Crema's OT Winner Caps Comeback Against No. 18 Rensselaer

Saturday, February 13

Hanover, N.H.

7:00 PM

Dartmouth College

13-11-1, 10-8-0

Rensselaer

15-11-6, 7-5-6

Team	1	2	3	OT 1	F
Rensselaer	1	0	0	0	1
Dartmouth	0	0	1	1	2

Dartmouth Erupts in 7-3 Home Win Over Brown

Crema's OT Winner Caps Comeback Against No. 18 Rensselaer

2/13/2016 9:26:00 PM | Men's Ice Hockey

Box Score

By: Dartmouth

HANOVER, N.H. – Junior Troy Crema scored with 1:08 left in overtime to lift the Dartmouth men's hockey team to a 2-1 come-from-behind win Saturday night against No. 18 Rensselaer.

The Big Green reached OT thanks to senior defenseman Ryan Bullock's power-play goal 11:17 into the third period. That marker was his first of the season and tied the game at 1-1, setting up Crema for the late-game heroics.

Crema put home a juicy rebound at the top of the crease on a Tim Shoup point shot to give the home team their first sudden-death win inside Thompson Arena since Feb. 21, 2014 against Brown. Connor Yau picked up the other helper on the play, sending the puck over to his defensive partner along the blueline following an offensive zone faceoff win by the eventual goal scorer.

With the win, Dartmouth stays in the hunt for a first-round bye in the upcoming ECAC Hockey tournament. Improving to 10-8-0 in league play with the win — 13-11-1 overall — the Green and White are now tied with RPI (15-11-6, 7-5-6) for fifth with 20 points. Yale (25), Harvard (23), St. Lawrence (22) are the three teams directly in front of them, with Clarkson (19) and Cornell (18) nipping at their heels.

“We just had to stay with it. The first 10 minutes of the game we were watching a bit but we got better as the game went on,” head coach Bob Gaudet '81 said. “We were good in the second and excellent in the third.”

“We never talked about tonight being a must-win situation but the emphasis was on winning shifts and getting pucks deep and shooting every time we could,” Gaudet continued. “We had to believe the goalie was fallible and to find a way to score. I love that we did.”

The story of the night may have ended up being Dartmouth winning its first overtime game in nearly a calendar year, but throughout the contest the focus was on Rensselaer goalie Jason Kasdorf.

The Engineers netminder made 32 saves in the game, including five in overtime before the Crema rebound bid got behind him.

The Big Green's defense held RPI to just 19 shots on the night, allowing only two to get through to senior James Kruger in a 30-minute span between the second and third periods.

Holding the Engineers to such a low shot total allowed Dartmouth to seemingly dominate puck possession that led to a 34-19 discrepancy in shots.

Mike Prapavessis scored 6:23 into the opening period on a nice cross-ice feed through the slot from Travis Fulton. That would be the only time the Engineers would beat Kruger for the remaining 56:29 of action as the senior finished with 18 saves.

Dartmouth will close out the home portion of its regular season next weekend with a pair of league games against Colgate and Cornell at Thompson Arena. Game time for both nights is 7 p.m.