NEW HAVEN, Conn. – Quinnipiac and Yale’s home rinks are separated by a mere twelve miles, but the rivals have played postseason games in far off locales such as Atlantic City and Pittsburgh before ever having a playoff game in either school’s home rink.
That changed in 2014, when Quinnipiac hosted Yale in the league quarterfinals, and on Friday, when the teams played a postseason game at Ingalls Rink for the first time.
Quinnipiac scored five straight goals, including four in the third period, to help the Bobcats to a 5-1 win over Yale in Game 1 of the opening round of the ECAC Hockey playoffs. Quinnipiac will look to win the best-of-three series Saturday at 7 p.m.
“I thought we really battled and played a good, honest game tonight,” Quinnipiac coach Rand Pecknold said. “Good balance, kept it simple, and the passion and care was there.”
Captain Chase Priskie scored the go-ahead goal for the Bobcats early in the third period. Joe O’Connor, Kevin McKernan, Alex Whelan, and Scott Davidson also scored for ninth-seeded Quinnipiac, while Keith Petruzzelli had 21 saves for the win.
“We’d like to go in and play a full sixty, but when you have guys blocking shots and playing hard and bailing each other out it definitely plays to our advantage,” Priskie said
Ryan Hitchcock had Yale’s lone goal and Sam Tucker had 27 saves for the eighth-seeded Bulldogs (15-14-1).
It’s the first time since joining ECAC Hockey in 2005 that the Bobcats have not hosted a series in the conference tournament.
“It is what it is, we dug ourselves a little bit of a hole, but it’s a new season and I thought we played well,” Pecknold said.
With the game tied at one, the Bulldogs opened the final period with 1:50 of power-play time thanks to a cross-checking call against John Furgele. Quinnipiac (15-16-4) killed off the remainder of the penalty and took the lead shortly thereafter, when Priskie took a pass from Scott Davidson and fluttered a shot past Tucker while on the rush at 2:41.
Quinnipiac extended its lead to two goals later in the period when Matt Forchuck found McKernan on the opposite post to make it 3-1 at 8:43.
Friday was the first time that McKernan had played since Feb. 3 due to an injury. The senior made his return to the lineup at forward after spending most of his collegiate career at defense.
“I don’t mind it,” McKernan said of the position change, adding that he had played forward once during his career at Quinnipiac.
McKernan got his chance at forward due to the depth on Quinnipiac’s defense – and the lack of it up front.
“It was a hard decision to make as a coach,” Pecknold said. “He’s been out for four weeks and hadn’t practiced. The d-corps has been really good lately; it was a hunch that I thought he could give us some energy up front. We haven’t been as good up front as we need to be.”
Whelan’s sealed the game with an empty-net goal with 1:22 remaining, while Davidson capped the scoring with a goal just over a minute later.
Yale went up 1-0 on Hitchcock’s goal at 13:32 in the first. Tyler Welsh carried the puck down the slot, before passing the puck to the senior captain for the easy tap-in goal.
Quinnipiac tied the game on O’Connor’s goal at 2:09 in the second. A Yale turnover gave Tanner MacMaster a clear lane towards the net, and the Bobcats senior left a drop pass for a crashing O’Connor, who shot it between from his legs and past Tucker.
The Bobcats took over after the tying goal, controlling play for stretches of time. Yale only had four shots in the final period as it struggled to generate chances.
“We were second to pucks all night long,” Yale coach Keith Allain said.
