No. 8 Union and RPI Await Big Green in ECAC Hockey Weekend

Game 2 // Dartmouth (0-0-1, 0-0-1) at No. 8 Union (5-3-0, 0-2-0)				Game 3 // Dartmouth (0-0-1, 0-0-1) at RPI (3-5-0, 2-0-0)

Date: Friday, Nov. 7, 2014 // Time: 7 PM Location: Schenectady, N.Y. // Arena: Messa Rink All-Time Series: 24-23-7 // Streak: 0-6-0 Last Meeting: Mar. 15, 2014 // L, 4-2 (Schenectady/Game 2)				Date: Saturday, Nov. 8, 2014 // Time: 7 PM Location: Troy, N.Y. // Arena: Houston Field House All-Time Series: 34-45-5 // Streak: 2-0-0 Last Meeting: Mar. 9, 2014 // W, 5-4 (Troy/Game 3)
Union Media				RPI Media
TV: None // Radio: WFRD 99.3 FM (99Rock) // PBP: Chris Garrett Online: UnionAthletics.tv Live Stats: DartmouthSports.com Twitter: @Dartmouth_MIH Digital Press Box // Gameday Central DARTMOUTH NOTES UNION PREVIEW/NOTES				TV: None // Radio: WFRD 99.3 FM (99Rock) // PBP: Chris Garrett Online: RPItv.org Live Stats: DartmouthSports.com Twitter: @Dartmouth_MIH Digital Press Box // Gameday Central DARTMOUTH NOTES RPI PREVIEW/NOTES

THIS WEEKEND
The Dartmouth men's hockey team hits the road for a pair of ECAC Hockey games this weekend at No. 8 Union and Rensselaer Friday and Saturday nights.

LAST TIME OUT
The Big Green opened the season this past Saturday evening in Cambridge with a 3-3 tie against Harvard. With the draw, both teams earned a conference point as the contest also served as the start of the ECAC Hockey schedule. Seniors Rick Pinkston, Eric Robinson and Brandon McNally all scored goals in the outing as Dartmouth started off the campaign with a tie for the second time in three seasons.

HARVARD HIGHLIGHTS:

TWO-GAME WEEKEND
After beginning the year with a stand alone game at Harvard, the Green get back into the flow of regular weekends of consecutive outings. Dartmouth will have two-game weekends Nov. 14-15 (vs. Yale and Brown), a break the following week and then again on Nov. 29-30 (vs. AIC and BU) and Dec. 5-6 (at Quinnipiac and Princeton). The next single game for the Green and White is a Tuesday night affair with Harvard at home on Nov. 18.

SCOUTING THE DUTCHMEN
The defending national champions have fallen on some hard times recently relative to their success of the last three years. Union enters the weekend having lost their last three games after starting the season 5-0. For a team that lost just three ECAC Hockey games all of last season, the most worrisome part of the current three-game slide was the two most recent defeats came at the hands of regional rival and conference foe RPI, 6-1 and 2-1 (OT). Sophomore Mike Vecchione has been the team's best player all season in terms of scoring, leading the way in goals (5), assists (7) and points (12). Goaltender Colin Stevens remains one of the best at his position in all of college hockey with a 1.84 goals against and a .939 save percentage.

AGAINST UNION
Dartmouth was 0-4 against the eventual national champs in 2013-14. Outside of 7-2 game in Hanover early in the year, the rest of the meetings were all close matchups. Union also earned a 3-2 win in Schenectady on Dec. 11 by scoring twice in the third. The 3-0 result of the first game of the quarterfinal playoff series is misleading given that the home team benefited from a late penalty shot and empty-netter, while the series-clinching game was tied after 40 minutes and needed a late marker and another ENG to seal things.

SCOUTING THE ENGINEERS
Where Union has hit a bump in the road, RPI is flying high after the sweep of its closest rival by a combined score of 8-2. In the opener, Riley Bourbonnais notched a hat trick, while 11 total Engineers registered a point. The following night, Mark McGowan tied the score 1-1 at the 16:11 mark of the third period, setting up Viktor Liljegren for the OT heroics 2:41 into the extra frame. Freshman Lou Nanne, a Minnesota draft pick, leads the team with five points in eight games. Junior netminder Jason Kasdorf is back after an injury cut his sophomore campaign short last season, posting a 3-4-0 mark in save starts to go along with a 2.51 goals against average and a .924 save percentage.

AGAINST RENSSELAER
The Engineers swept the regular season series with the Big Green last winter, 7-1 and 4-2. They pushed the in-season win streak to three by winning the first-round series' opening game, 4-1, on Mar. 7. However, that would be the last victory of the year for RPI as Dartmouth took the next two games, 3-2 and 5-4. The latter of the two Big Green wins came in the decisive Game 3 as they scored three times in the third to pick up their first win when trailing after two periods in 26 months.

GAME 3 HIGHLIGHTS at RPI (Courtesy of RPItv.org)

MIXING UP THE LINES A BIT
Expectations were that Dartmouth's top line this season would be the McNally-Eric Neiley-Grant Opperman trio that was one of the best in the league down the stretch in 2013-14. However, head coach Bob Gaudet and his staff mixed up the look a bit as Opperman moved back to play the right side with seniors Jesse Beamish and Charlie Mosey, while junior Tim O'Brien filled in with McNally and Neiley on the scoring unit.

STARTING IN GOAL
Once again it was James Kruger given the nod in goal in Dartmouth's opener this weekend. The junior from Minnetonka, Minnesota, stepped right in and turned aside a career-high 34 shots in the tie. His previous career best was 23 saves set in a 1-1 tie with Cornell last January.

FIRST IN A LONG TIME
Robinson's goal at 7:37 of the second period came just 1:37 after a Harvard goal from Patrick McNally put the home team up by one. Robinson answered the Crimson marker as he blasted a wrist shot following a clean faceoff win by Tyler Sikura past goalie Steve Michalek for his first goal since Mar. 10, 2013 when he netted one against Harvard in Game 3 of a ECAC Hockey First Round series at Thompson Arena.

McNALLY'S TALLY
Like Robinson, McNally also had a two-point game against Harvard. The Saugus, Massachusetts, native picked up the primary helper on the Pinkston goal at 10:53 of the first before potting his own with 1:05 left in the second period to give his team the one-goal lead headed into the third. His first of the season was the result of a pretty passing play from O'Brien and sophomore defender Brandon Kirk that began deep in the defensive zone and ended with a one-timer from the top of the circles for the go-ahead goal.

OVERTIME TO START
Saturday marked the third straight year that Dartmouth's first game of the regular season needed overtime. The team played to a 2-2 draw against Yale in 2012-13 — it would eventually win the shootout — and fell, 2-1, in OT to Princeton to kick off last year in a game played at the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey.

MR. OPENING DAY
Tim O'Brien (1-2—3) has a point in each of the three season openers since coming to Hanover. He scored 2:53 into his first career game in a Big Green sweater against Yale on Oct. 26, 2012 in the Ivy Shootout at Brown. In the two most recent openers, O'Brien has an assist in each, including the primary helper on the McNally goal at Harvard last weekend.

UPS AND DOWNS ON THE ROAD
Contrary to conventional thinking, Dartmouth was a better team on the road last season than at home in Hanover. The Big Green went 7-10-1 in true road games in 2013-14, accounting for 70 percent of its total wins. In contrast, Dartmouth was just 3-9-3 away from Thompson Arena in 2012-13.

THE EMPIRE STATE
This weekend marks the first two of six regular season games in New York this season, the most in any state outside of New Hampshire. Of the 29 games on the schedule, 24 are either in the Granite State (18) or New York (6).

SENIOR NIGHT AT MESSA RINK
Friday's game will mark the eighth at Messa Rink for the Big Green's Class of 2015. They played there three times in both 2012-13 (0-2-1) and 2013-14 (0-3) as the Dutchmen swept them in the ECAC Hockey Quarterfinals each season. As freshmen, they were dealt a 5-1 loss on Feb. 10, 2012. Houston Field House is the second-most visited venue in that time as Saturday marks the seventh game for the seniors. Brown's Meehan Auditorium ranks third as it has played host to Dartmouth five times entering this season.

HOME RUN FIRST POINT
Kirk's assist on the McNally goal was the first point of his career. Kirk started the play with a long stretch pass to O'Brien in the neutral zone. Coming in on a partial break, O'Brien drew two defenders with him, turned for a drop pass to a streaking McNally for the one-time blast.

FOLLOW ALONG
Fans can follow all the action this weekend with live stats on DartmouthSports.com. Live video streams of both games can be found at UnionAthletics.tv and RPItv.org. For live in-game updates, fans are encouraged to follow the team's official twitter account: @Dartmouth_MIH.

WHAT'S AHEAD?
Following the weekend in New York's Capital District, Dartmouth will return to the Upper Valley for its 2014-15 home debut. The Big Green welcome Yale and Brown on Nov. 14-15 and Harvard on Tuesday, Nov. 18.

GAME NOTES

Schedules