Dartmouth Opens Postseason at Home Against 12th-Seeded Princeton

ECAC Hockey First Round Dartmouth (15-10-4) vs. Princeton (4-21-3)				2015 ECAC Hockey Championship

Dates: Fri.-Sun., Mar. 6-8, 2015 // Time: 7:05 / 5:05 PM (Sun.) Location: Hanover, N.H. // Arena: Thompson Arena All-Time Series: 98-85-16 // Streak: 3-0-0 Last Meeting: Feb. 27, 2015 // W, 3-1 (Hanover)				First Round: Mar. 6-8 // No. 5-8 Campus Sites Quarterfinals: Mar. 13-15 // No. 1-4 Campus Sites Semifinals and Final: Mar. 20-21 // Lake Placid, N.Y.
Princeton Media				Match-Ups
TV: None // Radio: WFRD 99.3 FM (99Rock) PBP: Chris Garrett Color: Michael Kaiser Online: Boxcast / ECACHockey.com Live Stats: DartmouthSports.com Twitter: @Dartmouth_MIH Digital Press Box Dartmouth Notes // Princeton Preview Ticket Information				ECAC Hockey First Round No. 12 Princeton at No. 5 Dartmouth No. 11 Brown at No. 6 Harvard No. 10 Union at No. 7 Cornell No. 9 RPI at No. 8 Clarkson ECAC Hockey Quarterfinals TBD at No. 1 Quinnipiac TBD at No. 2 St. Lawrence TBD at No. 3 Yale TBD at No. 4 Colgate

THIS WEEKEND
The Dartmouth men's hockey team will welcome back a familiar foe this weekend as 12th-seeded Princeton returns to Hanover to take on the fifth-seeded Big Green in the ECAC Hockey Championship First Round. The match-up is a best-of-three series that will feature a Game 3 on Sunday at 5 p.m. if the teams split Friday and Saturday's 7 p.m. contests.

LAST TIME OUT
The Big Green used a pair of 3-1 wins against the Tigers and Bobcats to secure the No. 5 seed. Wins by Yale and Colgate on the final day of the season meant Dartmouth could not finish with the first-round bye, but instead would take the fifth spot due to tie-breakers after both they and the Raiders posted 26 points in 22 league games.

Game 28 vs. Princeton // Feb. 27 (W, 3-1)	Game 29 vs. Quinnipiac // Feb. 28 (W, 3-1)

POSTSEASON PLAY
Dartmouth has earned a postseason series win in each of the last four seasons dating back to the 2010-11 campaign. The last three years, the Big Green have beaten its first-round opponents St. Lawrence (2-0), Harvard (2-1) and Rensselaer (2-1). The 2011 team was the last to bypass the first round, defeating Harvard (2-1) in a three-game quarterfinal series.

SCOUTING PRINCETON
The Tigers knew coming into the final weekend that they would be the No. 12 seed. An 0-2 weekend featured a 3-1 loss in Hanover on Friday night, before falling, 5-0, Saturday at Harvard to close out the regular season. Princeton is 4-21-3 overall, while 2-18-2 in league contests with an early win at home against Cornell and a Feb. 13 victory against visiting Clarkson, both by 2-1 scores. The Tigers struggled away from Hobey Baker this season, posting an 0-11-1 mark in true road games and were 0-1-1 in neutral-site contests. Jonathan Liau led the team in scoring (14) and assists (10) and shared the top mark for goals with Ben Foster as each had four.

AGAINST PRINCETON THIS SEASON
Dartmouth swept their Ivy League foe in 2014-15, winning in New Jersey, 4-2, back in early December, before another two-goal victory this past weekend in Hanover.

POSTSEASON HISTORY VS. THE TIGERS
These teams have met just once previously in ECAC Hockey postseason play, a 2007 quarterfinal series in Hanover. Dartmouth swept Princeton, 6-2 and 3-2, thanks to three-goal weekends from David Jones and J.T. Wyman and a strong showing from goalie Mike Devine.

MONSTER WEEKEND
This year's Big Green finished the season on a positive note against Princeton and QU with solid play from the likes of senior linemates Brandon McNally and Eric Neiley. McNally scored three times on the weekend — including two in the win against No. 10 Quinnipiac – with Neiley dishing out the primary assist on each. James Kruger was outstanding in goal, stopping 26 shots in each victory and posting a .963 save percentage.

MAN OF THE MONTH
Kruger not only was huge between the pipes last weekend, he was one of the best goaltenders in the league down the stretch. The junior from Minnetonka, Minnesota, was the lone ECAC Hockey netminder with more than one start in February to post an unbeaten mark in the month, going 5-0-0 with a 1.80 goals against average and a .935 save percentage.

ALL-IVY PLAYERS
Thursday afternoon saw seniors Neiley and Andy Simpson earn All-Ivy League honors for 2014-15. Neiley was unanimously selected to the first team, become the first Big green player to claim a spot on the top Ivy team since Mike Keenan in 2012-13. Simpson — one of the best defensive-defenseman in the nation — earned his first career individual accolade by landing on the second team.

AWARD SEASON
For their play last weekend, Kruger and McNally were named the league's goaltender and player of the week. McNally had three goals in the home sweep, while Kruger stopped 52-of-54 shots in a 2-0 weekend for the Big Green. Neiley was tabbed as the player of the month after finishing third in the league in scoring in February, but netting three game-winning goals and assisting on two others as Dartmouth went 6-2 in the month to move up from 10th to tied for fourth in the standings.

SENIOR WEEKEND
The final weekend of the season allowed Dartmouth to celebrate the accomplishments of eight members of senior class in their final season with the Green. McNally, Neiley, Tyler Sikura, Rick Pinkston, Andy Simpson, Eric Robinson, Charlie Mosey and Jesse Beamish all reached 100 games in their careers wearing the green and white, giving this year's class the most 100-games played individuals (8) in the program's 109-year history.

SENIOR STATS
As it stands with the regular season done for three of the nation's six leagues, the Dartmouth seniors stand out as one of the best classes in 2014-15. Their 1.62 goals per game ranks third in the country, trailing only Mercyhurst (1.85) and Minnesota (1.72). The 26 goals they scored on the road this season are two more than the second-place Lakers, while the 3.90 points per game trails only Mercyhurst (5.03). The 113 combined points among the eight players was far and away the top figure in ECAC Hockey this season with Union's 87 ranking second and Daniel Ciampini's 46 accounting for more than half of the Dutchmen's total.

THAT'S ODD
Thanks to a matching roughing penalty at 16:03 of the second period against Quinnipiac, Eric Neiley took over the team lead in penalty minutes this season with 34. He closes out the regular season as the only player in Division I to lead his team in goals (13), assists (16), points (29), game-winning goals (5), penalties (17) and PIM (34).

OUR FAVORITE MONTH!
It seems that the final month of the season is the time when Dartmouth picks things up heading into the postseason. In the last two seasons and in February, the Green are a combined 11-3-1. Where Dartmouth was winning games last year with defense (1.71 goals allowed per game), this season's success has been more about putting up goals at the other end of the ice (3.38 a game).

AS A No. 5 SEED…
The Big Green are 8-8 in postseason play when earning the No. 5 seed, including 4-2 in the first round. The last time Dartmouth was seeded fifth in the ECAC Hockey Championship was in 2013 when it defeated Harvard, 2-1, in the three-game first-round series in Hanover, before falling to No. 4 and eventual league champion Union, 2-0, in Schenectady.

AGAINST A No. 12 SEED…
The Green are 5-2 against the 12th seed in this tournament all-time. Including the 2013 series against Harvard, the Green are 4-2 in the first round as it needed three games to defeat Yale in 2005 (7-2, 4-5/OT and 5-1). Dartmouth also knocked off No. 12 Colgate in the third-place game in 2011 after the Raiders made an improbable run to Atlantic City and the conference's final four.

AT HOME
Dartmouth is 20-8 at home in ECAC Hockey postseason play, with 16 of those wins coming in the quarterfinals.

THE LINES ARE ROLLIN'
The trio of Brad Schierhorn, Sikura and Robinson played together for 27 games this season and produced a scoring line of 21-33-54. The awakening of the second line of McNally, Neiley and sophomore Grant Opperman has given Dartmouth solid depth with a 17-19-36 scoring line this season and has been very hot down the stretch, helping the team to an 11-3-1 mark when together. Freshmen Carl Hesler and Corey Kalk have joined up with junior Jack Barre to produce a line capable of playing solid defense as well as adding timely scoring as evidenced by Hesler's goal against Princeton last week. The trio has produced a line of 10-11-21 when together and helped the Green to an 11-3-3 mark in that time.

LET'S JUST PLAY TOP-10 TEAMS
With the 3-1 victory against Quinnipiac, the Big Green finished the season 3-0 against teams ranked in the top-10 at the time of puck drop. Dartmouth defeated then No. 8 Union, 4-3, in overtime on the road in early November, before shutting out No. 1 Boston University, 2-0, later in the month for its signature win this season. The Bobcats entered the weekend ranked 10th in both polls, but slipped back to No. 11 following the setback in Hanover.

AROUND THE LEAGUE
Quinnipiac, St. Lawrence, Yale and Colgate will all have this weekend off thanks to their positions in the top four of the league standings. Dartmouth and Princeton are the only two teams who know where they would head if they were to win this weekend with the Big Green traveling to Hamilton to take on the Raiders, while a Tigers' victory would send them to play the top-seeded Bobcats. No. 6 Harvard hosts No. 11 Brown, No. 7 Cornell hosts 10th-seeded Union —the tournament's three-time defending champion — and Clarkson earned the eighth spot and will welcome No. 9 RPI to Potsdam.

The 2015 #ECACHockey postseason field is set! pic.twitter.com/muaTQ3YYzz
— Dartmouth Hockey (@Dartmouth_MIH) March 1, 2015

THANKS, BIG RED…
A win by Cornell on the final day of the season at Yale would have given Dartmouth its first outright Ivy League title since 1980. However, a 4-0 victory by the Elis moved them a point ahead of Dartmouth, 15-14, in the standings and gave them their sixth Ivy title in head coach Keith Allain's nine seasons in New Haven.

QUICK TURNAROUND
This weekend will mark the second time in the last four seasons that Dartmouth played its first-round opponent in the final weekend of the regular season. In 2012, St. Lawrence defeated the Green, 3-1, at Thompson Arena in the last game of the season to take the No. 8 spot and the right to host the ninth-seeded Big Green the following weekend. Dartmouth would do what no other team had ever done in postseason play and sweep the Saints in Appleton Arena with a pair of victories by a combined 10-4 score in the ensuing match-ups.

FOLLOW ALONG
All ECAC Hockey postseason games will be streamed live through Boxcast and not the Ivy League Digital Network. Games can be purchased for $9.95 to view on ECACHockey.com. Chris Garrett and Micahel Kaiser will also have the radio call of the weekend's games on 99Rock WFRD. DartmouthSports.com will also have live stats and fans are encouraged to follow the team's official Twitter account for in-game updates and insight: @Dartmouth_MIH.

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