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  • Notes & Quotes: UConn freezes Quinnipiac’s championship hopes with statement win

    Notes & Quotes: UConn freezes Quinnipiac’s championship hopes with statement win

    By Connor Coar and Zachary Carter

    Quinnipiac’s net remained empty. The faceoff was set to be taken in UConn’s defensive end with just over two minutes to play in the third period. Off the draw, skipping up the boards and bouncing off the shoulder of Quinnipiac forward Mason Marcellus, the puck landed on the stick of UConn’s Joey Muldowney. The sophomore flung the puck the length of the ice, watching as it started left, popped up on its side before finally veering right and into the back of Quinnipiac’s unmanned net. 

    Ballgame. 

    The goal – UConn’s fourth of the game – cemented the Huskies’ win in the Allentown regional opening round, sending Quinnipiac home in unceremonious fashion. UConn dominated all game, unlike their previous matchup with Quinnipiac in the Connecticut Ice semifinal round, which was decided with less than a second to play in regulation. 

    UConn scored two early goals and took the match 4-1, never giving Quinnipiac a chance to climb back in. The Huskies will move on to the regional final against Penn State on Sunday, while the Bobcats will pack their bags and load the bus due northeast for Hamden, where Quinnipiac will regroup and plan for next year. Let’s open the notebook and see where Quinnipiac went wrong in contrast to what went right for UConn. 

    What went wrong: Quinnipiac

    Effort. It’s cliche, but Quinnipiac did not play a full 60 minutes. Head coach Rand Pecknold admitted his team was flat early, but fought to the end in an attempt to overcome a sluggish start. The Bobcats have advanced to the regional final every year since 2021 and were determined to do so again. UConn’s relentlessness got in the way of that streak. 

    Pecknold: “We just didn’t have enough. It took us too long to get us going. So that’s disappointing.”

    Luck. Quinnipiac never led throughout the course of the game, but it occasionally threatened a comeback — one that ultimately failed to arrive. The Bobcats’ best chance came in the third period. Though they trailed by two, the offense had started to click, as 11 of Quinnipiac’s 22 total shots came in the final frame. With the puck on the blue line, defenseman Elliot Groenewold fired a shot that beat UConn goaltender Callum Tung but rang the crossbar, deflecting downward and nearly crossing the goal line. UConn’s Viking Gustafsson Nyberg raced in to clear just in time, and Quinnipiac’s short-lived hope dried up. 

    Cavanaugh: “I told the team before the game, ‘In order to be successful in this tournament, you can’t rely on luck. You have to bring your A game.’ That being said, I’ve coached some real good teams in this tournament. And you need some luck sometimes, and that one hit the crossbar on it, you know, if it’s one inch lower it’s in. But it wasn’t. So I think we reset pretty quickly after that and played pretty well.” 

    Pecknold: “Tung made some big saves in the third when we were trying to make a push.”

    Redemption. Freshman goaltender Dylan Silverstein had played in the CT Ice semifinal game against the Huskies in late January and played well for 59:59.5, but bit just a little too hard on a Ryan Tattle move that would eventually send the Huskies to the championship game. In the regional final Friday, Silverstein kept them in the game, but did not look as confident as he did two months earlier.

    Throughout the game, Silverstein was shaky in spots. Silverstein would save UConn’s initial shot, but many times the shot would deflect back in front of him, causing chaos in front of the crease. Other times, he wouldn’t see the puck at all and wait for a reaction from the crowd or skaters on the ice for play to continue. Despite that, Silverstein also stepped up in plenty of moments to deserve the starting nod to keep the Bobcats in the game. 

    Pecknold: “He played great the last time that we played UConn. We should have won. We out-chanced them heavily. We made a mistake on the PK late and hung him out to dry. That was part of it. Either one could have gone tonight.”

    What went right: UConn

    Defense. Quinnipiac’s offense was no pushover. The Bobcats led the ECAC in total goals scored (135) and shots on goal (1,118) through 38 games. Head coach Mike Cavanaugh made it a top priority for his group to possess the puck and force Quinnipiac to skate into unproductive shifts. 

    Cavanaugh: “Something that we take a lot of pride in is defending in our own zone. What allowed us to play so well was we were playing in their zone for the majority of the shift. If it’s a 40-second shift and we’re in their zone for 20-25 seconds, it’s a lot harder for them to play offense. Our defense is a byproduct of how we were controlling the game offensively in their zone.” 

    Energy. UConn’s trek through the Hockey East tournament revealed that a fast start usually correlates to wins. The team’s semifinal win over Boston University was propelled by a fast start and high energy, though it trailed early. In its next game, Cavanaugh thought his team took too long to wake up, and the Huskies had no answers in the loss to Maine. 

    To give an idea of how each team started the game Friday night, Quinnipiac needed over eight minutes to register its first shot on goal. In that time, UConn put eight shots on  Silverstein and even got one past him to open the scoring. 

    Cavanaugh: “We got out to a good start, and I think that helped and we had a lot of energy and as (Hudson Schandor) said that the shift that we scored on, I think there was three or four finished checks, and we finally got a turnover and then (Hugh Larkin) made a nice shot. So yeah, every game we play, we want to get off to a good start. I thought we started well against BU, and we were down 1-0. So, sometimes the score isn’t indicative of the start.”

    Penalty Kill. The Huskies took three penalties in the game and gave Quinnipiac — the nation’s highest converters on the power play — too many opportunities to climb back into the game. The penalty kill staved off any threats from Quinnipiac’s man-advantage units, but sloppy play could have easily cost the Huskies if the Bobcats started to click. The highlight here is again UConn’s defense. Cavanaugh had high praise for his group’s ability to limit second-chance opportunities. 

    Cavanaugh: “We really didn’t give up a lot of second-chance opportunities. That’s always a focal point when we’re playing, that we don’t want to give up second and third chance opportunities… We’re playing great teams. They’re going to get chances. That’s why you have a goaltender, and what we don’t want to do is hang them out to dry on second and third opportunities.”

    Depth. Schandor ranks third on UConn in total points (40) and leads the team in assists (30). His involvement in the offense has been crucial to the team’s success all season long. Naturally, when he suffered a lower body injury on March 14, he was missed throughout the team’s run through the Hockey East tournament. He returned against Quinnipiac, and his mere presence on the ice was a tally in the Husky win column.

    Cavanaugh: It certainly makes us deeper. Hudson has 40 points, he plays 20 minutes a night. We’re a better team with Hudson in the lineup… We pretty much rolled four lines tonight.

  • Revisiting Quinnipiac men’s hockey’s season series vs. Cornell ahead of the ECAC semifinals

    Revisiting Quinnipiac men’s hockey’s season series vs. Cornell ahead of the ECAC semifinals

    By Zachary Carter and Cameron Levasseur

    Quinnipiac and Cornell met three times in three different venues throughout the 2024-25 regular season, with the Bobcats holding a 1-0-2  advantage following a win in Ithaca and ties at Madison Square Garden and in Hamden.

    Ahead of their fourth and final matchup in the ECAC Semifinals in Lake Placid, New York, on Friday at 4 p.m., QU Sports Page’s Zachary Carter and Cameron Levasseur analyzed each meeting, taking moments from the past that inform the upcoming battle between the conference’s reigning tournament champion and its perennial regular season champ. 

    What’s to glean? Let’s evaluate.

    Nov. 22 at Cornell: Quinnipiac 3, Cornell 1

    Quinnipiac’s sole triumph over Cornell came in arguably the hardest environment to do so. The Bobcats went into Lynah Rink — a place they hadn’t won a game since 2018 — and handed the then-ranked No. 7/8 Big Red their second loss of the young season. Aaron Bohlinger opened the scoring in the first and Chris Pelosi secured the game-winning goal in the third. Mason Marcellus iced the win with an empty-net goal with 1.3 seconds remaining, while Dylan Silverstein stopped 15 of 16 shots on net. 

    Limiting opposing chances and maintaining puck possession were the Bobcats’ keys. Quinnipiac outshot Cornell 23-16, playing its best defense by sustaining offense. Though Quinnipiac is one of the worst shot-blocking teams in the ECAC (ranked second-to-last ahead of Cornell) the team put bodies in the way of 14 shots to lighten Silverstein’s workload. 

    The Bobcats cashed in once on the power play on two chances and have continued to be the league’s best through the end of the regular season — ranked first in power play conversion rate at 32.4%. 

    Looking ahead to this weekend, the path to a win remains the same. Though, the Bobcats will take the ice against a reformed Cornell team, one that looks much like the first-place finisher the ECAC coaches predicted it would be in the preseason coaches’ poll. The Big Red have 36 goals over their last nine games for an average of four per match. If Quinnipiac can replicate the defensive success they displayed in Ithaca and keep Cornell out of its offensive rhythm, they can find a win in March much like they did in November. 

    Nov. 30 at Madison Square Garden: Quinnipiac 3, Cornell 3 (Cornell wins SO)

    Barely a week after their meeting in Ithaca, the Bobcats and Big Red squared off at MSG in a seesawing affair that ended in a 3-3 tie. 

    Their trip to The World’s Most Famous Arena was a part of The Frozen Apple, one of two series of alternating bi-annual games hosted by Cornell to capitalize on its large alumni base around New York City. That materialized in the form of 16,593 fans and the closest thing to a playoff atmosphere a team can get in November. 

    Quinnipiac learned its share of lessons that night, facing the deafening roar of the near-sold out crowd after a series of unforced errors put the Bobcats in a 2-0 hole in the first period. 

    But they battled back in the second, finding and riding momentum to take a 3-2 lead in what head coach Rand Pecknold called “probably our best period of the year,” at the time. 

    In its semifinal exits in 2023 and 2024, Quinnipiac scored one total goal. It struggled to build momentum and capitalize on it. The Bobcats’ surge at MSG proved they can do so, especially against a Cornell defense that is allowing more than two goals per game for the first time in three seasons. 

    Herb Brooks Arena is no Madison Square Garden; its capacity is 7,700 and if history is any indication, Friday’s attendance will be around 4,000. But as history also suggests, much of that crowd will be a sea of red. 

    Quinnipiac proved it can counter that on a bigger stage in November. Now it has a second chance to do so with more than bragging rights on the line. 

    Jan. 18 at Quinnipiac: Quinnipiac 2, Cornell 2 (Cornell wins SO)

    It would be two months before the two rivals met for the final time, and in the roughly six-week period, each team’s season ventured down different paths. Following the tie in downtown Manhattan, Quinnipiac’s record was 6-6-1. It resembled one of a middling team, but in the nine games following the Frozen Apple, the Bobcats went 8-1. Between Nov. 30 and Jan. 18, Cornell went just 3-3-1. 

    Quinnipiac’s young roster at last bought into the Pecknold system, something the head coach said had taken a bit longer than it had in previous years. When it clicked, and the Bobcats found their groove, they would meet Cornell at the height of their hottest stretch of the season. 

    And yet for the 60 minutes that followed, Cornell stayed poised and cooled Quinnipiac down on its home ice. The Big Red struck first, knocking in a power-play goal late in the first period. Though Quinnipiac would score twice in the second to take the lead, Cornell remained undeterred, tying the game halfway through the third period. After an unsuccessful overtime ended the game in a tie, Cornell had the upper hand on Quinnipiac in shots (25-24) and faceoff wins (32-31). 

    The Bobcats took a penalty in each of the three periods, one of which led to the first Big Red goal. Cornell took just one all game. Quinnipiac beat itself, something it can’t afford do come Friday. An inability to match tempo from the two teams’ initial meeting while giving up too many man-advantage opportunities could lead to more than just a shootout loss. It could mark the end of Quinnipiac’s Whitelaw hopes. 

    Of note, Silverstein was in net for all three games against Cornell this season. If Pecknold is to stick with Matej Marinov, who has played and excelled in each of Quinnipiac’s last three games, it will be an entirely new look in net for the Big Red. 

    Marinov has allowed just one goal in his last three games, stopping 84 of his last 85 shots against. Against Brown in Quinnipiac’s most recent game March 15, he made 34 saves, the most in a Bobcat shutout since November 2015.