Late in the third period, Clarkson’s first line broke through the neutral zone with speed, creating a 2-on-1 situation with Dakota Derrer back for Syracuse. Junior Michaela Pejzlova laid the puck off to senior Loren Gabel a little past the blue line and made a beeline for the net.

Gabel turned sideways as she carried the puck on the left side of goalie Ady Cohen, and as Gabel crossed the faceoff dot inside the Syracuse zone, she flipped the puck past Derrer and onto Pejzlova’s stick. The Czech forward was left with a tap-in to complete her hat-trick and put the Golden Knights up 6-2.

It was the final goal in an offensive onslaught for the reigning national champions, No. 2 Clarkson (6-1-0), Friday night at the Tennity Ice Pavilion as they beat Syracuse (2-5-0, 2-2-0 College Hockey America), 6-2, in the first of a home-and-home on back-to-back nights. Orange head coach Paul Flanagan said that while his team was fairly even against the other lines, the first line was in the Syracuse end nearly the whole time it was on the ice, skewing the game in Clarkson’s favor.

“It was the varsity playing against the JV when they were out there,” he said. “Those three are really dynamic players, and it’s no wonder they won a national championship last year.”

After a strong 19 minutes to start the game, Syracuse gave up a late power play goal in the first period to make it 2-1 for Clarkson heading into the intermission, which Flanagan said deflated the Orange. Just shy of five minutes into the second period, Clarkson netted another.

Both goals were scored by Pejzlova, and in both cases, she was allowed to skate from the side of the net to the slot area untouched. The junior forward, who came into the game with two goals this season, made no mistake either time and on her second goal showed great patience in letting Cohen fall to the ice in a desperate attempt to play the puck before slotting her shot into the vacated net.

Flanagan explained after the game that in SU’s defensive system, the weak-side forward is used as a safety valve to either go out to the point or help in front of the net, and on that play, “They didn’t even respond.”

“It’s all upstairs,” Flanagan said. “It’s not so much physical as it is just understanding what you have to do mentally.”

That was the beginning of a nightmare second period for Syracuse. They would concede two more goals in the frame and went into the second intermission trailing 5-1.

Flanagan pointed to the four penalties Syracuse took in the first period as part of the reason why his team could not respond physically to Clarkson in the middle period. The Orange were forced to play many of their top players heavy minutes on the penalty kill, and that wore them out as the game went on.

With tired legs, Flanagan said SU began to play more one-on-one hockey, which led to more turnovers, the key factor in Syracuse’s demise.

“It wears you down physically, especially how well they move the puck,” Cohen said. “They had it in our zone most of the time, and moving around even without shots, and then having shots, wears you down.”

The Orange grabbed one back in the third period when sophomore Emma Polaski finished off a tic-tac-toe play on a zone entry. Kelli Rowswell found Anonda Hoppner with a cross-ice feed, and Hoppner slid it to Polaski who slotted the puck through Clarkson goalie Kassidy Sauve’s five-hole.

Flanagan said it was one of the rare times throughout the night when Syracuse was able to string together multiple passes at even strength. One of the key differences between the two sides was consistency on offense, which showed as Clarkson scored three goals outside of its big second period, too.

“[Clarkson] know how to win, and right now, we know how to lose, so that’s the story of the ball game,” Flanagan said.

Published on October 26, 2018 at 10:40 pm

Contact Arabdho: armajumd@syr.edu | @aromajumder