Big Green Battle Bentley Thursday Night in Final Home Game of First Half

Thursday, December 12

Hanover, N.H.

7 PM

Dartmouth College

Bentley

Buy Tickets

Thompson Arena men's hockey action versus Princeton

Thursday is the final home game until the Ledyard Classic (Dec. 28-29)

Photo by: John and Matt Risley

Big Green Battle Bentley Thursday Night in Final Home Game of First Half

12/11/2019 1:26:00 PM | Men's Ice Hockey

Dartmouth plays host to non-conference Bentley at 7 p.m. on NESN+

By: Pat Salvas

GAME 9
Dartmouth | 4-3-1
vs. Bentley | 7-9-0
Date: Thursday, December 12 – 7 p.m.
Location: Thompson Arena | Hanover, N.H.
Watch: ESPN+ | International Stream | Tyler Murray (PxP) Matt Corsetti (Color)
TV: NESN+
Listen: DartmouthSports.com | Rob Kennedy (PxP)
Follow Along: Live Stats

"This is my fourth trip to CHaD between our toy drive and a visit in the summer with some of our other teams and it's always a great experience for us. We know how much it means to the people at the hospital for us to come and we know how important a tradition it is for our program. The hockey team has been visiting CHaD for years, so we know that when we go we're part of a history of Big Green players hopefully making an impact on these kids."

Team Captain Brendan Demler after his team's trip to CHaD on Monday

Game Notes

THIS WEEKEND
• The Dartmouth men’s hockey team is back at home for the final time in the first half of the season, taking on Bentley Thursday night at 7 p.m.
• The game will be carried on NESN as well as ESPN+.

LAST TIME OUT
• The Big Green fell, 5-1, to visiting Colgate on Friday night.
• Dartmouth bounced back with a 2-1 win the following night against No. 2 Cornell.
• The Big Red had previously been the last unbeaten team in the nation before dropping the one-goal game in Hanover for the second year in a row.

BIG-TIME PLAYER WITH A BIG BOUNCE BACK
• After 28 saves in the loss to Colgate, Dartmouth senior netminder Adrian Clark needed a big bounce back game.
• He got that in the form of a 39-save showing to stun No. 2 Cornell.
• Clark boasts a 2.51 goals against average and a .915 save percentage overall this season.
• Those figures improve when just looking at ECAC Hockey games as he has a 2.14 GAA and a .929 save percentage against conference foes.
• In his four Ivy League games, Clark is even better, posting a perfect 4-0-0 mark to go along with an impressive .951 save percentage and a 1.50 GAA.
• For his play against Cornell, Clark was tabbed as the DartmouthSports.com Male Athlete of the Week.

IN THE IVY LEAGUE
• Despite being held off the scoresheet against Cornell, Drew O’Connor continues to lead all Ivy players in points in games played within the Ancient Eight.
• Thanks in large part to his weekend at Yale and Brown, O’Connor leads the Ivy League with nine points (3-6-9) in five games.
• His six assists are also the top mark in the conference, while he ranks tied for fourth in goals.
• His linemate, senior Will Graber, is one spot ahead with four goals in Ivy games this season, a league-leading two of which are game winners (QU and at Yale).
• O’Connor (at Brown) and Matt Baker (Cornell) have the team’s other two.

THE SECOND LINE
• The line of Daniel Warpecha, Jeff Losurdo and Matt Baker have given Dartmouth a strong second line and depth scoring this season.
• Warpecha scored three goals early in the year, while Baker is tied for the team lead with Graber and O’Connor with four tucks this season.
• Losurdo got the scoring started just over two minutes into the Cornell game with a power-play tally, his second marker of the season with both coming on the man-advantage.

SCOUTING THE OPPOSITION
• Bentley is 7-9 overall this season, including a 5-8-0 mark in Atlantic Hockey games.
• The Falcons rank 32nd in the nation both in offense (2.69) and defense (2.81).
• Ottawa draft pick Jakov Novak leads the team in scoring with 16 points and goals with nine, while tied with Luke Santerano for the assists lead with seven each.
• In goal, duties have been split between Aidan Pelino, Fraser Kirk and a smattering of Jason Grande.
• After suffering four straight losses, the Falcons have wins in four of their last five (4-1-0).
• The teams have two common opponents this season with Bentley defeating UNH, 3-2, in OT in mid-October, while shutting out Brown, 1-0, on the road days after Thanksgiving.

AGAINST THE FALCONS
• Bentley makes its fourth trip to Thompson Arena with all coming since 2007.
• This is just the fifth meeting all-time between the two teams with last year’s game in Waltham being the only one not played in Hanover.
• That game on Jan. 5 ended in a 3-3 tie after the Falcons’ Jonathan Desbiens scored the tying goal with just 19 seconds left in regulation. O’Connor, Graber and Quin Foreman all scored in the game for the Big Green.
• The last time Bentley came to Hanover was Dec. 9, 2017, leaving the Upper Valley with a 5-1 win for the first against Dartmouth.

FOLLOWING No. 2…
• The Big Green will look to continue its momentum following the win over No. 2 Denver.
• Here is how they followed their last two wins over teams ranked No. 2 in the polls:
o No. 2 Clarkson | 1.20.18 | W, 3-2 | Potsdam
• NEXT GAME: W, 2-1 vs. Colgate on Jan. 26
o No. 2 Denver | 12.16.17 | W, 5-4 | Denver
• NEXT GAME: W, 3-1 vs. UNH on Dec. 29 (Ledyard Classic)
• In both instances, the team played at home the following game and allowed just one goal in a pair of wins.

COMING UP ON 1,000
• Thursday will mark Bob Gaudet’s 996th career game as a collegiate head coach over the course of 32 seasons between Dartmouth (23) and Brown (9).
• He will be the first coach in ECAC Hockey history to reach 1,000 career games coached as he already is the all-time leader, passing former longtime St. Lawrence men’s coach and one-time interim Dartmouth women’s coach Joe Marsh.
• Already the all-time leader for men's coaches, Gaudet is now the leader amongst all coaches as Marsh had been on the bench for 939 games at St. Lawrence and 27 as the interim head coach in 2017-18 with the Big Green women's program for a combined 966 over 27 seasons.
• Only Wisconsin’s Jeff Sauer (1,244 in WCHA), Ron Mason (1,233 between Lake State, Bowling Green and Michigan State in CCHA), BU’s Jack Parker (1,146 in Hockey East), Michigan’s Red Berenson (1,221 in CCHA) and UNH’s Dick Umile (1,083 in Hockey East) have coached more games in one conference than Gaudet.

ABOVE .500, UNDER 0.0
• Dartmouth is one of five teams in the nation to have a winning record despite having a negative scoring margin this season.
o Maine (8-7-3, -0.11)
o New Hampshire (8-7-1, -0.12)
o Notre Dame (8-6-2, -0.19)
o Dartmouth (4-3-1, -0.25)
o UConn (7-6-3, -0.31)

STILL NEW TO THIS WHOLE “HOCKEY THING” IN 2019-20
• Despite it being December and some teams already done for the first half of the season, the Big Green have played a nation-low eight games to this point.
• By contrast, Alaska and Lake Superior State have both played 20 games.
• ECAC Hockey rivals Colgate (18) and St. Lawrence (17) have both played more than double that total already this season.

SHUT ‘EM DOWN
• The Big Green get a ton of recognition for their scoring capabilities at the top of the lineup, but often times, the biggest wins in recent memory have been sparked by strong defensive showings.
• Cornell came into Hanover unbeaten at 10-0-0 and with the fourth-best power play in the nation (28.6) and the third-best offense (4.10).
• The Big Red were held to a season-low one goal and failed to score on any of their five power-play opportunities.
• The Big Green penalty kill that struggled in the first weekend of play has rebounded in a big way as of late and ranks 17th in the nation since the team’s second week of the season with an 85.7 success rate (18-21) on the kill.
• Excluding the games at Harvard and UNH, the Green rank 17th in the nation in team defense, allowing 2.17 goals per game, while scoring 2.67 in that stretch.

HI CAM!
• Senior and alternate captain Cam Strong had not registered a point in the first seven games of the season.
• But there’s something about home games against Cornell in big situations that bring out the best in the lone Division I men’s player from Montana.
• He came up with the primary assist on Matt Baker’s game-winning goal early in the second period.
• Last season, Strong scored the winner against the Big Red at home 9:29 into the third period to help Dartmouth to the 3-2 win, the 309th in Hanover for Koenig Family Head Coach Bob Gaudet ’81, setting the new program record for wins by a head coach.

ESPN+
• All of Dartmouth home games will be carried this season on ESPN+ with Tyler Murray usually 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 via an audio link through DartmouthSports.com.

WHAT’S AHEAD?
• The Big Green will have little time to regroup after Thursday’s game as the team heads south to Boston Friday morning in preparation for Saturday afternoon’s game at Northeastern.
• Saturday’s 4 p.m. puck drop is the first at Matthews Arena for Dartmouth since Dec. 11, 1999. The boys in green will be seeking their first win at NU since Dec. 1, 1982.