What to watch for: Bobcats visit rival Bulldogs

What to watch for: Bobcats visit rival Bulldogs

By Mark Spillane, QBSN Staff Writer

The Quinnipiac Bobcats (11-7-4) men’s ice hockey team will resume ECAC conference play when they travel down the road to New Haven to face the 20^th ranked Yale University Bulldogs (7-5-1) on Friday, Dec. 6 at 7 p.m.

This is the first of the two meetings between the two teams this year; the second will be the season finale in February on Quinnipiac’s home ice. It is also the first of twelve consecutive ECAC matchups to finish the season for Quinnipiac and the first of sixteen for the Bulldogs.

The Bobcats lead the all-time series 6-5-1 with the most recent tilt between the two resulted in a 6-1 Yale victory last February at The High Point Solutions arena. Yale also won the other matchup last year and four of the last six meetings.

The Bobcats are coming off of a two game road set against Nebraska-Omaha in which they tied once and lost once, scoring just three goals between both games. Yale is coming off a 9-3 New Year’s Day victory over Bentley behind the four-goal effort of senior forward and captain, Brian O’Neill. O’Neill’s accomplishment marked the first time a Bulldog had scored four times in a game since 2003.

This game presents a huge opportunity for both teams to improve their ECAC standings. Quinnipiac sits in third with nine points and a 3-4-3 conference record, while Yale sits in a five-way tie for fourth with eight points and a 4-2 conference record.

Keys for the Bulldogs:

The keys to success for the Yale Bulldogs on Friday night are to continue the strong special teams play and get the puck to junior forward, Andrew Miller.  Heading into the game, the Bulldogs rank first in the nation in the penalty kill department and second in the country on the power play. Thus far, Yale has killed 51 of 54 penalties against them, an astounding 94.4%, while also converting on 16 of their 56 opportunities on the man advantage. That kind of special teams play provides a huge advantage for the Bulldogs over their opponents. The second key is to feed Miller the puck because he is an assist machine. He has tremendous vision and is also getting the puck to his teammates for high percentage scoring chances. He leads the team with 11 assists this year and led the team last year while setting a sophomore record with 33 helpers.

Keys for the Bobcats:

For Quinnipiac to have success, it must stay out of the penalty box and score early. Heading into Friday, the Bobcats are ranked 13^th in the country in penalty minutes. The Bobcats need to be smart and stay at even strength because that kind of play will prove too costly against Yale. The Bulldogs have been lethal on the power play this season, scoring on over 28 percent of their man advantage chances, so the only way to stop their power play attack is to not allow it any opportunities. Quinnipiac also needs to score early because junior goalie Jeff Malcolm has been great at preserving leads. He has done so in five of Yale’s seven wins, proving that the Bulldogs rarely lose the lead when they score first.

Last Meeting:

Five different players scored as then senior goalie, Ryan Rondeau, stopped 30 of 31 shots as Yale beat Quinnipiac 6-1 before 3,957 at The High Point Solutions Arena in the meeting last February. Former senior Denny Kearney had two goals as the Bulldogs outshot the Bobcats 42-31, while Kellen Jones (Montrose, British Columbia) scored the only Bobcat goal in the blowout.