Team Notes: Dartmouth Prepares for Home Weekend with Colgate & Cornell
HANOVER, N.H. - Ten teams look up in the standings and see Dartmouth sitting at the top with Union as the only two to escape the first weekend of ECAC Hockey unblemished.
The Big Green took two from Quinnipiac and Princeton to open the league schedule last weekend at Thompson Arena. After scoring just three goals in a split with Brown and Yale during the previous weekend's Ivy Shootout, Dartmouth's offense came alive against the Bobcats and Tigers.
The Big Green opened the conference slate with an exciting, come-from-behind 5-4 victory over Quinnipiac Friday night. Trailing by two midway through the second, Dartmouth continued to fight their way back into the game. After Mark Goggin's (Glen Ellyn, Ill.) tying goal midway through the third period, Quinnipiac answered back to once again take the lead.
Senior Nick Walsh's (Shannonville, Ontario) first of the season on a redirect at the top of the crease tied it with 1:57 on the clock. A review of the goal gave head coach Bob Gaudet a little bit of extra time to rest his top lines which proved effective as just 28 seconds later senior defender Connor Goggin's (Glen Ellyn, Ill.) blast from the point found its way into the back of the net for the game winner.
The sweep was completed the following night when 12 different players registered points and the Big Green put another five goals on the board, beating Princeton, 5-3.
Falling behind early did little to dampen the drive of Dartmouth on that night, tying the game just 2:16 after Princeton's opening tally on junior Alex Goodship's (Blackfalds, Alberta) quick snapshot to the top right corner. Junior Dustin Walsh (Shannonville, Ontario) scored the go-ahead goal just four-and-a-half minutes after that and the Big Green would never trail again in the contest.
Dustin Walsh finished the night with a goal and two assists and had five points total on the weekend, earning him ECAC Hockey Player of the Week honors.
Senior goaltender James Mello (Rehoboth, Mass.) continues his strong play, stopping 32 shots against Quinnipiac and another 36 against Princeton in earning the two league wins.
Union was the only other team to take its first two ECAC Hockey games during the opening weekend as parity was on display among the teams.
GAME NOTES
SCOUTING COLGATE
- The Raiders come to Hanover with a 5-3-1 overall record and a mark of 1-1 in ECAC Hockey play after a weekend split at Brown and Yale to open the league schedule.
- Senior Austin Smith leads the team in scoring this season with 13 points. His nine goals are also good for the team lead as the next closest Colgate player has just three so far this season.
- It has been more than a month since the Raiders won consecutive games, dating back to a weekend sweep of Nebraska-Omaha and Robert Morris to take the Mutual of Omaha Stampede title in early October.
- Head coach Don Vaughan won his 300th-career game in last Friday's 5-3 victory at Brown. Just seven days before, the Bears had been defeated by Dartmouth, 2-1, in Hanover that allowed Bob Gaudet to earn his 300th-career coaching win. Vaughan became the 15th active Division I coach to reach the milestone figure.
- Colgate opened league play with a 5-3 win in Providence over the Bears and followed with a 2-0 loss at Yale the next night in New Haven.
SCOUTING CORNELL
- The Big Red will take on Harvard prior to making the trip to Hanover for Saturday's tilt.
- Entering the weekend, Cornell is 1-2 after splitting games at Yale and Brown last Friday and Saturday. But, unlike Colgate, the Big Red cruised past Yale, 6-2, before falling at Brown, 5-4.
- Freshman forward Brian Ferlin had two goals and three assists in his first weekend of ECAC Hockey play, earning the league's Rookie of the Week honor in the process.
- Junior Greg Miller also has five points this season (2g/3a) to tie with Ferlin for the team lead.
- The Big Red opened the season with a 5-4 home loss to Mercyhurst on Saturday, Oct. 29.
PLAYER OF THE WEEK
Junior winger Dustin Walsh (Shannonville, Ontario)
used a five-point weekend (2g/3a) against Quinnipiac and Princeton
to earn Dartmouth's first ECAC Hockey Player of the Week honor of
2011-12. It was the first award from the league office for Walsh in
his career.
NATIONAL LEADER
Walsh now has seven points (2g/5a) in the Big Green's first four
games. His 1.75 points per game this year currently lead the
nation. Minnesota's Erik Haula has 17 points (7g/10a) in the
Gophers' 10 games this season for an average of 1.70 points per
game to rank second to Walsh.
FOUR BROTHERS
Dartmouth's game against Quinnipiac on Saturday may have had a
college hockey first as the Big Green had two sets of brothers
score goals in the same game for the same team. Connor
Goggin (Glen Ellyn, Ill.) and Mark Goggin (Glen
Ellyn, Ill.) scored third-period goals, while Dartmouth also got
markers from Nick Walsh (Shannonville, Ontario) and
brother Dustin in the contest. It is believed that this is the
first time that such an occurrence has happened in Division I
college hockey, but has yet to be confirmed.
300-Win Coaches
Bob Gaudet became the 14th active coach with
300-career wins in the season-opening victory against Brown.
Vaughan became the 15th a week later, also against Brown. Cornell's
Mike Shafer joined the club last season against Colgate on Nov. 27
in a game played at the Prudential Center in Newark, N.J., and
currently has 314 for his career. Last weekend also had another
300-win coach in Thompson Arena as Quinnipiac's Rand Pecknold was
in Hanover for Friday's game. The only non-300-win coach to lead a
team at Thompson in the last two week's was Princeton's first-year
head coach Bob Prier, who has one-career win.
POWER-PLAY WOES
Dartmouth continues its woes with the man-advantage this season.
Unable to score on its five opportunities against Quinnipiac
(0-for-3) and Princeton (0-for-2), the Big Green are 0-for-15 this
season on the power play. Nationally, only Cornell (2-for-8) and
Harvard (2-for-8) have had fewer chances with a man-up than
Dartmouth.
HOME COOKING
Victories over the Tigers and Bobcats marked the first home sweep
for the Big Green since taking out the same two opponents on Feb.
11-12 last season. Dartmouth defeated Quinnipiac, 3-1, and
Princeton, 4-1, in those two match-ups.
COMEBACK KIDS
Trailing the Bobcats, 3-2, entering the third period Friday night,
the Big Green were able to use three third-period goals to complete
a wild comeback. It marked the first win for Dartmouth when
trailing after two periods since it came back to beat Cornell, 5-4,
two seasons ago on Feb. 20, 2010.
NEW KID SCORES WINNERS
Freshman Tyler Sikura (Aurora, Ontario) was
originally credited with the winner against Quinnipiac before the
tally was changed to Connor Goggin after the game. It
didn't take Sikura long to pick up another as he scored the fourth
goal the following night against Princeton 13:37 into the third
period. Sikura now has two goals in his first four career games,
and both are game winners. His first goal came with 3:04 left in
the third against Brown to lift his team to a 2-1 win in the season
opener.
MELLO MAKES STOPS
After surrendering just three goals to Brown and Yale in the Ivy
Shootout, senior goaltender James Mello (Rehoboth,
Mass.) allowed seven in the next two games. But, allowing that many
goals was the result of two good offensive teams continually firing
pucks on the Dartmouth goalie. Mello turned aside 32 Quinnipiac
shots and followed by stopping a season-high 36 the next night
against Princeton. His 68 saves over the weekend were more than any
other goalie in ECAC Hockey over the two-day period.
UNLIKELY HERO
Junior Mark Goggin had not suited up in a game for
the Big Green since Feb. 12, 2010 when the team played Union at
home. He got his chance to crack the lineup for the first time
since that night against the Bobcats and made the most of it.
Goggin scored the tying goal 8:24 into the third period to make it
a 3-3 game for his first tally since Jan. 10, 2010 against
Yale.
AN EVEN DOZEN
Against Princeton, 12 different players registered points for the
Big Green. Junior Alex Goodship (Blackfalds, Alberta)
and sophomore Eric Robinson (Foxboro, Mass.)
scored their first goals of the season, while freshman
Brandon McNally's (Saugus, Mass.) empty-net tally in
the final seconds was the first of his college career. Sophomore
Nick Lovejoy's (Orford, N.H.) assist on Dustin
Walsh's first-period goal was the first point of his career
as well.
NEARING 100
Senior Doug Jones (Marietta, Ga.) missed both
contests last weekend, but with just two more games in a Dartmouth
sweater, Jones will have played in 100-career games. Currently
Jones has appeared in 98 games and has 18 goals and 64 assists for
82 points as a member of the Big Green.
28 APART
Against Quinnipiac, Nick Walsh's game-tying goal and
Connor Goggin's winner came just 28 seconds apart. It
was the fastest two goals for the Big Green since Adam
Estoclet and Dustin Walsh scored 15 seconds
apart to give Dartmouth a 2-0 lead at home against Princeton last
season (Feb. 12). Estoclet found the back of the net 6:12 into the
first period with a power-play goal, while Walsh picked up the
eventual game winner 6:27 into the opening frame.
AGAINST COLGATE
Dartmouth played Colgate four times during the 2010-11 season. The
teams met on New Year's Eve in the Consolation Game of the Ledyard
National Bank Classic with The Big Green winning, 4-3. Dartmouth
also beat Colgate in its regular-season home game, 7-3, a month
later. The Raiders won, 5-3, in their home game on Feb. 18. The two
also met in Atlantic City in the Consolation Game of the ECAC
Hockey Championships Mar. 19, with Dartmouth taking the 'W', 5-3.
Sophomore Matt Lindblad (Winnetka, Ill.) had nine
points (2g/7a) in the four games and is the active career leader in
scoring by a Dartmouth player against Colgate in just one
season.
