Dartmouth Men's Hockey Falls to Clarkson, 6-3

Friday, February 20

Potsdam, N.Y.

7:00 PM

Dartmouth College

Clarkson

Dartmouth Men's Hockey Falls to Clarkson, 6-3

2/20/2009 12:00:00 AM | Men's Ice Hockey

By: Dartmouth

POTSDAM, N.Y. ? Clarkson took an early lead and proved too much for the Dartmouth men's hockey team as the Golden Knights took a 6-3 victory over the Big Green on Friday night at Cheel Arena. With a St. Lawrence loss to Harvard the game between Dartmouth and SLU in St. Lawrence's Appleton Arena on Saturday sets up a showdown for fourth place in the ECAC standings.

Clarkson's Bryan Rufenach struck first at 7:44 with a power play, just seven seconds into the extra-man opportunity as the Golden Knights completely dominated the first 10:00 of the opening frame.

Adam Estoclet (Orono, Minn.) and Rob Pritchard (Burnaby, B.C.) attempted to connect on Dartmouth's own power play chance with 2:00 left in the first period but Clarkson netminder Richie LaVeau was up to the task. Troy Mattila () hit the side of the net with :16 left in the frame but couldn't find the back of the net as the Big Green went into the break down 1-0, not having scored a goal in its last four periods of play.

Early in the second Shea Guthrie deked two Dartmouth defenders as the Golden Knights attempted to increase their lead but Jody O'Neill (Nepean, Ont.), the Big Green's netminder, made the save.

Pritchard notched a shorthanded strike to tie the game at 14:41 of the second. The senior captain took the puck in transition and skated down slamming the puck into the slot to score his seventh goal of the season.

Guthrie gave the home team the lead back on a 2-on-1 as the NHL prospect got the puck past O'Neill for the score.

Dartmouth began the third period on the man-advantage as Scott Fleming (Plainfield, Ont.) took a shot before the Golden Knights sent another to the penalty box as the Big Green had a 5-on-3 advantage for :40. Clarkson killed the penalties off, preserving the lead.

Julian Cayer staked Clarkson to a two-goal lead at 5:33 when he fired a shot stick side on O'Neill off a screen before a turnover in the Dartmouth end allowed Guthrie to steal the pass and push the puck past O'Neill for the 4-1 score and his second of the night.

Estoclet answered quickly for the Big Green as he sniped a shot glove side off the faceoff as Dartmouth came right back.

With 9:10 left a power play goal by Brandon DeFazio gave the Golden Knights a 5-2 lead. DeFazio took an O'Neill rebound and wound the puck through the Dartmouth netminder's legs for the score.

Connor Shields (Edmonton, Alta.) tallied a power play goal with 12:58 left to get one back for the Big Green. Peter Boldt (Greenwich, Conn.) and Fleming assisted.

Clarkson put the exclamation point on the night with an empty net goal with less than a minute to play as the Golden Knights finished the night with 35 shots to the Big Green's 21.

LaVeau finished with 18 saves while O'Neill h ad 29. Dartmouth is now 13-10-3 overall, 10-7-2 in the ECAC while Clarkson improved to 9-16-6, 7-9-3 in the ECAC.

The Big Green will square off with the St. Lawrence Saints on Saturday at 7:00 pm.