The Quinnipiac University Bobcats (2-3-1, 0-1-1 ECAC) and the Cornell Big Red (1-0-1, 1-0-1 ECAC Hockey) battled to a 0-0 tie Saturday evening at the TD Banknorth Sports Center in front of 3,422.
“It’s great that we got a point and we did a lot of good things,” said Quinnipiac Coach Rand Pecknold. “Our penalty kill was great. The negative is the bad penalties [we took].”
Both teams were coming off of 1-0 games last night, with the Big Red topping the Princeton Tigers, while the Bobcats dropped their contest to the Colgate Raiders.
It was more of the same from the previous game for the Bobcats as Saturday night’s game was a penalty-filled affair. Both squads’ special teams were put to the test. The two teams combined for 19 penalties.
The Bobcats have now been held scoreless in the last 133:28, a span of two-plus games.
“It’s a product of taking a lot of penalties and some of my top offensive players were just bad both nights,” said Pecknold.
The Bobcats best chance in the first period came on a 2-on-0 rush. David Marshall carried the puck into the zone, but a diving back check by Joe Scali helped to break up the scoring chance.
The Big Red’s Evan Barlow was awarded a penalty shot at 10:31 of the second period. Barlow came in from the high left circle and ripped a shot from between the circles. Quinnipiac’s Nick Pisellini made the glove save to prevent Cornell from taking a lead.
“Nick was great in net [tonight] and he played big, moved well and was confident,” said Pecknold. “I thought our defensemen down low did a good job winning battles. It was a huge bright spot with our penalty kills.”
Cornell’s Jared Seminoff had a chance at the third period buzzer, with a clear lane to the net, but on the shot, his stick broke, negating the chance.
Cornell had a five-on-three advantage with 13 seconds remaining in overtime, but the Bobcats cleared the puck to end the game.
Pisellini made 23 stops to move to (2-1-1) while his counterpart Ben Scrivens made 25 saves to move to 1-0-1.
The Bobcats travel to Albany next weekend to play RPI and Union while Cornell splits a home-and-home with Colgate.
