Quinnipiac scored four unanswered goals to come from behind and defeat Clarkson 4-1 on Saturday night at High Point Solutions Arena.
Landon Smith and Travis St. Denis led the way offensively for No. 13 Quinnipiac with a goal and an assist each. Kevin McKernan and Andrew Taverner also added goals of their own.
“It was a tough first period for us but we kind of hit the reset button and the last 40 I thought we played a great game and [Garteig] played very well in net,” said St. Denis. “It’s huge as a team when you can reset like that, and I think that’s what helped us win the hockey game tonight.”
Michael Garteig made 21 saves for the Bobcats and improved to 19-6-1 on the season.
“[Garteig] was real good tonight,” said Quinnipiac coach Rand Pecknold. “And our [defense] core was not good in the first but real good in the second and third.”
Janick Asselin scored the lone goal for the Golden Knights.
Greg Lewis stopped 28 shots in the loss and dropped to 4-4-0 on the season.
“It’s been a process for us all year,” said Clarkson coach Casey Jones. “We’ve got to find that and internally we’ve got to find that. We need to find the combinations that work. It’s just a disappointing weekend obviously but from our perspective our compete level has got to be really high. That’s our motive for success, and over the course of the weekend there were parts of both games where it wasn’t.”
The two teams traded goals in the opening period with Clarkson holding a 12-7 shot advantage over Quinnipiac.
The Golden Knights took advantage of a delayed penalty call on Quinnipiac’s K.J. Tiefenwerth just over eight minutes into the first period. Clarkson possessed the puck in the Quinnipiac zone for the entire shift before Jordan Boucher found Asselin alone in front of the Bobcats’ goal. With Garteig a little off balance, Asselin slipped the puck between the goaltender’s legs for his fourth of the season.
The Bobcats converted just six seconds into their second power play of the period to even the score with just over five minutes to play. Peca won the offensive zone faceoff to the right of Lewis and the Bobcats moved the puck around the zone, with every player touching it before St. Denis buried a one-timer by Lewis for his 14th of the year.
“I thought we were pretty fortunate tonight with how we played in the first,” said Pecknold. “We struggled, but [Garteig] kept us in there, made some saves and we found a way.”
Quinnipiac took control of the game in the second period, outshooting Clarkson 12-7 and notching a pair of goals just 26 seconds apart.
“I thought we made a couple of mistakes and we over-pursued the puck,” said Jones. “They can skate and they got some motion on us. For us it’s just sustaining the simple game we play over 60 minutes. It was a good first period, but we couldn’t sustain it. I thought we were playing well but I give credit to them, they were able to ratchet it up and took the game over.”
Seven minutes into the period, Alex Barron intercepted a Clarkson clearing attempt at his offensive blue line and shot the puck toward the goal, where it hit Peca in the chest. Peca settled the bouncing puck, turned and shot it on goal. After Lewis made the initial save, Peca moved the rebound to Smith, who put it in the open net for his 14th goal of the season.
McKernan scored his first career goal on the following shift. Tiefenwerth passed the puck from behind the net to McKernan, who was at the top of the right faceoff circle. McKernan took a step toward goal and fired a shot through traffic and into the back of the net.
Quinnipiac dominated the third period of play, outshooting Clarkson 13-3. Taverner scored with just under four minutes to play in regulation to cap the scoring in the game.
