The No. 3 seeded St. Lawrence University men's hockey team will face top-seeded Quinnipiac in the ECAC Hockey championship at Frank Perrotti Jr. Arena in Hamden, Connecticut on Saturday, March 20, at 4 p.m.
The winner of the game will claim the ECAC Hockey title and earn an automatic bid in the NCAA tournament. St. Lawrence is seeking its first NCAA appearance since 2007.
SATURDAY, 4 p.m. | FRANK PERROTTI JR. ARENA | HAMDEN, CONN.
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SAINTS GAME NOTES
THE ROAD TO THE ECAC HOCKEY CHAMPIONSHIP
- St. Lawrence advanced to the ECAC Hockey championship game with a 5-4 overtime win over Colgate on Thursday. It was a back-and-forth game, with neither team building more than a one-goal lead at any point in the game, and both teams leading twice before the overtime period.
- Cameron Buhl scored the game-winning goal just over eight minutes into the overtime period. It was the second goal of the game for Buhl, who tied the game 2-2 with a power play goal halfway through the second period.
- Tucker McIntosh also scored a pair of goals for the Saints after returning to the lineup more than two months after breaking his arm in St. Lawrence's game vs. Colgate on January 10. McIntosh scored the first goal fo the game 4:17 into the first period and gave the Saints a 4-3 lead at 5:45 of the third.
- Senior captain Dylan Woolf, also coming off a long layoff due to injury, scored the other St. Lawrence goal, tying the game 3-3 at 4:36 of the third period. Woolf and fellow senior captain Callum Cusinato had not played since January 24.
- Thursday's game was the first for St. Lawrence since February 27 as the team had to cancel its final four regular season games vs. Clarkson due to COVID-19 protocols. Originally slatd to face second-seeded Clarkson at Cheel Arena in Potsdam, the No. 3 Saints ended up hosting No. 4 Colgate when Clarkson ended its season on March 10.
SERIES HISTORY
- Quinnipiac has a 21-16-6 lead in the all-time series between the Saints and the Bobcats with a 4-1-1 record in games played this season.
- St. Lawrence started year by winning four of six points in the series, tying the Bobcats and losing in the shootout in their season opener at Appleton Arena on Dec. 31, then beating the Bobcats 4-2 on the road on Jan. 3, but Quinnipiac won the final four games of the series in regulation to win 14 of 18 points.
- St. Lawrence's win in the second game of the season snapped a nine-game winless streak against the Bobcats (0-8-1).
SCOUTING QUINNIPIAC
- Quinnipiac is ranked 10th in both national polls and ran away with the ECAC Hockey regular season title to claim the Cleary Cup with a .685 points won percentage.
- The Bobcats have played nearly twice as many games as the Saints this season (27) and their 17 wins eclipses the total number of games St. Lawrence has played.
- ECAC Hockey Player of the Year Odeen Tufto is a Top-10 Finalist for the Hobey Baker Award. He leads the nation with 38 assists and is second nationally with 44 points. Ethan de Jong and Ty Smilanic both have 14 goals for the Bobcats, while Zach Metsa ranks second nationally in points per game by a defenseman (0.93 on five goals and 20 assists in 27 games).
- ECAC Hockey Goaltender of the Year and Keith Petruzzelli joined Tufto as a Hobey Baker Top-10 Finalist. He ranks fourth nationally with a 1.78 goals against average and 10th nationally with a .929 save percentage.
- The Bobcats' power play ranks fifth nationally, converting at a 25.4% clip, while their penalty kill ranks fifth, successfully killing off 88.5% of their opponents' power plays.
- Quinnipiac has not played since splitting a pair of games with Colgate to close out the regular season. The Bobcats won the first game, 4-2, but fell in the regular season finale, 4-3. The loss broke an eight-game unbeaten streak.
SAINTS VS. BOBCATS: ECAC PLAYOFF HISTORY
| Year |
Round |
H/A/N |
W/L |
Score |
| 2007 |
Semifinals |
N |
L |
0-4 |
| 2009 |
Quarterfinals |
H |
W |
5-3 |
|
|
H |
W |
5-3 |
|
Quarterfinals |
H |
W |
2-0 |
| 2017 |
Quarterfinals |
H |
L |
2-3 |
|
|
H |
L |
2-3 |
SAINTS ECAC HOCKEY RECENT CHAMPIONSHIP HISTORY
- St. Lawrence is making its first trip to the ECAC Hockey championship game since 2001, when the Saints beat Cornell 3-1 to claim their sixth league title.
- Since that time, St. Lawrence has lost in the semifinals five times (2007, 2009, 2010, 2015 and 2016).
- St. Lawrence has won the ECAC Hockey title six times (1962, 1988, 1989, 1992, 2000 and 2001) and the program is 6-4 all-time in championship games (losses in 1964, 1987, 1991 and 1999).
BUHL TAKES SCORING INTO HIS OWN HANDS
- Sophomore forward Cameron Buhl has spent most of the season setting up his teammates, leading the Saints with 10 assists in 15 regular season games.
- In Thursday's win over Colgate, Buhl scored two goals, his fourth and fifth of the season. In the first 44 games of his career, Buhl had scored four goals and had never had a multi-goal game.
- Buhl is just one point shy of averaging one point per game. The last St. Lawrence player to do that was Mike Marnell, who had 27 points in 25 games played in 2016-17. The last player to average a point per team game for the Saints was Greg Carey, who had 57 points in 38 games as a senior in 2013-14.
FIRST HOME WIN OF 2021
- Entering Thursday night's game against Colgate, St. Lawrence had not won a game at home in over year.
- St. Lawrence's last win in Appleton Arena before Thursday's game was the 2019-20 regular season finale, a 6-3 triumph over Harvard on February 22, 2020.
- The Saints opened the season with four straight road wins and are 4-3-1 on the road and 1-5-2 at home.
NATION'S THIRD-RANKED PK
- St. Lawrence's penalty kill is ranked third nationally with an 90.2% success rate.
- In Thursday's game, the Saints were 4-for-4 on the penalty kill.
- The Saints have allowed just six power play goals this season and have three shorthanded tallies for a net score of -3 when skating shorthanded, tied for No. 1 in the nation with Bemidji State.
STRONG STARTS
- St. Lawrence has been strong out of the gate this season, outscoring the opposition 14-10 in the first period.
- The Saints have been outscored 15-12 in the second period and 17-9 in the third.
STRIKE FIRST, STRIKE HARD, NO MERCY
- St. Lawrence has scored first in 10 of 16 games this season and is 4-3-3 in those games.
- Last year, the Saints scored the game's first goal in just 13 of 36 games and was 3-7-3 in those contests.
BETTER RESULTS WHEN GETTING OUTSHOT
- St. Lawrence was outshot by Colgate 43-25 in Thursday's ECAC Hockey semifinal.
- The Saints have been outshot in 12 of 16 games this season and has been outshot, on average, by 7.5 shots per game.
- The Saints, however, have yet to win a game in which they outshoot the opposition, going 0-4-0 in those contests.
- On the flip side, St. Lawrence has a winning record (5-4-3) in games in which they have been outshot.
GET SHORTY
- Kaden Pickering has scored two shorthanded goals this season, and Jordan Steinmetz scored another.
- The last time St. Lawrence scored three shorthanded goals in a season was 2017-18, and the last player to score two in a season was Joe Sullivan '18, also in 2017-18.
ZETTERQUIST'S SEASON TOP-10 WORTHY
- Emil Zetterquist has a .926 save percentage this season, which ranks 12th nationally, and his performance has been among the best in St. Lawrence goaltending history, currently good for eighth in program single-season history.
ECAC HOCKEY AWARDS
Several St. Lawrence players earned awards and were named finalists for major ECAC Hockey awards this season.
* Winner has not been announced
FEWEST GAMES IN 50 YEARS
- If the Saints advance all the way to the NCAA Championship, they will play in 21 games this season, the same number as the 1960-61 team (which, coincidentally, lost to Denver in the NCAA Championship game).
- The Saints played 18 games in 1952-53, and in 1950-51 -- the Saints' first season in Appleton Arena -- the team played 14 games.
