Dartmouth Opens 109th Season at Harvard Saturday Night

10/30/2014 10:04:00 AM | Men's Ice Hockey

By: Dartmouth

GAME 1 // DARTMOUTH (0-0-0, 0-0-0) at HARVARD (0-0-0, 0-0-0)

Date: Saturday, Nov. 1, 2014 // Time: 7:30 PM
Location: Cambridge, Mass. // Arena: Bright-Landry Hockey Center
All-Time Series: 62-129-12 // Streak: 0-1-0
Last Meeting: Feb. 7, 2014 // L, 3-0 (Cambridge)

BROADCAST INFORMATION

TV: None // Radio: WFRD 99.3 FM (99Rock) // PBP: Chris Garrett
Online: IvyLeagueDigitalNetwork.com // DartmouthSports.com
Live Stats: DartmouthSports.com Twitter: @Dartmouth_MIH
Digital Press Box // Gameday Central

SATURDAY'S GAME
The Dartmouth men's hockey team opens the 2014-15 regular season Saturday night at Harvard's newly renovated Bright-Landry Hockey Center. Puck drop between the two Ivy League and ECAC Hockey rivals is set for 7:30 p.m.

OPENERS
Since 1997-98, Dartmouth is 8-8-1 in season-opening games, including a 2-1-1 mark since 2010. In that 17-year stretch, the Big Green and Crimson have squared off in the opener six times with Harvard winning five. The lone Dartmouth victory came in Cambridge on Oct. 27, 2006 with the visitors earning a 5-2 triumph with goals from David Jones '08, Nick Johnson '08, J.T. Wyman '08, Dan Shribman '07 and T.J. Galiardi '10.

RETURNING POINTS
The only team in the country to return a higher percentage of points from last season to this year is Penn State — a program that featured no seniors on its roster last year and had recently been elevated from club level to Division I. The Green will see 98.6% of its point production return from last year's unit as Taylor Boldt (1-1-2) and Nick Lovejoy (1-0-1) were the lone senior skaters lost to graduation, meaning that the players who compiled the remaining 220 points are all back in a Dartmouth sweater in 2014-15.

TOP LINES
The team's top line of seniors Brandon McNally, Eric Neiley and sophomore Grant Opperman proved to be a formidable combo during last season's stretch run and especially during the first-round postseason series at RPI. The trio will look to build on that chemistry and benefit from a healthy second line with the return of Eric Robinson from injury and a fully healthy Tyler Sikura. During the preseason, junior Brad Schierhorn joined the two seniors to make up the second scoring line.

BACK IN NET
Juniors Charles Grant and James Kruger return between the pipes, while freshman Devin Buffalo makes his collegiate debut in 2014-15, giving the team a wealth of depth and talent in the crease. Grant and Kruger split time against Alberta in the preseason opener, while Buffalo played the entire game against Brown the following afternoon, making 14 saves.

PRESEASON
Dartmouth played back-to-back preseason tilts last weekend with an exhibition game against Alberta on Saturday night and a formal scrimmage the following afternoon against Brown. Alberta defeated the Green, 6-1, while Brown used an empty netter in the final minutes to hold off the home team, 3-1. Rick Pinkston and Brad Schierhorn were the two Dartmouth players to find the back of the net on the weekend.

SENIORS
The youngest team in ECAC Hockey a season ago, the Big Green are now one that is led by a talented senior class. Sikura, Robinson, Pinkston, Neiley, McNally, Andy Simpson, Jesse Beamish and Charlie Mosey are tasked with providing the 29-man roster with leadership on and off the ice.

OH CAPTAIN, MY CAPTAIN
Sikura will once again don the 'C' on his sweater in 2014-15, becoming the seventh player in Dartmouth history to be named captain twice. He joins Mike Keenan '13 (2011-12//2012-13), Mike Maturo '02 (2000-01//2001-02), Jamie Herrington '02 (2000-01//2001-02), Kevin McCann '87 (1985-86//1986-87), Richard Rondeau '44 (1942-43//1943-44) and Paul Guibord '36 (1934-35//1935-36) as the only players to have earned the distinction. Only Sikura, Keenan, Rondeau and Guibord were solo captains during both seasons.

SCOUTING HARVARD
The Crimson did not officially announce a preseason schedule, but did play at Concordia Sunday afternoon (statistics and score not available). Harvard and Dartmouth finished tied for 10th in ECAC Hockey standings last season with 16 points, but the Green earned the No. 10 seed with seven league wins to the Crimson's six, pushing them to No. 11. Junior Jimmy Vesey is Harvard's top returning player with 22 points from a season ago (13-9-22). Five freshmen and three sophomores comprised the eight players who reached double-digit point totals in 2013-14, giving the team an abundance of returning talent this winter. Another top returnee is senior goalie Steve Michalek who played in 18 games, making 15 starts and boasted a 2.47 goals against average and .921 save percentage last year.

LAST SEASON AGAINST THE CRIMSON
The two teams split the 2013-14 series with each winning on home ice. Dartmouth broke its eight-game skid to open the season with a 2-1 victory vs. Harvard at Thompson Arena on Nov. 30 thanks to a goal from Eric Neiley at 17:19 of the third period. In the Feb. 7 contest in Cambridge, Harvard picked up a 3-0 win following a lengthy delay caused by a pre-game Zamboni malfunction that pushed back puck drop nearly two hours.

BROTHERS IN GREEN
After a two-year hiatus, the Dartmouth men's hockey team will once again have a pair of brothers on the roster. Freshman Kevin Neiley followed older brother Eric to Hanover and joins the Big Green this season. The younger Neiley is a 5-foot-11, 185-pound forward who saw action Sunday against Brown, while Eric was given the day off, delaying the first time playing together since high school.

PRESEASON POLLS
A solid end to the 2013-14 has given the Big Green high expectations in 2014-15. Dartmouth was tabbed sixth by both the ECAC Hockey head coaches and media association in each of their preseason polls. Colgate was selected first in each, while defending national champion Union was tabbed second.

WELCOME, FRESHMEN
Six new names will grace the roster of the 109th Dartmouth men's hockey team. In addition to Buffalo and Neiley, Carl Hesler (F), Corey Kalk (F), Tim Shoup (D) and River Rymsha (D) will all make their entrance onto the NCAA scene this year.

HOME SWEET HOME
Of the Green and White's 29 regular season games this year, 17 will take place inside the familiar confines of Thompson Arena. Apart from the 11 ECAC Hockey games hosted by the 39-year-old building, non-conference contests against AIC (Nov. 29), Boston University (Nov. 30), Sacred Heart (Dec. 14), Denver (Jan. 2), Boston College (Jan. 3) and Vermont (Jan. 11) also litter the schedule. The team's only non-conference road game of the year comes at UNH's Whittemore Center on Friday, Jan. 9 in a game broadcast live on the NBC Sports Network.

SEE YA LATER, IVY LEAGUE SHOOTOUT/LIBERTY INVITE!
Having played four season-opening weekends as part of the Ivy League Shootout against Princeton, Yale and Brown, Dartmouth has eliminated the early-season tournament from its schedule moving forward. Princeton and Yale will continue to play in the Liberty Shootout played at the Prudential Center in Newark each year against two Hockey East teams, leaving Dartmouth and Brown to fill its schedule with two more non-conference games.

STRONG SCHEDULING
The 2014-15 slate features five games against the last three NCAA National Champions. The Big Green will play its usual home and away with both Yale (2013) and Union (2014), while Boston College (2012) will make its way to Hanover for the Ledyard Classic in early January. Denver (2004, 2005) and BU (2009) are two more programs with national championship experience in the last decade that will also take to the Thompson ice this year.

GONE TILL NOVEMBER
Saturday's game marks the first time Dartmouth has opened the season in November since the 2003-04 season when it defeated Holy Cross, 2-1, at home on Nov. 1. Since then, the team has begun each campaign in October.

BACK FROM INJURIES
The Dartmouth coaching staff is hoping for a healthier team than the version that they saw last year. No other team in ECAC Hockey was dealt a more unfavorable hand in terms of injuries in 2013-14 than the Big Green and its 120-man-games lost. Robinson (32), Troy Crema (18) and Brett Patterson (18) missed the most time over the course of the year, but appear to be ready to go for the start of this season.

IVY LEAGUE STANDINGS
Thanks to the second-half surge, Dartmouth finished second in the Ivy League standings with 12 points and a 5-3-2 mark last year. Cornell won the league with an 8-1-1 mark with the lone loss coming at home to the Green (1-0) and the tie coming in Hanover (1-1). The Big Red were a perfect 8-0 against the other four Ivy programs.

FOLLOW ALONG
A live video broadcast of the game will be available for subscribers of the Ivy League Digital Network. Live stats will be available through DartmouthSports.com and GoCrimson.com. Live in-game updates will be available through the Dartmouth men's hockey Twitter account: @Dartmouth_MIH.

SKATE WITH THE BIG GREEN
Following the Harvard game, the team will return to Hanover, welcoming its young fans to Thompson Arena for the annual 'Skate With the Big Green' on Sunday. The event is free and open to all kids from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. The women's team will be on the ice, hosting their own hour starting at 10:30 a.m.

WHAT'S AHEAD?
The Big Green remain on the road for a pair of games the following weekend at No. 2 Union and Rensselaer on Nov. 7-8. It will be familiar territory for the Big Green after playing both teams on the road in the ECAC Hockey postseason tournament last March.

GAME NOTES: