Quinnipiac University
Brown
QU Men's Ice Hockey's Landon Smith's Hat Trick Leads No. 18 Bobcats To 5-3 Win At Brown
1/30/2015 12:00:00 AM | Men's Ice Hockey
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PROVIDENCE, R.I. – Quinnipiac freshman Landon Smith's (Greenwood Village, Colorado) hat trick led the No. 18 Bobcats to a 5-3 win at Brown to improve to 16-8-1 overall and 11-2-0 in ECAC Hockey play. The Bobcats' win at Meehan Auditorium snaps a five-game winless streak on Brown's home ice and drops the Bears to 4-16 overall and 1-12 in league play.
"We did a lot of good things tonight," head coach Rand Pecknold said. "We're a young team with 18 freshmen and sophomores. We made some mistakes that we'll learn from and we'll be better because of that."
Smith's three-goal night is the second hat trick this season for the Bobcats after St. Denis had the trifecta at Rensselaer on Nov. 15, 2014. Smith becomes the first Quinnipiac freshman to tally a hat trick since Brandon Wong scored three times in an 8-1 win against American International on Feb. 13, 2007. It is also the 20th hat trick in Quinnipiac's Division I history and 29th all-time. He is also just the third freshman in NCAA Division I men's ice hockey this season to total three goals in a game.
"Landon [Smith] is a goal-scorer," Pecknold said. "He competed hard tonight, I thought he had a lot of jump and was committed early. He was excellent tonight."
In addition to Smith's three-goal night, Matthew Peca (Petawawa, Ontario) had a goal and two assists while Travis St. Denis (Trail, British Columbia) had three asissts. Soren Jonzzon (Mountain View, California) added two assists in the Bobcats' win while Sam Anas (Potomac, Maryland) scored his team-leading 14th goal of the season. In goal, Michael Garteig (Prince George, British Columbia) had 22 saves to improve to 15-6 on the season.
"I thought Matthew Peca made a great play late to score the empty-netter and seal this one for us," Pecknold said.
For Peca, he increases his team-leading assist tally to 20 assist of the season and also gives him 10 assists and 13 points in the Bobcats' first nine games of the second half of the season. One of the top active assist leaders in NCAA Division I men's ice hockey, Peca now has 92 for his career.
Smith put Quinnipiac on the board less than three minutes into the game after the Bobcats broke up an attempted clear by Brown out of their defensive zone. Peca battled a Brown skater in the corner to the left of Bears' goalie Tyler Steel before getting his stick on the puck and re-directing towards center ice. Connor Clifton (Matawan, New Jersey) picked up the loose puck and fed Smith in the right face-off dot, all alone. Smith wristed a shot over Steel's right shoulder to give the Bobcats an early lead.
A back and forth battle over the next 12-plus minutes of the first ended with Smith's second goal of the night. Danny Federico (Acton, Massachusetts) won a battle behind the Bobcats net and handed the puck off to Jonzzon just above the goal line. Jonzzon's stretch pass to Smith led the freshman wing before he stepped between two Brown defenders just above the blue line, skated to the slot and sniped a shot past Steel as Quinnipiac jumped out to a 2-0 lead.
Anas deposited his team-leading 14th goal of the year just 29 seconds later when he took a pass from St. Denis just above the crease and wristed the puck past Steel to give Quinnipiac a three-goal lead. K.J. Tiefenwerth (Bellmore, New York) kept the puck alive behind the Brown goal before beating a Bears defender for position and tipping to St. Denis.
With four minutes to play in the second period, Brown's Mark Naclerio took a stretch pass from Joey de Concilys and split a pair of Quinnipiac defenders for the break away. Naclerio stepped between the face-off circles and wristed a shot that beat Garteig five-hole to pull Brown within two goals, 3-1.
Naclerio scored his second of the night when he took a pass from Josh McCardle in the slot and fired on goal. The puck found space to Garteig's left to trim Quinnipiac's lead to a goal, 3-2, with just under 19 minutes to play in the game.
Smith's third goal of the game came less than three minutes later when he took a pass from Jonzzon on the back-door and fired on Brown's goal. Bears goalie Connor Maher slid across the goal line and got in front of the puck, which caromed off his chest and under his arm to the Bobcats' goal. Jonzzon and Peca both picked up their second assists of the game on the play.
Moments later, Brown's Naclerio scored his third goal of the night to pull a resilient Brown team within a goal, 4-3, with just under 15 minutes to play in regulation. With a minute to play, Peca scored on an empty net, his fifth goal of the season, to push Quinnipiac's lead to 5-3.
Quinnipiac is back in action on Saturday, Jan. 31 when it travels down Whitney Ave. to take on No. 16 Yale at 7 p.m at Ingalls Rink in New Haven, Connecticut.
