Quinnipiac Blanks Saints

Sophomore goalie Dan Clarke made 14 of his 23 saves in the third period and Quinnipiac blew open a 2-0 game with a pair of power play goals en route a 5-0 ECAC Division I hockey victory over St. Lawrence University at Appleton Arena Friday night.

The Bobcats, now 15-12-2 overall and 9-8-0 in ECAC play pulled to within a point of the Saints, who lost for just the second time this season at home and are now 14-11-5 overall and 8-6-3 in ECAC play. The loss drops the Saints out of the top four in the league standings and into fifth with five games remaining in the regular season. The top four in the final ECAC standings receive first round byes.

Clarke recorded his second shutout of the season, but wasn't really challenged by the Saints despite eight SLU power play opportunities.  

"You have to give full credit to Quinnipiac...they blocked a lot of shots and played a very smart game. We didn't get much going offensively for two periods and really had a tough night on the power play. We need to regroup in a hurry and be ready for a good effort against Princeton Saturday afternoon."

Quinnipiac scored an unusual goal to open the scoring as freshman defenseman Mike Dalhuisen scored his first collegiate goal on a save which popped up into the air and bounced off the back of Saint goalie Kain Tisi and into the net at the 7:38 mark. The goal was the only one of the first period and came on a hard shot from the point after Jeremy Langlois passed the puck back to Dalhuisen. Tisi played the puck with his stick, but it went high in the air and the Saint goalie lost track of it before it hit him and bounced into the net.

The Bobcats made it a 2-0 game 4:37 into the second as another rookie scored his first collegiate goal. Clay Harvey tipped a shot from the point by Zack Currie and it snuck just under the crossbar for the only scoring in the second period.

Brandon Wong scored his 15^th of the season on a five-on-three power play just 21 seconds into the third period, snapping a streak of 41 consecutive penalty kills for the Saints in what was essentially the backbreaker for SLU. D'Arcy Oakes scored his fourth of the season on a power play at 10:44 and Mike Atkinson scored his eighth of the season at 16:39 with a shot which glanced off the inside of the far post and into the net.

Tisi finished with 18 saves for the Saints, who were outshot 17-9 through the first two periods, but did get some shots on the Quinnipiac goalie in the third period.