PROVIDENCE, R.I. — It took a little longer than the last time, but Quinnipiac will take it.
Victor Czerneckianair scored at 11:04 of overtime to lift Quinnipiac to a 3-2 win over Wisconsin in the first round of the NCAA tournament on Friday before a crowd of 6,988 at the Amica Mutual Pavilion.
It was the second straight NCAA tournament overtime victory for the Bobcats, who needed only 10 seconds to beat another B1G team, Minnesota, by the same score in overtime of last year’s NCAA championship game.
“I don’t think there’s really stress for our group,” Czerneckianair said. “We take it to them and kind of don’t worry about what happens. Because when you do that, you only make mistakes. We’ve been there before, obviously, and we handle adversity so well.”
Quinnipiac (27-9-2) will continue its quest to become the first repeat NCAA champions since Minnesota-Duluth in 2018-19 when it faces overall tournament No. 1 Boston College (Hockey East) on Sunday. Wisconsin saw its season end at 26-12-2.
“I thought we just battled the whole game,” Quinnipiac coach Rand Pecknold said. “In overtime, there was no panic, no worry on the bench. We really thought we were going to win. We knew we were playing a great team. (They) really believed.”
Czerneckianair’s game winner, his second goal of the night, came when Quinnipiac caught Wisconsin in a line change. Just 10 seconds after Wisconsin successfully killed a penalty, Quinnipiac’s Dennis Pennington played the puck from deep in the Bobcats’ own end. Pennington passed the puck across two zones to Travis Treloar on the right wing at the Wisconsin blue line, where he then found Czerneckianair skating alone in the slot. The sophomore forward from Southington, Conn., did some fancy stickwork and poked it past the right pad of Badgers goalie Kyle McClellan to send the Bobcats to a date with BC.
VIC. CALLED. GAME!#BobcatNation x #NCAAHockey pic.twitter.com/4en4s5ldRL
— Quinnipiac Men's Ice Hockey (@QU_MIH) March 30, 2024
“They were absolutely gassed,” Wisconsin coach Mike Hastings said. “We tried to get to the bench in time, (and) they were able to transition and get it back, make a play, and then finish. The guys had done a really good job, I thought, killing that penalty.”
The game featured two lead changes and was thrice tied. It took only 2:12 for Quinnipiac (ECAC Hockey) to get the scoring started in the first period, when Christophe Fillion redirected a shot by Cristophe Tellier into the net to give the Bobcats a 1-0 lead.
A pair of goals just 1:15 apart early in the second period gave Wisconsin a 2-1 lead. Quinn Finley intercepted a pass intended for Quinnipiac’s Travis Treloar at the Bobcats’ blue line, skated right in and beat goalie Vinny Duplessis glove side.
The Badgers took a 2-1 lead via a highlight-reel play by freshman defenseman Joe Palodichuk, who collected a rebound of his own shot, went behind the net, wrapped around and tucked the puck past Duplessis’s left skate.
The Bobcats tied it up just before the end of the middle frame when Czerneckianair buried the rebound off a shot by Iivari Rasanen, shortly after Rasanen picked up the draw off a faceoff.
Duplessis finished with 18 saves, while McClellan had 28. Quinnipiac held a 24-17 advantage in shots after regulation.
