Quinnipiac inches closer to home playoff series with 3-2 win over St. Lawrence

Quinnipiac at St. Lawrence (photo copyright BobcatsHockeyBlog)

The Quinnipiac Bobcats went on the road Friday night and secured two massive ECAC points in their quest for a first round playoff series with a 3-2 win over the St. Lawrence Saints at Appleton Arena in Canton, New York. Coming into this weekend, Quinnipiac was on the outside looking in for a home playoff series but after the win tonight and some results that went its way its currently tied with Princeton in the 7th/8th spots in the conference.

Three Quinnipiac players recorded multi point games in Nick Jermain (2 goals), Brogan Rafferty (2 assists) and Odeen Tufto (2 assists). Tufto became just the 4th Quinnipiac freshman to have 30 assists in one season behind Brian Hebert (32 in 1999-00), Bryan Leitch (21, 2005-06) and Matthew Peca (31, 2011-12). Quinnipiac opened the scoring just 2:19 into the first period when Nick Jermain banged home a rebound from St. Lawrence goaltender Arthur Brey.

Despite getting out to an early lead and controlling play for much of the first two periods Quinnipiac found themselves down 2-1 after two periods. "We were resilient, said head coach Rand Pecknold. I think we had as many grade A's [chances] as we had all season in the first two periods and we had only one goal. Brey was playing well and he made a lot of save and we hit him a few times too when we should have buried it so it was frustrating, but we just stayed the course and found a way."

Trailing late in third period with the clock set to go under seven minutes Quinnipiac found itself on the power play. Just a minute in the man advantage Brogan Rafferty fed Chase Priskie who ripped a one timer from the lower left circle past Brey for the game tying goal. A little more than five minutes later Nick Jermain scored the game winning goal from a tough angle that even surprised coach Pecknold in the post game. "You know what I have no idea. I was talking to someone so I don't know how it went in."

Quinnipiac at St. Lawrence (photo copyright BobcatsHockeyBlog)

In between the Priskie and Jermain goal Quinnipiac had to kill off a slashing penalty to Devin Moore. "Chase had a big one to tie it up, added Pecknold and then we won it late. We had a big penalty kill late with some blocks. I thought the guys played well and deserved to win."

Andrew Shortridge (28 saves) was strong for Quinnipiac tonight who improved to 14-15-4 on the season (9-10-2 in ECAC play). They conclude the ECAC regular season tomorrow night against the Clarkson Golden Knights.

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