After flat start, Quinnipiac turns tables on Yale to clinch ECAC regular-season title
HAMDEN — With a chance at the ECAC men’s hockey regular-season championship on the line, not to mention a rabid packed house for the big rivalry game (at least to the rabid packed house), Quinnipiac managed to make Yale look more like the No. 1 team in the country.
“We knew just one shift can change the momentum, the course of the game,” sophomore Sam Lipkin said.
Yeah, did it. Lipkin scored twice in 37 seconds to turn a onegoal deficit into a 5-1 win at M&T Bank Center on Friday night that, with Cornell’s loss to Clarkson, clinched the Cleary Cup as regular-season champs for the third straight season and the fifth time since 2012-13.
The No. 1 Bobcats haven’t lost to Yale since 2018 and retained the Heroes Hat, which honors first responders on Sept. 11, 2001.
It felt like a playoff game in the crowd: Students lined up for hours to get in early. They started streaming in around 5 after waiting outside as a decent afternoon turned into a chilly rain turned into freezing rain.
“Pulling up at whatever time, 4 o’clock,” Quinnipiac captain Zach Metsa said, “honestly, I thought they were crazy. I didn’t expect them to be out, freezing rain. But that’s why they’re the best. why we appreciate them. They bring this building to life.”
The Bobcats (25-3-3, 172-0) needed a little life.
Since a 3-2 Yale win on Feb. 9, 2018, Quinnipiac has won 10 meetings between the schools by a combined 41-6.
The past four had been shutouts, but David Chen’s goal 7:08 into the game for Yale (5-17-4, 413-2) ended a Quinnipiac shutout streak of 250 minutes, 18 seconds, dating to Feb. 7, 2020. The Bobcats had scored 17 goals in a row.
And Luke Pearson was denying Quinnipiac chances at the other end.
“Yale was really good. For the first half they were all over us,” Quinnipiac coach Rand Pecknold said.
“I thought our details were poor. We were kind of flat.”
The whole thing spun around in about six minutes of play.
Iivari Rasanen took the Bobcats’ first penalty at 12:19. After a clean penalty kill, Rasanen stepped out of the box, turned right and went to the bench, where Lipkin stepped on. Lipkin skated to the center of the ice and took Jayden Lee’s home-run pass. He scored on the breakaway. He scored again 37 seconds later at the front of the net off Jacob Nordqvist’s feed.
“Once we get it going, we’re hard to stop,” Lipkin said. “It happened pretty quick, but I was in the right place at the right time to bury those two pucks.”
Not a minute later, Yale had a two-on-none rush from the blue line in. Ian Carpentier went to the net, and Bobcats goalie Yaniv Perets came up the slot with a sliding pokecheck (“the two-pad stack,” Pecknold marveled) to knock the puck away and send Carpentier flying. Cole Donhauser couldn’t find the loose puck in front of Perets.
“That might’ve been the loudest I heard it,” Metsa said, “on the play from Yaniv, the diving pokecheck. I don’t think I’ve heard it louder.”
And with 1:37 left in the second, Collin Graf’s behind-the-back pass found C.J. McGee to make it 3-1. Graf and Cristophe Tellier scored in the third period.
Even with the Heroes Hat presentation from the Mascali family, Cornell’s game went final well after the Bobcats had left the ice, so the team will celebrate the Cleary Cup after Saturday’s game against Brown,
Pecknold said YaleQuinnipiac in Hamden is “not a game, it’s an event.” And it’s the kind of event they’ll have to handle next month and, conceivably, into April.
“Guys were gripping the stick a little tight. They were probably overexcited,” the coach said. “This was a big game. The crowd was awesome. It was a great atmosphere as always. We need to prepare for games. We’ve got to handle that pressure. We’re going to have it in NCAAs. We’re going to have it in ECACs.
“But we did find a way. That’s what we’ve done all year.”