New Haven Register (New Haven, CT)
Quinnipiac men’s hockey team shuts out No. 1 UMass
Shortridge, Bobcats blank top-ranked Minutemen
HAMDEN — The No. 1 team in the country finally showed up at Quinnipiac in the second period Friday night. The Bobcats’ goalie was ready for them.
UMass peppered Andrew Shortridge from all angles in the last 40 minutes, but the junior from Alaska stopped all 32 shots on net in Quinnipiac’s 4-0 win in front of 3,625 fans at Perrotti Arena.
“That was the best game I’ve ever seen him play,” said senior Craig Martin, who scored the Bobcats’ third and fourth goals in the third period. “That was incredible, the best game I’ve ever seen a goalie play, I think.”
The eighth-ranked Bobcats (14-2), who have won seven in a row, scored on the first shift of the game, Wyatt Bongiovanni potting the rebound of a Chase Priskie shot 42 seconds in.
Quinnipiac dominated the first period; Shortridge dominated the last two. He has back-toback shutouts and hasn’t allowed a goal in eight seconds shy of 125 minutes.
“I just try to keep it simple, focus in on the moment, go save by save and work my way through the game,” said Shortridge, 6-0 while splitting time of late with sophomore Keith Petruzzelli.
“For myself, I don’t really think about (the saves), just react to whatever comes to me and try to focus on the moment, the here and now, instead of the past or present.”
UMass played its first game ever as the No. 1 college hockey team in the nation, at least in the U.S. College Hockey Online poll; the USA Today/USA Hockey poll put them second, behind St. Cloud State.
The packed house matched the energy on the ice, a game between two speedy, skilled teams, and the Bobcats’ seniors said they hadn’t seen an atmosphere like that since the school reached the national championship game when they were freshmen in 2015-16.
“Give a lot of credit to Quinnipiac. They were excited to play us,” said UMass coach Greg Carvel, whose team is 12-2. “I’m actually kind of glad we lost, to get past this ‘No. 1’ thing and get back to being hockey players.”
The teams meet again Saturday night in Amherst, Mass., and the Minutemen expect a sellout at the Mullins Center.
The Minutemen botched some rushes Friday, fanned on some opportunities, after the Bobcats kept pressure on most of the first period.
“I thought we regrouped and were playing very well in the second period, a lot of pucks bouncing around the goaltender,” Carvel said. “The fact that none of those found the back of the net was kind of indicative of our compete level.”
But they had some beauties, and Shortridge was always there.
“He’s a little calmer in net” than in the past, Bobcats coach Rand Pecknold said, and Shortridge said he’s just trying to keep things simple.
“I thought tonight he was ahead of the play a lot. He was already there, which is where you want your goalies to be.”
You could put a star on four or five of his stops. Brett Boeing’s backhander midway through the third, ticketed for an open cage, that Shortridge kicked past the right post with his left toe. A couple of stops on Philip Lagunov in front late in the second.
Earlier in the second, he moved quickly left to stop Bobby Trivigno’s elevated backhander from close range. He got his right pad to the post before Mitchell Chaffee’s stuff attempt from the side of the net got to the goal line, keeping it a 1-0 game.
The officials reviewed that play at the next stoppage and kept their nogoal call. Off the next faceoff, the fourth line scored, Zach Metsa from Hamden’s Joe O’Connor, both natural defensemen pressed into duty on the wings.
“We’re a little banged up,” said Pecknold, who won his 499th career game. “I thought O.C. and Metsa were really good tonight. They gave us some good shifts, some good energy.”