Dartmouth Men's Hockey Sees Season End at Quinnipiac

Sunday, March 7

Hamden, Conn.

7:00 PM

Dartmouth College

Quinnipiac

Dartmouth Men's Hockey Sees Season End at Quinnipiac

3/7/2010 9:00:00 PM | Men's Ice Hockey

By: Dartmouth

HAMDEN, Conn. – The Dartmouth men's hockey team had its season come to a close on Sunday at Quinnipiac as the Bobcats escaped the first round of the ECAC Hockey playoffs with a 2-1 victory.

Took awhile for the Big Green to get going in the opening stanza as Quinnipiac looked like it was going to control the puck in the early goings. The Bobcats had the first three shots on net but by the six-minute mark the home team was still stuck at three while Dartmouth had soared ahead with 10 shots, putting tremendous pressure on netminder Dan Clarke.

Despite having more shots that the Bobcats through the first 18:00 of play, it would be Quinnipiac that got the first goal. A steal at center ice by Eric Lampe has the senior in a foot race with Andrew Owsiak (Moose Jaw, Sask.) as Lampe just beats the Big Green forward and roofs the puck over goalie James Mello (Rehoboth, Mass.) for the goal.

With two Bobcat penalties, Dartmouth had the only extra-man chances of the frame but QU remembered how the Big Green had burned them with three power play goals the night before so the home team was extra cautious on the penalty kill. Dartmouth ended the period with 33 seconds of extra-man time left but had been unable to generate a shot up to that point. The Big Green went into the first break with a lot of momentum but only an 11-8 advantage in shots to show for it as QU had the early 1-0 lead. Dartmouth was just 1-8-1 on the season when trailing after the first as the Big Green hoped to buck that trend in the playoffs.

Jody O'Neill (Nepean, Ont.) was in net for Dartmouth in the second period as Mello was knocked around in the first and did not come back. Unfortunately the first shot O'Neill faced was a backhander by Ben Ketchum that sailed right over the goalie's stick hand for the score.

O'Neill seemed to settle in net after giving up the goal as he made some terrific saves to keep QU off the board in the midway part of the period. Scott Zurevinski had a huge second-chance effort as he took two shots on a fully prone O'Neill but the sophomore netminder was able to get his leg out to prevent the score.

Despite still leading in shots after two period the Big Green was still trailing, 2-0 as Dartmouth just couldn't find that shot that was going to crack the scoreboard and the Big Green found itself with one period left to keep its season going.

Four minutes into the final period of play and neither side had garnered a shot on net. Quinnipiac got the first two shots at 15:23 but O'Neill came up huge, making a kick save on one shot and then standing up quickly to swat the second puck out of the air.

Dartmouth had a power play chance midway through the frame and was able to get three shots on Clarke. The Big Green's best chance came in the waning seconds as a shot got just behind Clarke as the goalie had come out of the net but there was no one there with a green uniform to push the puck back in as Dartmouth was still scoreless at 9:36.

Quinnipiac called a timeout at 6:10 but it was the Big Green that used the break wisely as head coach Bob Gaudet brought his team together to let them know they were still in the game. Joe Stejskal (Grand Rapids, Minn.) took a huge shot from the blue line that finally sailed past Clarke as Dartmouth saw itself on the board for the first time in the game. Scott Fleming (Plainfield, Ont.) assisted.

With under 4:00, the Big Green was whistled for its first penalty as the visitors suddenly saw themselves on the penalty kill when they really needed to have the puck in the QU end to try for the tying score.

The Bobcats did a great job in the final minute keeping the puck in the Big Green end to prevent O'Neill from skating to bench for the extra skater.

Mello finished with seven saves while O'Neill had 20. Clarke was net for Quinnipiac with 29 saves.

Dartmouth ends its season with a 10-19-3 record while Quinnipiac advances and improves to 19-16-2.