Steel City Bound: Dartmouth Plays a Pair at Robert Morris

RV Dartmouth Big Green 2-2-2	GAME 7 Saturday, Nov. 26, 2016 \| 7:00 PM	GAME 8 Sunday, Nov. 27, 2016 \| 2:00 PM

Opponent	RV Robert Morris 5-3-2
Location	Pittsburgh, Pa.	Pittsburgh, Pa.
Arena	84 Lumber Arena / RMU Island	PPG Paints Arena
All-Time Series	1-0-0
Streak	1-0-0
Last Meeting	1.2.16 \| W, 5-1 \| Hanover (Ledyard Classic)
Video	RMUColonials.com
Radio	WTSL 94.5 FM/1400 AM (ESPN Radio)
On the Call	PBP: Adam Giardino
In-Game Twitter	@Dartmouth_MIH / @RMUMHockey
Notes: PDF / Web	RMU Preview / Notes
Tickets	RMU Ticket Office	PPG Paints Arena Ticket Office
Coach's Corner / Information Center / Dartmouth Stats / Dartmouth Schedule / Live Stats

GAME NOTES

THIS WEEKEND
The Dartmouth men's hockey team heads to western Pennsylvania and the Steel City to take on Robert Morris in a pair of non-conference games. The two contests will be split between the RMU Island Sports Center and 84 Lumber Arena on Saturday night before playing Sunday's matinee at PPG Paints Arena, home of the Pittsburgh Penguins.

LAST TIME OUT
The Big Green are coming off a 5-2 non-conference loss at Vermont last Tuesday. The Catamounts scored four first-period goals to come out strong and give themselves an insurmountable lead early.

ON THE ROAD AGAIN… AGAIN
- Dartmouth is almost halfway into its current seven-game road trip, having played three straight away from Thompson Arena. A pair in the North Country next weekend against Clarkson and St. Lawrence will follow the upcoming contests in Pittsburgh to cap the second seven-game road swing in as many years for the Green.
- Dartmouth is still looking for its first road win of the season and is 0-2-1 heading to play RMU.

SCOUTING ROBERT MORRIS
- The Colonials also had a weekend off without games, bringing a 5-3-1 overall mark into the pair against the Big Green. Of those 10 games, eight have come against Atlantic Hockey competition with just a win (6-2) and a tie (4-4) against Ohio State making up the team's non-conference schedule thus far.
- Junior Brady Ferguson leads the team across the board offensively, scoring eight goals and dishing out 10 assists for 10 points. Sophomore Alex Tonge is second with seven goals and six assists for 13 points.
- Freshman Francis Marotte has been the team's netminder nearly two-thirds of the time this year, boasting a 5-1-1 mark to go along with a 1.48 goals against average and a .951 save percentage, third-best figure in the nation.

AGAINST BOBBY MO
- This weekend marks just the second and third all-time games against the Colonials.
- The two teams played the first game against one another in program history last season as part of the Ledyard Classic. The Big Green won the Jan. 2 contest in convincing fashion, 5-1. Of the six goal scorers in that game, only Carl Hesler and Connor Yau are back this season.
- Tim Shoup registered his second multi-point game that day with a pair of assists.

FIRST OF THE SEASON
- Junior Alex Jasiek notched his first goal of 2016-17 in Burlington, finishing off a passing play from linemates John Ernsting and Grant Opperman with a backhand from just outside the goal crease.
- Jasiek's last goal was in Game 2 of last spring's first-round playoff series against Colgate on March 5.

FIRST OF THEIR CAREERS
- Freshman Will Graber had made himself known with three assists in his first five career games, but he finally got a goal of his own at the 8:12 mark of the third period at Vermont.
- Not only did the goal mark the first of Graber's career, it was also gave freshmen linemates Shane Sellar and Charley Michalowski their first career points with assists on the play.

FIRST APPEARANCES
- Ben DiMaio and Adrian Clark made their first game appearances in the loss to Vermont.
- DiMaio was inserted into the lineup, playing on the blueline with Josh Hartley.
- Clark came into the game at the 10:09 mark after starter Devin Buffalo was chased following three goals on six shots. Clark allowed a goal on the first shot he faced, but settled down and needed to make just 11 saves in 45:13 of action before head coach Bob Gaudet went with the extra attacker for the final 4:38 of play.

POINT STREAK
With the assist on the Jasiek goal, sophomore John Ernsting now has points in three straight games (2-1-3), the longest such streak of his career. Ernsting had assists in Games 2 and 3 of the postseason series against Colgate last year for his previous career-best stretch.

PLAYING IN AN NHL BARN
- When it takes to the ice Sunday at PPG Paints Arena, it will have been 107 games since Dartmouth last played in an NHL facility.
- The Big Green last played on NHL ice in a pair of games to open the 2013-14 season against Princeton (L, 3-2/OT) and Brown (L, 5-3) in the Liberty Shootout on Oct.25-26, 2013. The games were played at the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey, home of the New Jersey Devils.
- Prior to those games in Newark in 2013, the last time Dartmouth played in an NHL arena was Mar. 15, 1980. The Big Green played Cornell in the old Boston Garden for the ECAC Championship, eventually falling, 5-1. The team would play in the Frozen Four two weeks later, but the 1980 national semifinals and final were played at the Providence Civic Center and not an NHL facility. Current head coach Bob Gaudet was a junior and starting goalie on that team.

OUTSHOOTING
- Of Vermont's 23 shots against last Tuesday, 15 came in the first period as Dartmouth held them to eight over the final 40 minutes of play. The Catamounts fired just three shots on goal in the second and five in the third, scoring once in the final frame.
- Outside of the anomaly that was Quinnipiac's 54 shots, Dartmouth has been holding the teams to an average of 23.2 shots against per game. With the QU game taken into account, opponents are averaging 28.3 shots on goal per game.
- Dartmouth has outshot the opposition in every game except the loss in Hamden so far in 2016-17.

SPECIAL TEAMS: AN UPDATE
- An 0-for-9 night on the power play at Vermont moved Dartmouth's season-long struggle with the man-advantage to 0-for-40.
- Not only are the Big Green the only team in the nation without a power-play tally this season, Princeton and Bentley are the next worse with three so far. Robert Morris is fourth in the country, converting on 26.9% (14-52).
- The penalty kill (25-33) ranks 54th in the nation with a 75.8% success rate. RMU isn't much better at 78.7% to rank 48th.

A HOMECOMING FOR SHOUP
Tim Shoup is heading home for Thanksgiving… kind of. Shoup is a native of Upper St. Claire, Pennsylvania, a township located just half an hour south of PPG Paints Arena and downtown Pittsburgh.

A COUPLE OF KEYSTONE STATE GUYS
- In addition to Shoup, Saturday's game at RMU Island Sports Center will mark the first games played in Pennsylvania for Shane Sellar (Carlise) and Kevin Neiley (Warminster).
- Sellar is from just outside of Harrisburg, while Neiley's hometown is a suburb of Philadelphia.

WAIT… WHERE IS PENNSYLVANIA?
- This weekend marks the first time playing in the state of Pennsylvania for the Big Green since a 5-2 win at now-disbanded Penn on Feb. 18, 1978. The Quakers eliminated their program following that season.
- Dartmouth has never played at Mercyhurst, Penn State or Robert Morris — the state's three Division I teams — prior to this weekend.

APPROACHING 900
- Head coach Bob Gaudet '81 will be behind the bench for his 894th and 895th career games this weekend. Barring any unforeseen issues, Gaudet will reach his game No. 900 as a head coach (between Brown and Dartmouth) on Dec. 31 against either Colgate or UMass Lowell in the Ledyard Classic.
- Gaudet has coached 627 of those games with the Big Green, the most by any coach in program history, ahead of the legendary Eddie Jeremiah '30 (567).

FOLLOW ALONG
- This weekend's game will be streamed via Stretch Internet and RMU Colonials.
- Dartmouth men's hockey games will now be carried on ESPN Radio WTSL 94.5FM/1400AM this season. Adam Giardino will handle play-by-play duties at both 84 Lumber Arena as well as PPG Paints Arena and for the rest of the season.
- Fans are encouraged to follow the team's official Twitter account for in-game updates and insights: @Dartmouth_MIH.

WHAT'S AHEAD?
Following the weekend in the Steel City, Dartmouth returns home only to get on the bus two days later and venture to Potsdam and Canton, New York, to take on Clarkson and St. Lawrence next weekend in the final ECAC Hockey games of 2016.

Schedules