On Sunday, the No. 8 Quinnipiac Bobcats opened play with a 4-2 loss to the No. 20 Northeastern Huskies at M&T Bank Arena.
The 2024-25 Bobcats roster includes many first-year players and transfer students. This will be an adjustment for Bobcat fans, especially seeing freshman forward Aaron Schwartz wearing the No. 11 jersey previously worn by star forward Colin Graf for the past two seasons.
“It was an interesting game. It’s been a little bit of chaos for us,” Quinnipiac head coach Rand Pecknold said. “We’ll get better… but there was a lot of good tonight too.”
It seemed like no love was lost for former Bobcat winger Cristophe Tellier early in the matchup as he introduced his physicality to the party after the first stoppage of play. He would continue to not-so-gently remind his former teammates what side of the puck he was on as the game progressed.
Tellier netted a goal after a net mouth scramble just five minutes into play, making sure to show the Bobcat bench the Husky logo on his sweater before celebrating with his teammates.
The first frame ended with Northeastern maintaining its 1-0 lead.
The story repeated itself for the Bobcats to begin the second period as despite an early surge, Northeastern sophomore forward Dylan Hryckowian extended the lead to two off a sweet feed by Tellier five minutes in.
Ten minutes later the puck found the back of the net again as Northeastern sophomore right wing Cam Lund buried a rebound off a shot from freshman forward Joe Connor to give the Huskies a commanding three-goal lead.
The Bobcats would get on the board just 40 seconds later as freshman center Chris Pelosi buried his first career goal in gold and navy blue, deflecting a shot from junior Davis Pennington to cut the deficit back to two.
Pelosi is one of nine first-year players that suited up for Quinnipiac in this game.
“He’s a big-time player,” Pecknold said. “We’re fortunate to have him.”
Thirteen seconds was all it took for the Huskies as freshman James Fisher took advantage of senior goaltender Noah Altman freshly joining the game in relief of sophomore goaltender Matej Marinov. The goal made it a 4-1 Husky advantage.
In quick succession, the Bobcats fought back once again as 40 seconds after the Northeastern strike, junior winger Alex Power found twine off a rebounded shot from the stick of sophomore defenseman Nate Benoit.
The hectic final five minutes of the period would commence with the Huskies holding a 4-2 lead after 40 minutes of play.
On the power play early in the third period, sophomore center Mason Marcellus was tripped after weaving through a couple of Husky defenders, giving the Bobcats a 5-on-3 advantage for 62 seconds. The Huskies never wavered and allowed just two shots on goal in three minutes of penalty kill time.
Pecknold said he believes he puts his “best five guys” on the ice for the powerplay. “Mason can do it. He’s been great at it.”
After another unsuccessful Quinnipiac powerplay a few minutes later, the score remained 4-2 Huskies. A frustrated Bobcat squad couldn’t solve newly introduced freshman goaltender Quentin Sigurdson as he stopped all nine shots he faced in the third period to help the Huskies secure the victory. Sophomore goaltender Cameron Whitehead made 18 saves in the effort.
“I thought the whole game we generated a lot of chances,” Pecknold said. “We generated a lot and just didn’t finish. But again, like I said earlier, just a lot of positives to me.”
