HAMDEN, Conn. — Kelly Babstock scored the game-tying goal with just 1:05 remaining in the third period as No. 10 Quinnipiac salvaged a 3-3 tie against Yale on Friday night at the High Point Solutions Arena.
Quinnipiac coach Rick Seeley called a timeout with 1:23 remaining in the third period after an icing to give his lines a breather.
It worked.
“I said, ‘It’s time to start battling on loose pucks, it’s time to start playing like we care,” Seeley said.
Once the Bobcats got the puck in the offensive end, Kristen Tamberg passed the puck to Shiann Darkangelo at the top of the left faceoff circle where she wristed a pass to Babstock on the right post to tap the puck home and tie the game for Quinnipiac (17-5-9, 8-4-7 ECAC).
Babstock’s tying goal came after the Bulldogs (7-13-6, 5-8-6 ECAC) scored three unanswered goals from the end of the second period through much of the third period.
Krista Yip-Chuck cut the Bobcats’ lead in half 2-1 on the power play with 1:13 left in the period after a pass came in from Jackie Raines on the right wing and Yip-Chuck tipped it over Quinnipiac goaltender Chelsea Laden’s blocker side for the goal.
“We got that power play, we got a lucky bounce, we scored a goal and I think that gave us energy,” Yale coach Joakim Flygh said. “It was late in the second, too, and any time that happens, I think you score late in the period that’s a good feeling going into intermission.”
Yale tied up the game 2-2 just 3:11 into the third period when Kate Martini corralled the puck after it ricocheted out to her and ripped a slap shot through traffic past Laden’s glove side for the goal.
“We felt that we could play with them and the biggest thing, too, was that we felt we had legs left going into the third,” Flygh said. “That’s something obviously we stress as a hockey team that we play our best hockey in the third period and I think we did that tonight.”
Hanna Astrom scored the go-ahead goal at the time with 3:39 remaining in the third period when a Stephanie Mock pass flew through the crease across Laden’s front and Astrom collected the puck on the weak side where she wristed it high blocker side on Laden to give Yale the 3-2 lead.
“You’d have to ask [Mock] if she intended to make that pass or not,” Flygh said. “I don’t know, but if she did, that’s a [heck] of a pass. The goalie came over, so I thought maybe she was going to make the save, but it found a hole and scored a big-time goal for us.”
The Bobcats tied the game on Babstock’s goal but neither time could register a game-winner.
“I saw a lack of commitment to protect the lead [and] I saw plays I have no idea how they came up with decision,” Seeley said.
Both teams were scoreless in the first period until Darkangelo redirected Cydney Roesler’s wrist shot from the right point past Yale goaltender Jaimie Leonoff to take a 1-0 lead with just 11.2 seconds remaining in the period.
Quinnipiac took a 2-0 with 8:54 remaining in the second period when Nicole Connery backhanded a pass from on top of the crease to Meghan Turner in the slot, who took the puck into the left faceoff circle and backhanded a shot on net where Connery tipped the puck through Leonoff’s five-hole for the goal.
Leonoff finished with 27 saves on 30 shots for the Bulldogs, while Laden tallied 20 saves on 23 shots for the Bobcats.
Yale scored the lone power-play goal on the night going 1-for-3, while Quinnipiac went 0-for-3. Both teams registered four shots each on the man-advantage.
“We’ve just talked about simplifying things, we’ve been way too complicated, we’ve been stressing about getting shots earlier in our power plays where a lot of times in the past, we take the first 30-40 seconds moving the puck around,” Flygh said.
