“Survive and advance” is a phrase often utilized in playoffs and tournaments. Teams either propel forward or encounter a halt in their tracks.
While the Quinnipiac men’s hockey team holds the No. 1 seed in the ECAC playoffs, many believe they don’t need to be given this phrase. Game 1 of the ECAC quarterfinals demonstrated that this phrase was evident.
The Bobcats swept the RPI Engineers, scoring five goals in each game — 5-1 in Game 1 and 5-2 in Game 2 — en route to a berth in the ECAC semifinals in Lake Placid.
“It was a good team effort from about halfway on, and we found a way and so we move on,” head coach Rand Pecknold said.
The Bobcats were put into a bind early on in the second period after junior forward Christophe Fillion was ejected from the game for a hit from behind major. In addition, graduate student defenseman CJ McGee also received a penalty which put the Bobcats on the 5-on-3 kill.
After executing the kill, the Bobcats turned that defensive momentum into offense, scoring two goals within one minute. Freshman forward Andon Cerbone and sophomore forward Anthony Cipollone provided the momentum for the Bobcats, but it didn’t last long.
Eighteen seconds after the Cipollone goal, senior defenseman Lauri Sertti was able to sneak one past graduate student goaltender Vinny Duplessis, cutting the deficit to 2-1.
With a one-on-one breakaway opportunity by junior forward Collin Graf, first year defender Jimmy Goffredo slashed Graf, putting the Bobcats on a powerplay with just under three minutes to play in the second.
This was a prime opportunity for the Bobcats to try and take a 3-1 lead going into the third period. However, the prime opportunity fell to the Engineers. Sophomore forward Sutter Muzzatti beat junior defenseman Davis Pennington to the puck and took it around Duplessis to tie the game heading into the second intermission.
“They had us back on our heels but during the second intermission we kind of just hit the reset button. We just acted like it was a new game,” junior forward Jacob Quillan said.
In the third period, the Bobcats were able to start to pull away. The second line of freshman forward Mason Marcellus, Quillan and Cerbone were able to grab nine points on the night and 16 points over the two games.
“Yeah, I mean, (Cerbone and Marcellus are) hungry players. They want it just as bad as the next guy,” Quillan said. “But we’ve been clicking pretty well together. We showed tonight and Friday. We’re putting a couple of goals up there but I love playing with them.”
The Bobcats secured two empty net goals by Quillan and Graf to survive and advance to the next round with a 5-2 win over RPI. While this may have been a regular playoff game to some. It was a recognition of the moment that was etched in Quinnipiac history as Quillan was honored with a bobblehead commemorating the national championship win.
“It’s an honor to have a whole night dedicated to me and my teammates and I’m thankful that we can do this stuff,” Quillan said. “It means a lot to me and the fans enjoy it. I’m just so thankful that I could play here at Quinnipiac, in front of all those people.”
The Bobcats now look onto the ECAC semifinals in Lake Placid, New York where they will take on the No. 7 St. Lawrence Saints. In their previous two meetings, the two teams split with both teams winning at home, the Saints with a 3-1 win on Feb. 9 and the Bobcats with an 8-1 win on March 2.
“(St. Lawrence are) a tough physical team,” Quillan said. “They battle hard, but you just have to stick to our game and play how we play and when we’re playing how we need to play, we’re a hard team to beat.”
