NCAA Hockey: Quinnipiac, Denver punch Frozen Four tickets
It’s not clear what, exactly, is wrong with Sam Anas’s shoulder, but whatever it is, it’s not good.
He’s playing some decent minutes for Quinnipiac, but he was termed a “game-time decision” in each of his team’s games this weekend. And while he took warm-ups both nights, the number of pucks he shot in those warm-ups was zero. He grimaces through shifts sometimes, and isn’t logging the kind of ice time he normally would.
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But apparently, Sam Anas at, what, 60 percent, maybe 75, is all you need. On Saturday afternoon in a romp over RIT, he had the primary assist on an opening goal that felt like it was a long time coming. After that, the floodgates opened and there was little question that the top-seeded Bobcats would advance. Sunday against UMass Lowell, one of the best defensive teams in the country, he was even better.
Anas, who said it was a “stressful weekend,” helped create up the game-tying goal for Landon Smith at 10:33 of the second period (though he was not credited with an assist), and a little over a minute and a half later, he scored this absolute beauty to put Quinnipiac up for good.
They went on to win 4-1 thanks to Scott Davidson and Travis St. Dennis insurance goals, and in doing so will go to the Frozen Four for the second time in four years.
Imagine what Anas could have done if he were healthy.
“Sam is a huge part of our team, so to see him come out and battle through an injury and do the things he does well, it really picks up the bench,” said Smith. “We kind of look at it like, ‘Hey, if he’s willing to battle through something like he is, we have to step up too.’”
Added coach Rand Pecknold, “He wanted to play both times after warm-ups, and I wasn’t sure if he would be able to.”
This is a guy who led the team in shot attempts this season, averaging nearly seven per-game in all situations coming in, but was limited by injury to just four against RIT and five against UMass Lowell on Sunday. But if he was going to be a little choosier about when you gut out the pain, pick his spots a little better, then it’s tough to say he could have done a better job than he did tonight.
Not that everything ran through Anas, of course. Quinnipiac is the No. 1 seed in the entire country for a reason: They’re crushing in possession (56-plus percent for the year), they’re skilled, they’re deep, and they’re getting good goaltending. They went 7-1-1 against tournament teams in the regular season, and you can run that to 9-1-1 now. All that dominance continued against UMass Lowell.
Shots in the game ended up being 35-15 (woof), shot attempts at full strength were 56-39 (also woof). That tells the story that the eye test conveyed as well. Lowell had difficulty establishing any sort of offensive-zone possession time — which when things are going well is the River Hawks’ bread and butter and jam and peanut butter; it’s an entire team that can cycle like the Sedins — but opportunities were sparse. They didn’t score at all at 5-on-5, and converted an early power play through Dylan Zink to take a first-period lead just 3:01 into the game.
Shots by period were 10-6, 13-4, and 12-5. All that feels how the game looked.
“I thought we passed up on a lot of shots,” Lowell coach Norm Bazin, whose team has won 100 games in the last four seasons, said after the game. “You just can’t do that against these guys. You have to get direct pucks to the net front and we just didn’t do that today. … (Quinnipiac) seemed to throw everything to the net. Sometimes you get a few lucky bounces and I certainly thought they created a lot of chaos from all their shots directed toward the net.”
Sitting on a one-goal lead for 57 or so minutes is generally not advisable, obviously, and that’s especially true against a team like Quinnipiac. And while one can be sure that wasn’t the game plan for a coach as proficient as Bazin, it sure didn’t look like it. The Bobcats looked a little out of sorts for one reason or another in the opening 10 minutes or so, but after that they simply took over the game in all aspects. The things that are Quinnipiac’s hallmark became the order of the day. Lowell was often settling for soft dump-outs to center ice just to get a line change when they didn’t have the puck, and injudicious dump-ins at the other end when they did. They just didn’t have an answer for everything Quinnipiac presented them.
It doesn’t help that over the last six games, Lowell had been a 45 percent possession team despite the fact that they’d won all but one of them. You could see why. They weren’t so much careless with the puck but harried into bad decisions at just about every turn when they tried to carry it. To make matters worse, passes just seemed to be a little off-line or improperly weighted, more often than not. The percentage that hit their destination as intended was fairly low. That’s an execution problem, and it’s one that has been plaguing Lowell for the last little while. Quinnipiac’s all-encompassing quality made matters appreciably worse
“For us, that was a really good game,” Pecknold said. “Coming off last night, we didn’t play as well. Tonight we talked about winning battles, winning races, and making sacrifices. I thought that was one of the better games we’ve played this year. We’re excited to move on.”
Michael Gartieg outdueled Kevin Boyle — a Mike Richter finalist who entered the game with a .936 save percentage — to pick up the win, though he wasn’t asked to do much. One goal allowed on just 15 shots is about as easy a ride as one can expect in an NCAA tournament game. Boyle ended up conceding four, including a bit of a howler for Quinnipiac’s third, on 35. Lowell was simply overmatched, just like almost every opponent the Bobcats have faced this season
Now they’re on to Tampa to face Boston College, a team they haven’t played this season, which has a finishing quality, and an ability to get to the net. Lack of such proved a fatal flaw for the River Hawks.
The good news is they have two weeks to rest up and get Anas back to 100 percent. Maybe. And if they don’t, it still might not matter. Getting him up to 80 might be all they need.
Denver 6, Ferris State
People will tell you this game was closer than the score-line indicates. However, that is only true insofar as the score-line itself is concerned.
It was 3-3 with just five minutes to go in regulation. Then Denver scored twice in 25 seconds to salt the game away, then again 1:40 after that to rub it in. And where the team’s top line of Danton Heinen, Dylan Gambrell, and Trevor Moore was largely quiet on Saturday, they were everywhere today. They figured into each of Denver’s first four goals, with Gambrell and Heinen each finishing 1-2-3. So too did defenseman Blake Hillman.
But to the point about this game being exactly as close as the score-line suggests, shots were 42-21 Denver, and Ferris scored on its first shot in both the first and second periods. Through 20, shots were 15-3 to the Pioneers, but the score was 2-2
But hey, shout out to Gerald Mayhew, who scored Ferris’ first goal on a very nice breakaway facilitated by a set stretch play. He also had the primary on power-play goals from Corey Mackin and Kyle Schemp.
In net, Darren Smith kept the game interesting for a while despite being under siege throughout, but ended up stopping just 36 of 42. Tanner Jaillet was unspectacular but adequate in saving 18 of 21
Denver will make its first trip to the Frozen Four since they wrapped up two national titles in a row back in 2005. Their opponent will be conference foe North Dakota, an unenviable draw to say the least. But they split the season series right down the middle at 2-2-1. The home team held sway in all the wins, and the neutral-site meeting was the draw. So who knows, really?
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