Fresh off their third consecutive Connecticut Ice Championship win, the Quinnipiac Bobcats secured a season sweep of Harvard, defeating the Crimson 2-1 Friday night at M&T Bank Arena. 

After dropping contests against Colgate and Cornell, the Bobcats have now won three straight and seven of their last 10. Quinnipiac remains at the top of the ECAC standings, with their remaining eight games all coming against conference opponents.

Junior forward Christophe Tellier recorded the game-winner, taking a Sam Lipkin pass on the goal line and beating Harvard netminder Aku Koskenvuo top shelf with just over two minutes left in the second period to give the Bobcats a 2-0 lead. The goal was Tellier’s sixth of the season and second career game-winner. The game was also Quinnipiac’s first at home of the new year, and Tellier credited the fans for giving the team energy. 

“There was a lot of people, a great crowd,” Tellier said. “People were great, super loud and that definitely helped us get the win tonight.”

The Bobcats put pressure on Koskenvuo all night, registering 39 shots in the game. Graduate student Zach Tupker, who scored the game-winning goal against UConn last weekend, had a great chance early, controlling the puck off the boards and finding space in front of the net, but a sprawling save from Koskenvuo kept the game scoreless.

Quinnipiac broke through two minutes later, with Davis Pennington scoring his third of the year. Junior forward Collin Graf kept the puck in the offensive zone, fighting off two Harvard defenders before getting a pass through to Travis Treloar. Treloar then sent the puck across the ice, finding Davis Pennington, who fired a shot off Koskenvuo’s right pad, ricocheting off the post and in. Pennington tied the team lead in shots with five, helping Quinnipaic’s aggressive forecheck generate chances.

“Our forwards were really working hard today,” Pennington said. “I obviously want to make positive plays when they work so hard with that.”

Goaltender Vinny Duplessis, who took home Most Outstanding Player of the CT Ice tournament, made 23 saves on the night. He faced 12 shots in the third period alone, stopping 11 of them on the way to his 13th victory of the year.

The Bobcats had multiple chances to put the game away, including two powerplay opportunities on the night. Their first man-advantage opportunity came after a rare faceoff violation in the second period put Harvard’s Luke Khozozian in the box. 

Quinnipiac’s powerplay unit looked good early on. The Bobcats’ best chance came when Lipkin tried to find Treloar cutting back door, but they couldn’t connect as Quinnipiac failed to cash in with the extra man.

With 12 minutes left in the game, Tupker found reigning ECAC Rookie of the Week Mason Marcellus on the breakaway but Koskenvuo sent his shot aside. Moments later, Tellier made a move to pull Kuskenvuo out of the crease, but his pass to Lipkin couldn’t connect.

Down two and looking for a spark, the Crimson headed to the powerplay after Tupker committed a hooking penalty with seven minutes left in the game. With 17 seconds left in the powerplay, Harvard head coach Ted Donato called a timeout and elected to pull his goaltender, giving the Crimson a two-man advantage. Harvard was unable to generate a shot on goal with the two extra attackers but kept the goalie pulled the rest of the way. The aggressive move paid off with three minutes left, as Marek Hedjuk gathered the rebound from center Ben MacDonald’s shot and beat Duplessis, cutting the deficit in half for Harvard.

“We say all the time, ‘cover the back door, cover the back door, cover the back door,’ which is not what we did on that goal against,” Pecknold said.

While the goalie was pulled, Tupker had a chance to put the Bobcats back up by two, but his shot rang off the post, one of a few shot attempts with the net empty that the Bobcats failed to capitalize on. 

Harvard went back on the attack, sending a flurry of shots toward Duplessis. Pecknold called his timeout with 30 seconds remaining in the game, stressing the importance of covering the back-door play and locking down on defense. His team responded, and a last-second kick save by Duplessis secured the win for the Bobcats.

“We found a way,” Pecknold said. “We grind out wins and that’s what we did tonight.”

The Crimson came into the contest fresh off a 6-3 win over Colgate in Cambridge, Massachusetts, but have now dropped their fifth straight game against a ranked opponent. They will look to rebound when they take on a tough Northeastern squad in the first round of the annual Beanpot. Meanwhile, the Bobcats will be back in action tomorrow night when they host the Dartmouth Big Green, who defeated Quinnipiac in a shootout back in November in Hanover, New Hampshire.