Team Notes: Dartmouth Hosts Quinnipiac and Princeton for Winter Carnival
HANOVER, N.H. – The Dartmouth men's hockey plays host to Quinnipiac and Princeton during Winter Carnival this weekend as the Big Green is looking to gain ground in acquiring one of ECAC Hockey's top-four spots and a first round bye. Currently there are just 16 points that seperate first place Yale and seventh place Quinnipiac as Dartmouth and Cornell are tied for fourth with 20 points. Princeton sits in sixth place with 19 points. Dartmouth is 6-3-1 in its last 10 games with all three losses coming to Top 10 teams RPI and Yale twice.
The surging Quinnipiac Bobcats have won or tied 11 of their last 14 contests and sit in seventh place with a 6-7-4 ECAC record and is 13-11-5 overall. Last weekend the Bobcats lost a close game to Union, 3-2 while also tying Rensselaer, 3-3. In the first matchup between Quinnipiac and Dartmouth the Bobcats scored goals in the second and third periods to take a 2-0 victory over the Big Green. Currently eleven Quinnipiac players are scoring in double-figures with Jeremy Langlois leading the squad with 20 points while Scott Zurevinski and Connor Jones are right behind with 19 and 18, respectively. Netminder Eric Hartzell has played the majority of the minutes with 21 appearances. He has a 2.30 goals against average and a .926 save percentage while netting 10 wins for Quinnipiac.
The Bobcats hold the lead in the series with a 9-5-1 record in 15 meetings all-time against Dartmouth, dating back to thre first meeting on Oct. 30, 2004. Last season, Quinnipiac and the Big Green split the regular-season series, with the home team winning in both cases. The two squared off in the first round of the ECAC Hockey Tournament, with the Bobcats winning the first and third games to advance to the quarterfinal round. Including last season's ECAC Hockey Tournament, Quinnipiac has won six of the last eight games between the two teams.
Princeton dropped a pair of games last weekend at home to Union and Rensselaer. The losses were the first consecutive losses for Princeton since the first three games of the season and snapped a 12-series streak of not being swept, which dated back to a 2010 series, also with RPI and Union. Princeton is now 9-3-1 in its last 12 games and 14-5-1 in its last 20 games after opening the season with three consecutive one-goal losses. Andrew Calof and Mike Kramer are the only two Princeton players to have 20 or more points with 24 and 22, respectively. Nine Tigers are currently scoring in double-figures. In net Mike Condon and Sean Bonar have split time almost equally as Condon has played in 10 games and Bonar in nine. Condon has a 6-3-1 record and has a 2.70 GAA and a .907 save percentage while Bonar is 6-3 with a 1.78 GAA and a .926 save percentage.
The Big Green leads the all-time series with Princeton 92-83-13 overall and 38-32-7 in games played in Hanover. The teams have alternated two-game win streaks over the past several years, with Dartmouth taking a playoff series in 2007, Princeton sweeping the 2007-08 league series, Dartmouth taking the 2008-09 league slate and Princeton sweeping the 2009-10 meetings. This year Dartmouth has already topped the Tigers twice, taking a non-league meeting to open the season 2-1 and a league game on Nov. 20 by a 3-2 score.
Scott Fleming (Plainfield, Ont.) continues to lead the home team in scoring with 24 points and is just one away from recording 100 career points. Doug Jones (Marietta, Ga.) has joined the 20-point club with exactly that amount while Adam Estoclet (Orono, Minn.) and Matt Reber (Edina, Minn.) have 19 points each. Nine Dartmouth players are scoring in double-figures. Junior goaltender James Mello (Rehoboth, Mass.) continues to be the go-to guy for head coach Bob Gaudet. Mello has appeared in 19 games and has a 11-4-3 record. With a 2.11 goals against average and a .933 save percentage, Mello is tops in the ECAC.
Dartmouth takes to the road next weekend for its final regular-season road series against Colgate and Cornell.
