Quinnipiac's poor effort ends winning streak in 5-1 loss to Dartmouth

Scott Davidson and the Quinnipiac Bobcats lost their 1st game to Dartmouth 5-1

A night after putting together a solid effort in a win over Harvard, Quinnipiac laid a big dud in Hanover, New Hampshire against the Dartmouth Big Green in a 5-1 loss. Dartmouth's win gave coach Bob Gaudet his 400th career win. From the start of the game, Quinnipiac looked extremely slow and sluggish as they couldn't sustain any consistent offensive zone pressure. Dartmouth looked to have a good game plan against the Bobcats clogging up the neutral zone and not giving them much time and space to work with and it was an effective strategy that worked all game.

Both teams didn't do much in the first period with with a combined 13 shots on goal for Quinnpiac goaltender Keith Petruzzelli and Dartmouth's Adrian Clark. A little less than six minutes into the second period saw the start of the Big Green onslaught. Jeffrey Losurdo fed a hard charging Drew O'Connor into zone who beat Petruzzelli with a nifty move and drew a slashing penalty at the same time from Quinnipiac's Wyatt Bongiovanni. With time winding down on the power play, Dartmouth's Matt Baker found Quin Foreman in the slot who ripped one past Petruzzelli for the goal. 

With Quinnipiac taking back to back penalties by Karlis Cukste and Brogan Rafferty, Dartmouth had a five on three opportunity and they cashed in when Will Graber sent a pass from the point to Collin Rutherford who one-timed it past Petruzzelli. Quinnipiac looked to have got back in the game on a Chase Priskie's one-timer on the power play that cut the score to 3-1. The Priskie goal tied a school record for career goals by a defenseman at 28 with Dan Ennis '03. Quinnipiac looked to going right back on the power play in the following minute but William Fallstrom was called for an embellishment on a Clay Han's hooking penalty which negated the Bobcats power play. 

On the ensuing four on four Dartmouth's Will Graber dumped the puck behind net and Quinnipiac struggled to retrieve the puck and it found Connor Yau's stick who found Jeffrey Losurdo all alone in the slot for an easy goal. At the midway point Quinnipiac found itself on the power play and Rand Pecknold pulled Petruzzelli for an extra-attacker but the move backfired as Carl Hesler retrieved the puck in his own end and fired an empty net goal from just inside his own blue line giving Dartmouth its fifth and final goal.

Play got very chippy late with a Luke Shiplo roughing penalty, a holding/misconduct penalty on Joe O'Connor and an elbowing penalty on Brogan Rafferty. On a night in which Quinnipiac's forwards or defenseman didn't show a ton of effort they hung their sophomore goaltender Keith Petruzzelli out to dry in a 22 save effort. His counterpart Adrian Clark made 25 saves in the victory. The play by the Bobcats tonight showed their are no off nights in the ECAC and you must bring the intensity for 60 minutes or results like this will happen again. 

Quinnipiac has six days to get things corrected as they welcome RPI on Friday night followed by Union on Saturday to the People's United Bank Center but two biggest things they need to correct are the penalty and face-offs. 

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