Quinnipiac Men’s Hockey Streak Ends With 2-1 Loss to St. Lawrence

The nationally-ranked No. 1 Quinnipiac men’s ice hockey team lost to St. Lawrence, 2-1, ending the Bobcats’ 21-game unbeaten streak. The loss is also Quinnipiac’s first ECAC Hockey loss as it drops to 14-1-2 in league play and 21-4-4 overall.  St. Lawrence improves to 14-11-4 overall and 7-6-4 in ECAC Hockey.

Despite the loss, Quinnipiac clinched the Cleary Cup for its first ECAC Hockey regular-season championship since joining the league in 2005-06, as second-place Yale lost to Union, 4-2, in Schenectady, N.Y. The Bobcats will be the top seed in the ECAC Hockey tournament, with a bye in the first round, and will host a best-of-three quarterfinals series on Mar. 15-17.

St. Lawrence’s Greg Carey scored both of the Saints goals, pushing his season total to 22 on the year. His first came just 4:37 into the game before adding the game-winner less than three minutes into the third period. In the first period, George Hughes carried the puck up the boards closest to the Bobcats’ bench before snapping the puck to Carey who one-timed a shot from the point that beat Quinnipiac goalie Eric Hartzell to give St. Lawrence a 1-0 lead.

With less than six minutes remaining in the period, Bryce Van Brabant won a face-off deep in the Bobcats’ defensive zone over to Jordan Samuels-Thomas. Samuels-Thomas took off down ice, with a St. Lawrence defenseman between him and the Saints’ Matt Weninger in goal. After Samuels-Thomas crossed the blue line into the St. Lawrence zone, he flipped the puck over his defender’s head, pulled the puck back to his right and then walked across the crease before depositing his ninth goal of the season to tie the game, 1-1.

With 2:30 to play, Carey scored his second goal of the game when he picked up a loose puck that glanced off a Quinnipiac defenseman and fired a shot on goal that snuck just inside the right post to give St. Lawrence a one-goal lead.

Quinnipiac returns to action on Saturday, Feb. 16 when it hosts Clarkson for an ECAC Hockey match-up at 7 p.m. at High Point Solutions Arena at the TD Bank Sports Center.