Dartmouth Men's Hockey Wins its Opening Game at the Wells Fargo Denver Cup

Friday, December 28

Denver, Colo.

4:00 (MST)

Dartmouth College

Northern Michigan

Dartmouth Men's Hockey Wins its Opening Game at the Wells Fargo Denver Cup

12/28/2007 12:00:00 AM | Men's Ice Hockey

By: Dartmouth

Boxscore

DENVER, Colo. ? In the Dartmouth (5-4-1) men's hockey team's first game in 27 days, the Big Green ran past the Northern Michigan Wildcats (7-11-1), 4-1, in the opening round of the 2007 Wells Fargo Denver Cup. With the victory senior netminder Mike Devine (Orchard Park, N.Y.) now has 40 for his career, tying him with head coach Bob Gaudet on the Dartmouth career charts.

Joe Gaudet (Etna, N.H.) broke the scoreless tie with a laser from the point at 8:07 in the opening frame. Andrew Owsiak (Moose Jaw, Sask.) recorded his first assist of the season as he passed down to Rob Smith (Brooks, Alta.) at the left side of the net. Smith came around behind the net passing to Gaudet for the strike.

Northern Michigan tied things up at 16:08 when Phil Fox took a shot that Dartmouth netminder Devine stretched his leg out to save. The puck skipped past Devine's outstretched leg and into the back of the net.

The Wildcats looked like they had another one as a rebound bounced behind Devine as he had to fall backward to stop the puck's momentum.

Both teams had one power play opportunity in the period but neither was able to capitalize with the extra skater.

J.T. Wyman (Wayzata, Minn.), Connor Shields (Edmonton, Alta.) and Rob Pritchard (Burnaby, B.C.) combined for the Big Green's second goal of the game midway through the second period. Traffic in front allowed Shields to get a shot off as Wyman was there for the rebound at 12:16.

After two periods the two were tied at 23 shots apiece as Dartmouth outshot Northern Michigan, 15-8 in the second.

NMU almost tied things up with under 10:00 left in the contest as the puck rang off the pipe with Devine there to bat it away. Another pipe at 6:45 with the Wildcats on the power play had the Big Green on its heels.

Matt Reber (Edina, Minn.) gave Dartmouth a two-goal lead at 14:57 in the third as he got the puck on his own blue line and skated in one-on-one with NMU netminder Brian Stewart. Reber brought Stewart out of the net, shooting into the empty side for his second goal of the season. Pritchard also assisted.

Nick Johnson (Calgary, Alta.) potted his fourth goal of the year and Dartmouth's fourth of the game in the waning minutes. Wyman and Shields both assisted.

Devine finished with 37 saves while Stewart had 27. The Wildcats outshot the Big Green, 38-31 while Dartmouth finished 1-for-3 on the extra man. UNM was 0-for-4.

The Big Green will now play host Denver in the championship game on Saturday, Dec. 29 game time is slated for 7:05 pm (MST).