HANOVER, New Hampshire – Heading into the night, the No. 7 Quinnipiac Bobcats were riding the high of their 5-2 win over Colgate on Senior Night last Saturday and preparing to face off against the Dartmouth Big Green. In the final weekend of the regular season for ECAC Hockey, securing a win during this matchup would allow the Bobcats to clinch the regular season title and hoist the Cleary Cup high for the sixth consecutive season.
That goal seemed within reach as Quinnipiac would head into the third period with a 3-2 lead over Dartmouth. But those final 20 minutes of play drained the life out of the Bobcats, as the Big Green would slot five goals into the net and defeat Quinnipiac by a score of 7-4.
“I thought we did compete, I thought we battled from that standpoint, but our details were poor, and we paid for it,” said Quinnipiac’s head coach Rand Pecknold. “We’ve got to do a better job; we can’t give up five goals. If we score four goals, we need to win hockey games.”
During the first period of play, Dartmouth came out strong with an early goal from Alex Krause to put them up 1-0 just two minutes in. Quinnipiac would come back later on in the first with a goal from Antonin Verreault to tie the score at one. With 15 seconds remaining in the period, Chris Pelosi would go on a breakaway and slot it past Emmett Croteau.
The second period was of a similar vein, with a goal from Dartmouth’s Hayden Stavroff that tied the game at two and then a last-second goal from Ethan Wyttenbach to put Quinnipiac ahead.
While the third period saw the collapse of Quinnipiac, up until the final five minutes of play, it was still a one-goal game, sitting at 5-4 Dartmouth.
The Bobcats saw an opening when Hayden Stavroff would receive a cross-checking penalty with just under five minutes remaining in regulation. Pecknold would immediately call for a timeout to set up a Hail Mary. As the Bobcats took the ice for the power play, goaltender Matej Marinov would be pulled to put an extra skater on the ice.
Then Jack Silverberg would hit the ice for Dartmouth and score a short-handed empty netter for the Big Green. Two minutes later, he would do it again to put the nail in Quinnipiac’s coffin and win the game for Dartmouth.
Despite the final score, it wasn’t all downhill for the Bobcats during the matchup.
Ethan Wyttenbach notched not only his 55th and 56th points of the season and broke the first-year Division-I scoring record at Quinnipiac, an accomplishment that was previously held by Brian Herbert (1999-2000).
“I mean obviously, he’s having a great year,” said Pecknold. “We’re still working on a few things with him, but he is having a great season. Another two tonight and the back-end goal was big time.”
Charlie Leddy, who returned to the lineup last week after a month away from the team due to injury, had a multi-point night, notching two assists on the goals by Verreault and Wyttenbach.
“We need him, you know,” said Pecknold. “He’s still not 100%, but he’s getting there. He played well tonight and was one of our better players.”
Part of the reason the Bobcats struggled tonight was due to the absence of junior Mason Marcellus, who, following his game misconduct from the previous weekend’s matchup against the Colgate Raiders, was out of the lineup against Dartmouth.
His lack of presence was surely felt on the ice, as the Bobcats were down to playing three lines. Because of this, while the work ethic from the team tonight was strong, according to Pecknold, it was the little details that slipped through the cracks that effectively caused the loss at the end of the day.
Looking ahead, the Quinnipiac Bobcats still have the power to raise the Cleary Cup if they complete a regulation win over the Harvard Crimson.
The Bobcats will be back in action on Saturday, Feb. 28, in Cambridge, MA, to finish off the regular season against Harvard.
