The St. Lawrence University men's hockey team lost 5-0 in a hard-fought battle against the No. 2-ranked Quinnipiac Bobcats at Appleton Arena on Saturday night.
 
The Scarlet and Brown fell to 15-15-0 on the year and 10-8-0 in ECAC play, while the Bobcats improved to 24-3-3, and 16-2-0 in league play.
 
The first period ended almost even in shots, with the Bobcats holding a slight 12-10 edge, but goals by Christophe Fillion, Collin Graf and Anthony Cipollone gave Quinnipiac a 3-0 lead at the intermission.
 
Just over a minute in, the Bobcats converted a tic-tac-toe play with Fillion netting the goal, assisted by linemate Cristophe Tellier and defenseman CJ McGee.
 
The Bobcats kept the momentum with an unassisted post-in goal by Graf less than three minutes later to increase the lead to 2-0 at the 4:10 mark of the first period.
 
The Saints found some energy on their first power play, with scoring chances on shots by Luc Salem and Ty Naaykens.


 
Unfortunately for the Saints, they were soon forced to kill a penalty of their own, but they managed to kill the man-advantage with a great save by Emil Zetterquist just as the penalty expired.
 
Just over half-way through the first period, the Saints had another great scoring chance on the power play, with Max Dorrington crashing the net, causing a heavy battle in front, but he was unable to get the puck past Quinnipiac goaltender Yaniv Perets.
 
With only five minutes left in the first period, the Bobcats got on the board again with a tip out front by Cipollone on a shot by Iivari Räsänen and assisted by Victor Czerneckianair.
 
The second period proved to be a dominant one for the Bobcats in shots and chances, but Zetterquist stopped 14 of 15 shots he faced in the period for the Saints.
 
Less than five minutes into the period, Graf walked around Zetterquist in front of the net, scoring his second unassisted goal of the night, putting the Bobcats up 4-0.
 
The Bobcats scored their fifth goal of the game halfway through the third period, just as a St. Lawrence penalty ended, with Jayden Lee scoring on a slapshot set up by Räsänen for his second assist of the night.
 
As the clock ran down, so did the chances for both teams, leaving the shots at a final 29-18 for the Bobcats. Perets stopped all 18 shots he made in the shutout effort for the Bobcats, while Zetterquist finished with 24 saves.
 
The Scarlet and Brown, now tied for fourth place in the ECAC Hockey standings with Colgate, hit the road next weekend to face the Colgate Raiders and the Cornell Big Red, February 17 and 18, before returning home for the final two games of regular season play.