Golden Knights lose wild game to Bobcats, 7-6

POTSDAM — Any fan who got up to get a snack or use the rest room could have missed three or four goals in Saturday night’s Clarkson-Quinnipiac men’s hockey game.

Quinnipiac emerged with a 7-6 win in a wild ECAC Hockey contest before 2,203 fans at Cheel Arena.

The game featured a seven-goal second period, 87 total penalty minutes, three lead changes and a goalie who was yanked early in the second period, and still wound up winning the game.

“It’s a tough loss,” Clarkson coach Casey Jones said. “It’s probably the fate we deserved. We let their guys get behind us a lot there tonight and left (goalie Paul Karpowich) out to dry a couple times there.”

Clarkson (14-13-5 overall, 8-7-3 conference) had a chance to move into fourth place in the ECAC Hockey standings with a win, but instead remains one point behind Harvard for the last spot that guarantees a first-round bye in the conference playoffs.

“Tonight we just had a lot of transitional and neutral zone and defensive lapses,” Clarkson captain Jake Morley said. “Against a team that likes to transition, it’s going to cost you, and that’s what happened tonight.”

Clarkson took a 2-0 lead just 8 minutes, 48 seconds into the first period after goals from Morley and Allan McPherson, who scored a goal in a third straight game.

But Quinnipiac (15-10-5, 7-7-4) answered with goals from Jeremy Langlois and Matthew Peca to tie the game 2-2 after one period.

Then things got crazy as there were four goals scored in the first 4:41 of the second period, six in the first 9:35 and a total of seven in the period. Quinnipiac went ahead 3-2 with a goal from Spencer Heichman at 1:40, but Morley scored another goal at 2:04 to tie the game. Bobcats coach Rand Pecknold then pulled goalie Eric Hartzell for Dan Clarke.

The Bobcats answered Morley’s goal with one from Kellen Jones just 16 seconds later to take a 4-3 lead. Then Clarkson went on a spurt, scoring three straight goals on only six shots off goalie Dan Clarke to build a 6-4 lead. Pecknold then put Hartzell back in the game.

“I can’t remember the last time I pulled two goalies,” Pecknold said. “I don’t think our goalies played great. But I don’t think we played well in front of them either.”

The first two goals in Clarkson’s run came from Louke Oakley. Oakley’s first goal, at 4:41, came when a Bobcat player accidentally put the rebound of his shot into the net, while trying to tap the puck back to the goalie. Oakley’s next goal came at 6:50 to make it 5-4. Ben Sexton scored another goal at 9:35 to give Clarkson a 6-4 lead and it appeared the Golden Knights had seized control of the game.

“Typical night if we score six goals you’d think we’d be almost guaranteed to win,” Morley said. “It’s one of those games tonight. We had some lapses here and there and they capitalized on their chances and we did as well. We can’t play like that. We’re not a team that can go toe-to-toe with a team like that scoring goals. We have to tighten up in the neutral zone and defensively.”

Quinnipiac cut Clarkson’s lead to 6-5 at 11:56 of the second period with a goal by Jones.

Things settled down after that goal and Clarkson was still up by one goal when Jones tied the game with a goal at 14:31 of the third period for a hat trick. Jones had to wait, however, for a video review before his goal was put on the scoreboard.

“I knew it was going to be a goal,” Jones said. “It was afterward, I got pushed into the goalie there. I was glad they called it a goal.”

There was a scuffle after Jones’s goal that resulted in a Bobcat power play and Jones set up the game-winning goal by Loren Barron at 15:17.

“I know Karpowich likes to come out front, so I was trying to fake a shot and get it to Barron,” Jones said. “He put it upstairs. It was a pretty good shot by him.”

Clarkson will have to get over the loss quickly as two of the top teams in the conference — Cornell and Colgate — are coming to Cheel Arena this weekend.

“We can go look over video, but we know what we did tonight,” Morley said. “We didn’t play our best in our defensive zone and neutral zone. We have to get back to work here Monday and get back to the next two games at home.”