In the rematch of the ECAC Hockey Finals that ended in a 3-2 overtime win for the Harvard Crimson, the No. 2 ranked Bobcats got revenge on the No. 9/10 Harvard Crimson 4-1 on Saturday night at the M&T Bank Arena, which extended the Bobcats unbeaten streak to 16 games. With this loss, the Crimson lost their two-game winning streak. 

“Every year Harvard is either top 2 or top 3,” Quinnipiac head coach Rand Pecknold said about the program. “They have elite talent year in year out, they do a great job recruiting, they are always a handful.” 

“Personally for me, it was the biggest game of the year, we needed it for clarity points and for the ECAC standings,” Quinnipiac forward Sam Lipkin said about the magnitude of Saturday’s game. “We did what we needed to do to get those three points.”

The Bobcats improved to 17-1-3 on the year and kept an undefeated 12-0-0 record in conference play. The Crimson fell to 10-4-1 and 8-2-0 in conference play. The Bobcats are now 9-0-1 in their last 10 and have outscored opponents 46-15.

“They are a really skilled team, you look at them on paper and it feels like their whole team has been drafted,” graduate student forward Ethan de Jong said about facing Harvard. “Just got to be physical. It’s gonna be a war out there, they have a lot of big players on the team too. It was a fun game, it’s fun playing those top 10 matchups and it gets intense.” 

The Bobcats came out the gates firing, scoring two goals in the first period by sophomore Collin Graf and de Jong. Both goals were assisted by Lipkin in his first game back from winning Bronze for Team USA at the World Junior Championships under coach Pecknold. 

“It was a really good experience playing with the USA guys, it’s definitely a fast game with a lot less time and space,” Lipkin said. “It was a bit of a change from the USA team to this but I thought I did well for what I did. Honestly, it was a great experience playing teams like Finland, Sweden, and Switzerland seeing a different brand of hockey. It’s very interesting playing against the best in the world.”

The Bobcats defense was on their game, only allowing 10 shots on goal through two periods and finishing the game by allowing 22 shots on goal with sophomore goalie Yaniv Perets stopping 21. The Bobcats also only allowed two shots on the three Crimson power plays throughout the game. Quinnipiac held the Crimson to one goal, despite them coming in with 3.61 goals per game so far this season.

“We were really good at breaking the puck up, I thought that they didn’t get a lot of shifts where they could control it in the zone maybe until the end there,” de Jong said. “Those first two periods we gave them a lot of looks and at the end, Yaniv (Perets) bailed us out a few times.” 

The Bobcats shared the puck throughout the whole game as they scored four goals and nine different players scored points in the game, including Perets. Saturday’s contest was the Bobcats’ sixth straight game scoring more than three goals.

“I feel our offense has been going, all four lines every guy can produce, when we have four lines going we are at our best, we did a good job tonight and everyone was going,” Lipkin said.

The Bobcats’ next game will be away from home on Saturday, Jan. 14 against the LIU Sharks at 7 p.m. in the second game of their home and home series this year. 

For the Crimson, their next game is Friday, Jan. 13 at home against the Clarkson Golden Knights.