third period, Nordqvist was hit hard by Verboon, who was assessed a five-minute boarding penalty as well as a game misconduct. On the extended power play, Metsa and Ethan de Jong worked to find sophomore Collin Graf who punched in the game-tying goal four minutes into the final period. 

Quinnipiac would soon find themselves on the advantage again, and it was de Jong who became the hero of the game. Off a rebound, he picked up the puck practically in the crease and flicked it top-sheld for the go-ahead goal. 

The Raiders committed 11 total penalties throughout the course of the game, which gave Quinnipiac almost unlimited chances to capitalize. The Bobcats’ head coach Rand Pecknold acknowledged the heightened level of physicality that ensued over the game’s 60 minutes.

“You never know what’s gonna happen in our games,” Pecknold said. “You gotta be ready for anything.”

For the Bobcats, the win tonight was a crucial one. After an up-and-down start to their season, they returned home for the first game of conference play. Picking up the first win is huge for this squad, and de Jong knew it. 

“You just have to battle it out and go to war,” de Jong said. “It’s good to get off on the right for and get a little confidence, especially going into Cornell tomorrow.”

As de Jong said, the Bobcats will stay at home for tomorrow’s matchup when they take on the Cornell Big Red. The win tonight pushes Quinnipiac’s record to 4-1-2 as they look to defend their home turf against Cornell in the matchup scheduled to begin at 7 p.m.