For the second consecutive season, the ECAC Hockey League will not have a representative in the men’s NCAA Frozen Four.
Hours after Cornell was eliminated by Providence in the East Regional final on March 31, the last standing ECAC Hockey school, Quinnipiac University, suffered the same fate against defending national champion Minnesota Duluth in the Midwest Regional final. The Bobcats went down fighting in their first-ever meeting with the Bulldogs, but still saw their 2018-19 campaign come to a close with a 3-1 loss at the PPL Center in Allentown, Pa.
“First off, congratulations to Minnesota Duluth, I thought they were excellent tonight,” said Quinnipiac head coach Rand Pecknold afterwards. “They played hard, they were honest, and they are a really well-coached team. Sandy (Scott Sandelin) does a really good job coaching that team. I have always witnessed it from afar, but I got a good dose of it tonight. He has those kids play the right way. They compete, and the goalie (Hunter Shepard) bails them out when they need it, so congrats to them.”
The Bobcats were largely dominated for the first two periods by the physical Bulldogs, but turned it on in the third period when Quinnipiac won 12 faceoffs, launched a dozen shots on goal, and got an extra-attacker power-play tally from Craig Martin with just over two minutes left to cut Minnesota Duluth’s lead to 2-1.
