No. 11 Union Hands Big Green 5-1 Home Loss

Friday, February 10

Hanover, N.H.

7:00 PM

Dartmouth College

UNION

2/10/2012 10:30:00 PM | Men's Ice Hockey

By: Dartmouth

HANOVER, N.H. - In front of 3,042 fans Friday night at Thompson Arena, the No. 11 Union men's hockey team showed why it is at the top of the ECAC Hockey standings, defeating Dartmouth, 5-1, and clinching home ice for at least the first round of the upcoming league tournament.

Dartmouth (9-11-4, 6-8-3 ECAC Hockey) could have played spoiler and denied the Dutchmen (17-6-7, 11-3-4 ECAC Hockey) the opportunity to lock up at least one round of home ice for another week as Union is off Saturday night having already played Harvard in mid January in a game that was held at Fenway Park.

Thanks to Yale's 4-2 loss at Colgate Friday, Dartmouth remains in seventh in the conference standings with 15 points. Union's three-point edge over Cornell for first remains intact, 26-23.

A goal 1:06 into the game on a wrist shot from Kelly Zajac set the tone for the night as the visitors would make it 2-0 just 4:22 later on Kevin Sullivan's third tally of the season.

Sullivan's goal deflected in off the leg of a Big Green forward backchecking through the slot and chased starting goalie Jody O'Neill (Nepean, Ontario) from the cage less than five and a half minutes into the game.

James Mello (Rehoboth, Mass.) came into the game and finished the night with 28 saves, but was only tested four times the remainder of the first period. Two sprawling stops on the goal line in the second period kept the game close midway through and were some of Mello's best this season.

A Max Novak goal gave the Dutchmen what at the time felt like a commanding 3-0 lead 4:20 into the middle period.

The offensive bright spot on this night for the home team came 16:14 into the second as junior Alex Goodship (Blackfalds, Alberta) broke up a clearing attempt in the slot and made a quick backhanded pass to his right and the waiting Brandon McNally (Saugus, Mass.) at the far post.

McNally buried the feed from Goodship for his fifth of the season and cut the deficit to two, 3-1.

However, that euphoric feeling quickly vanished for the Big Green as Union's Matt Hatch scored 1:55 later to take a 4-1 lead into the locker rooms during the second intermission.

Mat Bodie added a fifth Union goal late in the third to seal the win and guarantee the Dutchmen will play at least one round of the ECAC Hockey Tournament at Messa Rink next month.

Union's Colin Stevens got the nod in net Friday, stopping 26 shots in improving to 3-2-4 in 2011-12. Despite just the 5:28 in net and one save, O'Neill was saddled with the loss, dropping to 1-3-1 on the season.

Neither team was able to do anything with the man-advantage as neither team was really given the chance to set up and get its power-play unit going. Both teams only had one chance with the extra skater in the game as just four penalties were called the entire night.

Union swept the season series for the first time since the 1996-97 season. The Big Green had swept Union in a series on three occasions since last dropping back-to-back contests to the Dutchmen in a single season.

Dartmouth will now look to snap a five-game winless streak (0-3-2) Saturday night when it plays host to last-place Rennselaer (7-19-2, 4-10-3 ECAC Hockey), at 7 p.m. The Engineers played Harvard Friday, skating to a 2-2 draw in Cambridge.