Big Green Host No. 15 Quinnipiac & Princeton in Home-Opening Weekend

Friday, November 8

Hanover, N.H.

7 PM

Dartmouth College

Quinnipiac

Tickets

The Big Green open the home portion of the 2019-20 season.

Photo by: Mark Washburn

Big Green Host No. 15 Quinnipiac & Princeton in Home-Opening Weekend

11/6/2019 4:41:00 PM | Men's Ice Hockey

Dartmouth begins season slate of Thompson games Friday vs. #15 Bobcats

GAME 3
Dartmouth | 0-2-0, 0-1-0
vs. No. 15 Quinnipiac | 4-3-0, 0-0-0
Date: Friday, November 8 – 7 p.m.
Location: Thompson Arena | Hanover, N.H.
Watch: ESPN+ | International Stream | Tyler Murray (PxP)
Listen: DartmouthSports.com | Rob Kennedy (PxP)
Follow Along: Live Stats

We are looking forward to playing at home this weekend and in front of our great Thompson Arena crowd. This weekend’s opponents pose a great challenge for our team, but we are up for it and are ready to get on the ice again. We had a lot of positives last weekend in our first two games and some things we needed to clean up, but it’s been a good week of practice working to get better and we are excited to take the next steps in our season.

Koenig Family Head Coach Bob Gaudet ’81

THIS WEEKEND
• The Dartmouth men’s hockey team opens the home portion of the 2019-20 season with a pair of ECAC hockey contests against No. 15 Quinnipiac and a Princeton team that is receiving votes in the national polls this week.

LAST TIME OUT
• The Big Green dropped the first two games of the season last weekend at No. 19 Harvard and to cross-state rival UNH.
• Dartmouth fell, 7-3, in Cambridge in a game that was closer than the final score would indicate as the Crimson potted a pair of late-game goals with the Dartmouth goalie pulled and seeking to push play the other way.
• In Durham the following night, the Green saw the Wildcats storm back to erase a two-goal third-period deficit before winning in the final seconds of overtime.

THE OPPOSITION
• Quinnipiac is Friday’s opponent and comes to Hanover via a weekend in Tempe last weekend in which the Bobcats were swept by the Sun Devils.
• This will be their first ECAC Hockey test and enter the first league weekend with a 4-3-0 record.
• Princeton will begin the weekend in Cambridge against Harvard, bringing with it a 1-0-1 record after a strong start on the road at St. Cloud State last weekend.
• The Tigers won the opener, 5-3, but needed Corey Andonovski’s fourth goal of the trip late in the third period of the second game to earn a 5-5 tie. For his efforts against the Huskies, Andonovski was tabbed as the ECAC Hockey Player of the Week.

vs. QUINNIPIAC
• Friday marks the 34th all-time meeting between the two teams, with all but one coming with the Bobcats as a member of ECAC Hockey.
• Quinnipiac owns a 21-10-2 edge in the series thanks to an overwhelmingly successful 14-2-1 record in Hamden.
• However, Dartmouth is 8-6-1 against the Bobcats in Hanover, including wins in each of the last two seasons.

vs. PRINCETON
• Saturday is the 210th meeting between the two Ancient Eight rivals dating back to 1907.
• Dartmouth has only played Yale (225) and Harvard (219) more times than it has against the Tigers in 112 years of competition.
• The two teams split the season series in 2018-19 with the road team winning both, including a 5-0 shutout for the Green in the Garden State.

FRIENDLY REMINDER
• The Dartmouth Athletics Department and men’s hockey program ask for your cooperation on Saturday night. Please refrain from throwing items onto the ice that can injure student-athletes from either team. Also, please be aware that any items (including tennis balls) thrown on the ice after Dartmouth goals can result in penalties against the Big Green.

FOR THE FANS:
• Friday vs Quinnipiac
o Home Opener
o Limited Edition Team Poster Giveaway
• Saturday vs Princeton
o Game Sponsor: Casella
o Hero Appreciation Game
o Complimentary Ticket available for all Veterans, Active Military, First Responders and Public Safety (Promo Code: HERO)
o Postgame Autographs with Team

SECOND LINE
• The top line got all the press for Dartmouth leading up to the start of the season, but it was the trio of players listed on the second line of the line chart that proved to be the top producers in the opening weekend.
• Daniel Warpecha: For the second time in three seasons, the Illinois native was the first Dartmouth player to find the back of the net in a season. Warpecha scored the first of Dartmouth’s three second-period goals against Harvard on Friday night just 1:36 into the frame. He also scored the first goal of the 2017-18 season for the Green with just 1:19 remaining in the first period on the road at Holy Cross.
• Matt Baker: Baker didn’t have a point in the opener but did manage to score a pair of goals at New Hampshire. The junior found the back of the net in each of the first two periods and is the lone Dartmouth player with a two-goal effort thus far.
• Jeff Losurdo: On the right side, sophomore Jeff Losurdo is one of only two Dartmouth players with points in both games this season. Losurdo assisted on Warpecha’s tally in Cambridge, while also collecting an assist on the second Baker marker. He also potted the only power-play goal of the weekend for the Big Green, putting the visitors ahead for the first time in Durham at the 8:07 mark of the second period. His three points lead the team in two games.

FIRSTS!
• Several players had firsts last weekend.
• Erik Urbank: After missing all of last season with an injury, the sophomore suited up in his first two career games and collected an assist at UNH, the first point of his collegiate career.
• Christian LeSueur: Like Urbank, the sophomore did not see action in his first year in Hanover. Making his debut this weekend, LeSueur logged solid minutes and picked up his first career point with a helper on Dartmouth’s first goal against the Wildcats.
• Harrison Markell: The sophomore rearguard scored the first goal of his career with a point shot against Harvard Friday night. The Andover, Massachusetts, native had five assists in 31 games as a rookie last year, but didn’t manage to find the back of the net until career game No. 32.
• Tanner Palocsik: The rookie defenseman stepped into the lineup and made an immediate impact on the scoresheet in his debut weekend. Palocsik collected the first two assists of his career against UNH and is the only Dartmouth player with multiple assists in a game thus far.
• In addition to Palocsik, Mark Gallant and Jack Cameron both made their collegiate debuts by appearing in the lineup.

MR. SEASON OPENER
• Ryan Blankemeier opened the scoring for Dartmouth at UNH with a goal at the 2:07 mark. It was originally ruled no goal but was overturned on video review at the next whistle.
• The goal was the fourth of the season for the Big Green. Blankemeier also scored Dartmouth’s fourth goal last year, albeit at 3:13 of the third period in the first game of the season, a 7-6 overtime win against Harvard.
• The Illinois native also scored in the opener at Holy Cross as a sophomore, finding the back of the net just 39 seconds into the second period.
• As a freshman playing in his first career game, Blankemeier picked up an assist on Cam Strong’s goal against No. 11 Michigan as part of the team’s exciting 3-2 home win to open the 2016-17 season.
• Blankemeier is the lone player in the nine-member senior class to have at least one point in the opening weekend of each of their four years in Hanover. Warpecha just missed out on joining his fellow Illinoisan, failing to collect a point in last year’s Harvard game.

THAT WAS FAST!
• Warpecha and Markell’s goals at Harvard were separated by just 21 seconds, coming at 1:36 and 1:57 of the second period.
• As impressive as that is, that is not the fastest span of two goals for the Green in the last two seasons as Will Graber and Drew O’Connor scored 19 seconds apart in the final regular season game of 2018-19 at RPI, finding the back of the net at 8:08 and 8:27, respectively.
• It does eclipse the mark against Harvard, though, edging out the 27-second gap between goals from Blankemeier (3:13) and Shane Sellar (3:40) in that wild third period of last year’s opener.

105th to 100
• On Friday night, Will Graber will become the 105th player to reach 100 career games played in a Dartmouth uniform.
• The senior and center from Colorado is one of three players currently with 90 or more games played along with Warpecha (96) and Cam Strong (90).
• In 99 games, Graber has 24 goals and 46 assists for 70 points, the most for any active Dartmouth player in all three fields.
• He is the first Coloradan to reach 100 games since Taylor Boldt ’14 did so in 2013-14 before finishing his career with 129, the eighth-best mark in program history.
• If Graber were to play every game of the rest of the regular season, he would have 131 heading into the playoffs, a mark that would rank as the sixth best in 113 years of Dartmouth hockey.

THE GOAL
• Matt Baker scored ‘The Goal’ against Princeton in 2017-18, marking the fifth straight year in which a freshman had notched the marker.
• That streak of freshman dominance came to an end last season when… Baker scored again.
• Since 2000-01, no player has scored ‘The Goal’ more than once in their career until Baker did so in each of the last two seasons.
• In that time, only twice has the goal been scored after the first period of play: Baker in 2018-19 (10:17 | 2nd) and Chris Baldwin in 2001-02 (1:57 | 2nd), with the most recent instances being the latest it has been scored.
• Dartmouth was shutout in both 2000-01 (6-0) as well as in 2004-05 (3-0).
• The last five players to score the goal were freshman before Baker double-dipped two years in a row: Baker (2017-18), Cam Strong (2016-17), Alex Jasiek (2015-16), Carl Hesler (2014-15) and Grant Opperman (2013-14).
• The last time a player other than a freshman scored the celebrated marker before Baker last season was when senior defenseman and team captain Mike Keenan opened the scoring at 15:08 of the first period on March 1, 2013.

CHaD TOY DRIVE
• Dartmouth’s next home weekend will be Dec. 6-7 against Colgate and Cornell. The team will once again be collecting toy donations for the Children’s Hospital at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center. Check back with DartmouthSports.com for more information.

ESPN+
• All of Dartmouth home games will be carried this season on ESPN+ with Tyler Murray providing play-by-play throughout the home schedule in 2019-20.
• In addition to games played in Hanover, ECAC Hockey road games at each school besides Rensselaer will also be carried on the network, making ESPN+ your home for 21-of-22 conference games and 26 regular season games total.
• Postseason games will also be carried on ESPN+ in 2019-20 and will not need subscribers to pay any additional fees to watch the league’s postseason.

ON THE AIR
• Once again, Rob Kennedy will be the Voice of the Big Green on the radio.
• Kennedy begins his third season with the team and will broadcast all 29 regular season games video an audio link through DartmouthSports.com.

WHAT’S AHEAD
• Dartmouth is back on the road next weekend, taking on Yale and Brown in a pair of ECAC Hockey and Ivy League games.
• Both games are 7 p.m. puck drops.