ST. CLOUD, Minn. — According to Quinnipiac coach Rand Pecknold, his Bobcats played with no structure or discipline on Friday night in losing a close one to St. Cloud State.
On Saturday, QU came out fast again and this time, the 14th-ranked Bobcats had a lot of both and were able to escape the Granite City with a needed split.
Tim Clifton scored twice and Michael Garteig made 23 saves in net as Quinnipiac rebounded for a 4-1 victory over St. Cloud State at the Herb Brooks National Hockey Center.
Pecknold was pleased with how his team responded after coughing up a two-goal, second-period lead last night in a 3-2 loss.
“I thought we played a really good hockey game tonight,” he said. “I got on the boys pretty hard and I thought we were excellent tonight.”
Clifton thought so, too.
“Big win for us,” he said. “Nice bounceback from last night. Our defense was good for us.”
It was a tough loss for the Huskies, but coach Bob Motzko was impressed with how the Bobcats’ defense was able to keep the SCSU offense at bay most of the game.
“They played extremely hard,” Motzko said. “I thought they closed the game out well.”
It was the second straight night that the Huskies fell behind by two goals and star forward Jonny Brodzinski knows that’s tough to bounce back from.
“We knew they were gonna come out hard,” he said. “They forechecked hard. We didn’t have enough to counter it.”
A hard-fought first period saw Quinnipiac take a 1-0 lead into the first intermission for the second straight night. Neither team had many scoring chances, but while the Huskies were on a power play, Blake Winiecki was whistled for holding. However, while the penalty was still delayed, the SCSU defense broke down and an ensuing Bobcats rush led to a high snapshot and a goal from Tommy Schutt at 8:49.
About three and a half minutes into the second period, Clifton’s first goal made it 2-0. It was a soft shot from the right-wing wall that somehow found its way past Huskies’ goaltender Charlie Lindgren for his sixth goal of the year.
“[The puck] was just coming over the blue line, I was just trying to get the puck to the net, trying to hit the kid in the shins [and] I just kinda threw it there,” said Clifton, laughing.
Motzko, however, thought it was no laughing matter.
“That was a bad second goal,” he said. “That’s a goal that can’t go in. It deflated us.”
Despite having a 5-on-3 power play for 50 seconds near the end of the period, St. Cloud State couldn’t get its offense set up and headed into the third period in a two-goal hole.
Things only got worse in the third period for SCSU as halfway through the period, Quinnipiac extended the lead to 3-0 when Clifton deflected a Justin Agosta one-timer to the top of the net.
By then, Motzko saw enough and pulled Lindgren in favor of Rasmus Reijola, who made four saves in relief. Lindgren finished with 20 saves.
The Huskies finally broke the shutout bid of Garteig with just under four minutes remaining when Brodzinski tallied his 11th goal of the year. After that, SCSU applied more pressure, but just couldn’t put another puck past Garteig.
“Garteig was excellent on the weekend,” said Pecknold. “He made some big saves.”
Justin St. Denis salted the game away with 48.1 seconds left when he found an empty net from center ice.
Quinnipiac improved to 13-6-1 with the victory and managed to avoid both its first sweep and losing streak of the season. St. Cloud State, meanwhile, fell to 7-10-1 with the loss. The Huskies still haven’t swept any team this season, and Brodzinski knows that simply will not get the job done.
“There’s no excuse, especially this far in the season, how we haven’t swept a team yet,” Brodzinski said. “It just gets frustrating, but then again, you gotta take it one game at a time.”
The Huskies may have more to worry about than one lost game, however. Brodzinski’s linemate, David Morley, was hit hard twice during the game and left the ice both times. He was able to return once, but not after the second time. As of late Saturday night, there was no word on the extent of his injury.
Quinnipiac outshot St. Cloud State 28-24 for the game. The Bobcats were 1-for-4 on the power play, while the Huskies failed to convert on all six of theirs to go 0-for-10 on the man-advantage over the weekend.
Next weekend, the Bobcats will host Rensselaer and Union in a couple of ECAC games, while the Huskies host NCHC co-leader Miami.
