Yale caps miracle run with first-ever NCAA title

Thanks to USCHO.com

by Bob Herpen
Phanatic Hockey Editor

Jeff Malcolm celebrated his 24th birthday by stopping all 36 shots he faced, as Yale topped Quinnipiac, 4-0, to claim the Ivy League school's first men's hockey championship in the 2013 NCAA final from CONSOL Energy Center.

Charlie Orzetti, Andrew Miller and Jesse Root scored in a three-goal final period for the Bulldogs (22-12-3), who vanquished Minnesota, North Dakota and UMass-Lowell to reach the championship game for the first time in school history.

Clinton Bourbonais broke a scoreless deadlock late in the second for Yale, which hadn't reached the national semifinals since 1952 but became the lowest overall seed to win it all.

"(The message) was the same as always, just keep playing good hockey for the next 20 minutes," Yale forward Kenny Agostino said of the remarks from head coach Keith Allain at the second intermission. "He had a goal, we all bought into it. We played as a team, got closer as the year went on."

Hobey Baker finalist Eric Hartzell surrendered three goals on 30 shots for the Bobcats (30-8-5), the top overall seed and ECAC regular-season champion, who also progressed further than any other team in program annals.

The Bulldogs tallied with 3.5 seconds left in the second, as Bourbonais deflected a Gus Young drive past Hartzell -- who had cleared the puck up the boards in an attempt to kill the remaining time in the period.

"I was ready. I got back to my net, didn't see the release of the shot but I saw the deflection," Hartzell said. "By the time I picked it up, it was going to my left pad, but there was a funky bounce and it came back between my legs."

It was 2-0 for Yale with 3:35 played in the third, when Orzetti followed up his own rebound on the left wing and scored from a sharp angle.

“I think obviously he’d love to have that second one back,” Quinnipiac head coach Rand Pecknold said of Hartzell's positioning which led to the score. “It’s part of the game.”

Miller's low shot on a breakaway at 9:06 provided a three-goal margin, then Quinnipiac pulled Hartzell with 7:19 left during a 4-on-4 situation and Root hit the empty cage inside of seven minutes left.

“What really epitomized it was we get the goal late in the second. They come out and they’re really pushing in the first three minutes of the third period," Allain admitted. "They were getting chance after chance and he held the fort for us. It was after an extended [Quinnipiac] chance that Charles [Orzetti] broke it out for us and came down and scored on the transition.”

In a scoreless first period, 20 combined shots and as many quality scoring chances failed to result in a score.

Both Malcolm and Hartzell kept each side at bay for most of the second period despite often frantic action in either offensive zone.

Notes: Yale became the first ECAC team to win the championship since Harvard in 1989, while Quinnipiac became the first ECAC team to be runner-up since Colgate in 1990...With the campuses less than 10 miles apart between New Haven (Yale) and Hamden (Quinnipiac), it's the closest for two teams in the national final since Boston College and Boston University met in 1978...Malcolm is the first goaltender to record a title-game shutout since John Muse in 2010 for Boston College (5-0 vs. Wisconsin ...Quinnipiac won the first three meetings this season by a combined 10-3 count...The Bobcats finished with a school-record 30 wins this season.