ECAC Hockey Foes Quinnipiac and Princeton Host No. 8 Big Green

GAME NOTES

GAME 14
No. 8 Dartmouth (8-3-2, 4-1-1 ECAC) vs. No. 5 Quinnipiac (14-3-2, 8-0-0 ECAC)
NESN
- Friday, Jan. 4, 2013 - 7:07 PM - Hamden, Conn.
- TD Bank Sports Center (3,286)
- All-Time Series: QU, 10-7-1 (19th Meeting)
- Last Meeting: Feb. 4, 2012 (Hamden) - L, 2-1
- Streak: 0-1-0

GAME 15
No. 8 Dartmouth (8-3-2, 4-1-1 ECAC) vs. Princeton (3-7-4, 2-2-3 ECAC)
- Saturday, Jan. 5, 2013 - 4 PM - Princeton, N.J.
- Hobey Baker Rink (2,092)
- All-Time Series: Dartmouth, 93-83-15 (192nd Meeting)
- Last Meeting: Feb. 3, 2012 (Princeton) - T, 3-3 (OT)
- Streak: 2-0-1

MEDIA CENTER
@Dartmouth_MIH	/DartmouthHockey	DartmouthSports.com
Live Stats	Live Video - Princeton($) Live Video - Quinnipiac	Live Audio Chris Garret (PbP)
FOR COMPLETE WEEKEND COVERAGE: 2012-13 GAME DAY CENTRAL

THIS WEEKEND
Dartmouth will head out for its first road games since Nov. 24 when it takes on Quinnipiac and Princeton in hostile environments Friday and Saturday. Since that contest at Boston College, the Big Green have played four straight at home, winning three.

BATTLE AT THE TOP
The Friday night tilt with the Bobcats will feature the top two teams in the ECAC Hockey standings this season. Quinnipiac has played eight league games so far this year, winning each to sit atop the standings with 16 points. Dartmouth has played two fewer contests and boasts a 4-1-1 mark for nine points.

SOME MORE FACETIME
For the second time in the last three games and for the third time this season, the Big Green will square off in a televised match-up Friday evening. The game with Quinnipiac will be broadcast live on the New England Sports Network (NESN) with Bill Schweizer and Rich Coppola providing play-by-play and color commentary.

NEVER BEEN HIGHER
Despite a loss to UMass, Dartmouth enters the weekend as the eighth-ranked team in the nation according to the most recent USCHO poll. The Green and White had been ranked 10th for the last four weeks before Sunday's win over No. 2 New Hampshire moved them up to No. 8, it's highest ranking ever since the inception of the current polling system in the mid 1990s. The team also earned a first-place vote in the poll, the first ever for the program.

LAST TIME OUT
Dartmouth's last outing was a tough one as it suffered just its third loss of the season, this time coming at the hands of UMass in the 2012 Ledyard Classic Championship Game. The one-goal defeat (3-2) followed a 4-1 win over second-ranked UNH at a sold-out Thompson Arena Sunday in the preliminary round.

TOURNAMENT TEAM TALENT
Sophomore Tyler Sikura and senior co-captain Mike Keenan were named to the 2012 Ledyard Classic All-Tournament Team for their two-game performances. Keenan was as solid a defender as there was on the ice all weekend and Sikura scored once and assisted on another in the games against the Wildcats and Minutemen.

GOALTENDER OF THE WEEK
For the second time this season and the third time in his career, junior Cab Morris was tabbed as the ECAC Hockey Goaltender of the Week. The accolade came thanks in large part to his career-best 31 saves Sunday night in the 4-1 win over the Green's Granite State rival. Overall, Morris finished the weekend with 57 stops.

HECK OF A TIME FOR HIS FIRST
One of the most highly-touted incoming players in college hockey this season, Nick Bligh had gone his first seven games without a goal. That unwanted streak ended just 6:05 into Sunday night's game as his shot from the high slot beat UNH's Casey DeSmith for the game's first goal and the first in Bligh's Dartmouth career.

HECK OF A TIME FOR HIS FIRST AS WELL
Following Bligh's first career marker, freshman defender Ryan Bullock also notched the first in a Big Green sweater with a redirected shot from the point. For Bullock, it was not only his first tally, but also his first collegiate point.

SOME CALLS WERE MADE
Against UMass, a combined 87 penalty minutes were handed out by the officiating crew on 23 calls. Dartmouth was whistled for 13 of those penalties, totaling 40 PIMs. Entering the game, the Green ranked as the least penalized team in the nation at 8.2 per game and had only once had as many as 12 minutes and six calls go against them in a single outing.

PATTERSON'S SHORTY
Brett Patterson finally got back on the scoresheet with an assist on Bullock's goal Sunday, but his shorthanded goal the following night against UMass was his first tally since Oct. 27 at Brown in the Ivy Shootout. Sikura had registered the team's only two other shorthanded markers this year prior to Patterson's.

SIKURA'S SOLID STREAK
With a goal Sunday and a helper Monday, Sikura has a five-game point streak. More impressive is the fact that the sophomore from Aurora, Ontario, has points in all but one of Dartmouth's 13 games this year and has a team-leading 19.

STILL STRONG
Despite UMass scoring twice on the power play and snapping the Big Green's streak of 32 straight penalties killed off over a 10-game stretch, Dartmouth's PK unit still ranks second in the nation. The Minutemen were 2-for-11 on the night with the man-advantage after Dartmouth went 41-for-42 on the PK through the first 12 games. Currently, the Green's 94.3% success rate ranks behind only UNH (94.9%), a team that Dartmouth scored a PPG against in its match-up.

EXPECT A STRONG SECOND
Quinnipiac and Dartmouth are two teams of four in ECAC Hockey with 20 or more goals in any one period this season (Colgate, Union in the 3rd). For both programs, that strong scoring stanza has been the second. The Bobcats have found the back of the net 22 times in the middle frame this year, while Dartmouth has done so 20 times. Both teams have also allowed just nine goals apiece in the second period.

SCOUTING THE BOBCATS
Friday's opponent is the hottest team in the country, riding a 12-game unbeaten streak; five better than the next best team (Robert Morris). Senior Jeremy Langlois and his 10 goals and 20 points lead Quinnipiac offensively, but it's the defense that is the trademark of this year's team. Goaltender Eric Hartzell is 14-2-2 and boasts a 1.43 goals-against average (3rd best in the nation) and a .935 save percentage (13th). The Bobcats possess the second-best scoring defense, allowing opponents just 1.58 goals per game. Overall, Quinnipiac is 14-3-2 and jumped up four spots in this week's USCHO poll to No. 5 after a home sweep of No. 12 Nebraska-Omaha.

AGAINST THE BOBCATS
Dartmouth and Quinnipiac split the season series last year with each winning a home game. The Big Green won a wild affair in Hanover with two last-minute goals in the first meeting in November. The second saw Quinnipiac score twice in the first before holding on to a 2-1 win in February. The Bobcats own a 10-7-1 advantage in the all-time series dating back to 2004.

SCOUTING THE TIGERS
Princeton will play host to Harvard Friday night before the 4 p.m. Saturday meeting with the Big Green. Fresh off an 0-1-1 weekend in Burlington at the Catamount Cup, the Tigers are 3-7-3 overall and carry with them a 2-3-3 ECAC Hockey mark. Princeton tied Merrimack, 2-2, before falling to the hosts from Vermont, 6-3, in the title game. Sophomore Tyler Maugeri and junior Andre Calof are tied for the team lead with 16 points apiece, while Mike Condon has played goal in all but two games. Condon is 3-6-3 with a 2.71 GAA and a .912 save percentage.

AGAINST THE TIGERS
The Big Green were 1-0-1 in 2011-12 against Princeton. Dartmouth won the home game on Nov. 5 with a thrilling 5-3 victory. In the early February game at Princeton, then-freshman Eric Neiley registered his first two-goal game and helped the Green earn a 3-3 tie and crucial league point. The second contest was delayed more than an hour due to three panes of glass breaking at Hobey Baker Rink throughout the day. Saturday's matinee (4 p.m.) will be the 192nd meeting all-time between the two with Dartmouth leading 93-83-15.

ECAC HOCKEY FROM HERE ON OUT
The rest of the schedule is nothing but league games for the Big Green who will not play the annual Battle for the RiverStone in Manchester since UNH came to the Ledyard Classic. The remaining 16 regular season games and ECAC Hockey Tournament will all be versus conference foes.

TERRIFIC AT THOMPSON
The loss to UMass was the first blemish on the Green's home schedule so far this season. Entering Monday's game, Dartmouth had been 7-0-0 in games played on their own home ice, including two wins over teams ranked in the top-10 (No. 8 Union and No. 2 New Hampshire).

WHAT A CROWD!
Officially, the announced attendance inside Thompson Arena on Sunday night was a sellout of 4,500 people. That figure ranks at the ninth-highest single-game figure in the building's 37-year history. The highest figure since Thompson opened its doors in the fall of 1975 was 5,048 against Brown on Feb. 14, 1981 when maximum capacity was higher due to previous fire code regulations.

SNAPPED
Dustin Walsh saw his five-game point streak snapped against New Hampshire as he was held off the scoresheet. That did little to his confidence as he answered back with a pretty wrist shot under the crossbar in the first period of Monday's game, his fifth marker of the season and the 49th point of his career.

IVY LEAGUE UPDATE
The Big Green are second only to QU in the ECAC standings, but heading into Saturday's game with Princeton are the Ivy League leaders with 5 points and a 2-0-1 mark against Ivy foes. Harvard is second with 4 points and plays fourth-place Princeton (2 pts) Friday night.

Schedules