Quinnipiac junior forward Sam Anas was questionable for both games of the NCAA hockey tournament East Regional because of an upper-body injury he suffered in last Saturday’s ECAC Hockey tournament championship game against Harvard.
The right-handed shooting Anas appeared to have problems shooting the puck in pregame warmups.
But once the game started, Anas had no troubles.
Anas scored a remarkable goal that snapped a 1-1 tie midway through the second period, propelling Quinnipiac to a 4-1 win over UMass Lowell in Sunday’s East Regional championship game at the Times Union Center.
Quinnipiac (31-3-7), the top-seeded team in the tournament and top-ranked team in the country, advances to the Frozen Four for the second time in four years, and will face Boston College in the first semifinal April 7 at 5 p.m. in Tampa, Fla. (The 8:30 p.m. semifinal has Denver playing North Dakota.) The Bobcats played in the 2013 championship game, losing to New Haven-area rival Yale 4-0.
This is the fourth time in five years that ECAC Hockey will have a team in the Frozen Four. Besides Quinnipiac and Yale in 2013, Union made it in 2012 and 2014, winning the title in 2014.
“It was a stressful weekend,” Anas said. “In the end, it was playoff hockey [and] a chance to go to Tampa. It’s the best time of the year. I don’t think there was any way I was going to let myself not play. The doctors did a great job of getting me ready.”
Quinnipiac coach Rand Pecknold wasn’t confident that his leading scorer was going to be able to take the ice.
“He’s got an ‘A’ on his shirt for a good reason,” Pecknold said. “He’s a phenomenal hockey player, and he’s even a better person. Both times after warmups, I didn’t know if he could go, but he said, ‘I want to play.’ ”
Sunday’s game didn’t start off well for Anas, who took a hooking penalty 1:45 into the game. That led to a Dylan Zink power-play goal at 3:01.
Anas took another penalty, for tripping at 8:21 of the second period. This time, the Bobcats killed it off, and that’s when the Bobcats started to dominate the period.
First, Anas set up Landon Smith’s goal midway through the period to tie it 1-1. Smith fired a wrister past goalie Kevin Boyle’s right pad from the slot.
Then Anas had a great individual play to give Quinnipiac the lead. He chipped the puck past UML defenseman Chris Forney in the neutral zone and started a 2-on-1 rush down the left wing with Smith on his right and UML defenseman Tommy Panico defending. Using Smith as a decoy, Anas lifted a backhander over Boyle’s right shoulder
“[Forney] stepped up at the red line, and I was able to poke it by him,” Anas said. “The defenseman gave me a mini-breakaway with the goalie. We’ve been talking that the goalie likes to over-challenge. I gave a little fake shot, and then put it to my backhand and was able to get it past him,”
It was an inspirational goal for the Bobcats.
“Sam is a huge part of our team,” Smith said, “To see him come out and battle through an injury and to do the things he does well, it really picks up the bench and really picks up the boys. If he’s battling like he is, we have to step it up, too.”
Late in the period, Scott Davidson scored a bad-angle goal to give the Bobcats a two-goal advantage. Davidson was skating down the right wing, and he was being angled toward the boards by UML defenseman Niklas Folin. As Davidson got to the corner, he fired the puck to the net.
Boyle didn’t appear to be ready for the shot, which sailed over his shoulder.
Between the goals by Anas and Davidson, Quinnipiac goalie Michael Garteig stopped a breakaway by Zink, who was coming out of the penalty box after serving a high-sticking minor.
“I thought it was the turning point of the game,” UML coach Norm Bazin said. “He’s one of our best on the breakaway. You couldn’t ask for a better guy to be going down, and Garteig made a good play.”
Garteig earned the Most Outstanding Player of the regional.
UMass Lowell 1 0 0 — 1
Quinnipiac 0 3 1 — 4
First Period — 1, UMass Lowell, Zink 11 (Forney, Edwardh), 3:01 (pp). Penalties — Anas, Qui (hooking), 1:45.
Second Period — 2, Quinnipiac, L. Smith 11 (Anas), 10:33. 3, Quinnipiac, Anas 24, 12:11. 4, Quinnipiac, Davidson 9 (McKernan), 17:51. Penalties — Anas, Qui (tripping), 8:21; Zink, UML (high-sticking), 13:17; Tiefenwerth, Qui (interference), 19:09.
Third Period — 5, Quinnipiac, St. Denis 22, 16:06. Penalties — Toews, Qui (high-sticking), 6:09.
Shots on Goal — UMass Lowell 6-4-5 — 15. Quinnipiac 10-13-12 — 35.
Power-play opportunities — UMass Lowell 1 of 4; Quinnipiac 0 of 1.
Goalies — UMass Lowell, Boyle 24-10-5 (35 shots-31 saves). Quinnipiac, Garteig 31-3-7 (15-14).
A — 2,975. T — 2:35.
Referees — Geno Binda Jr., Todd Anderson. Linesmen — Paul Carnathan, John Philo.
Categories: -Sports-
