The St. Lawrence Saints continued their winning ways on Saturday afternoon with a 1-0 overtime win over Quinnipiac. The win is the third in a row for the Saints, while Quinnipiac is looking for their first win since the first of the month.
Both teams were kept off the scoreboard for the first 62 minutes of the game until SLU’s Kyle Flanagan rushed into the QU zone in the extra frame. Flanagan ripped a shot that was blocked down in the slot, but he grabbed the loose puck and looped around to the left of the net. Bobcats goaltender Eric Hartzell dove to get back to the right, but Flanagan beat him to the post on the wraparound to sneak the puck just past the sprawling attempt from Hartzell.
“I took a shot that got blocked, but [Hartzell] had to respect the post and he came out,” said Flanagan. “I was able to bring it around and stuff it, just hoping that he wasn’t going to be back in the net by the time I was coming around.”
The play was immediately called for review, but Hartzell wasted no time skating off the ice.
“I reached out with my glove and it just nicked my glove, and unfortunately I saw it go in the net so I knew when they went to the replay booth it was going to be a goal.”
For the second straight game, the Bobcats had their chances throughout regulation, but they couldn’t finish their shots.
“The puck just would not go in the net for us,” Quinnipiac coach Rand Pecknold said. “A little bit of it was our shot selection. We didn’t do a very good job screening the goaltender. It was a poor effort on the screen and a poor effort on the jumping of loose pucks.”
On the weekend series, Quinnipiac took a total of 77 shots, but only cashed in on one.
“It was frustrating tonight that it was right there in front of us and we just couldn’t go and get it,” said Pecknold.
“We’ve lost our focus a little bit. Our guys know it takes four or five chances before you score a goal and for whatever reason we lost that a little bit. It won’t be hard to get it back, but we need to work on it.”
One of the best chances on the night for Quinnipiac came just two minutes into the second period when Scott Zurevinski rang one off the left post from inside the right circle.
For the remainder of the night, SLU’s defense and the strong effort from sophomore Matt Weninger between the pipes was enough to hold the Bobcats scoreless.
Weninger finished the night with 33 saves for his second shutout of the season.
“We had tough schedule before ECAC play and a lot of our losses came from top 10 teams,” said Saints’ coach Mike Hurlbut. “I think a lot of people looked at that and wrote us off right away. We have a lot of faith in ourselves and in our players, and a lot of confidence in each other to just get better every game.
“We’re getting better every day. Our guys are believing in the systems and working hard. We’ve had a lot of work to do and we still have more to do.”
