Quinnipiac, Yale facing different pressures
HAMDEN — With a place in the NCAA tournament already secure there’s no pressure on the Quinnipiac men’s hockey team this weekend, a bonus considering the Bobcats open the ECAC quarterfinals Friday night severely shorthanded at defenseman.
Captain Chase Priskie, a Hobey Baker Award candidate, is suspended for two games of the best-of-3 series with Brown after a kicking penalty against Yale in the final regular season game. Luke Shiplo is out Friday night for fighting in the same game. And Brandon Fortunato was lost for the season after breaking his leg in practice last month.
As the No. 5 team in the PairWise Rankings, Quinnipiac can lose both games of its series with Brown and still earn a high seeding when the NCAA field of 16 is announced in two weeks.
Of course, there’s plenty of motivation for winning.
The Bobcats (25-7-2) are very much in contention for a No. 1 seed and need wins to overtake UMass, Minnesota State or MinnesotaDuluth for a top four slot. Pride is also at stake. Quinnipiac has won four Cleary Cups as regular season champs in the past seven years, but claimed just one ECAC tournament championship, in 2016. And since joining the ECAC in 2005, the Bobcats have won at least one postseason series every year, a streak of 13 years, longest in conference history.
Brown (13-13-5) has never beaten the Bobcats in a playoff series, losing in the first round in 2008, 2010, 2011 and 2017. But Quinnipiac is vulnerable without Priskie, a dangerous scorer and its best defender, and Shiplo.
Marcus Chorney, whose played in only two games this season, and Zach Metsa will be called upon to fill in the holes. Along with regulars Cam Boudreau and Peter Dilberatore, the Bobcats will start four freshmen at defense.
“One of our main advantages against other teams is being ready to play,” said junior Karlis Cukste. “Obviously others have to step up. The roles have changed a bit, but if we stick to our game plan I think we can beat Brown.”
For Quinnipiac, the Yale game is a reminder to not let emotions get the best of it during the heat of the moment. Although the Bobcats won the game 4-1, they took two 5-minute majors for kicking and fighting, two 10-minute game disqualifications and a 10-minute misconduct.
“A lot of guys lost control of their emotions,” Quinnipiac forward Odeen Tufto said. “It happens in hockey. You have to understand in the playoffs that you play to a fine line. You can be intense, you can be aggressive and you can play hard hockey, but you can’t cross the line and taken dumb penalties. You have to stick with what you do and not get toowrapped up in it being a playoff game or the crowd or anything like that and focus like it’s just another hockey game. Sometimes that’s tough to do, but if you can boil it down to that you should be fine on the ice.”
YALE HEADS NORTH
Despite being two of the original members of ECAC Hockey, established in 1961, Yale and Clarkson have a relatively light yet well-defined playoff history. They’ve only met three times, the last in 1997, and the home team has advanced each time: Yale in two games at Ingalls Rink in 1987; Clarkson sweeping at Cheel Arena in 1991 and 1997.