Four Huge Points on the Line as Dartmouth Hosts Brown and Yale

Friday, February 14

Hanover, N.H.

7 PM

Dartmouth College

Brown

Tickets

Sam Hesler

Photo by: Doug Austin

Four Huge Points on the Line as Dartmouth Hosts Brown and Yale

2/13/2020 11:53:00 AM | Men's Ice Hockey

Big Green look to bounce back against a pair of ECAC Hockey rivals.

By: Pat Salvas

Game Notes

THIS WEEKEND
• The Dartmouth men’s hockey team plays host to a pair of conference rivals this weekend as Brown and Yale come to town.
• With just three weekends left in the regular season, these two teams are just back of the Big Green in the standings, making these two games very important for all three.

LAST TIME OUT
• Dartmouth continued its mid-season skid with a home loss to Harvard last Friday night.
• The score will say 6-2, but it was a one-goal game until the final few minutes when the home team started pressing and allowed Harvard more room to operate in the offensive end.
• Sophomore Drew O’Connor and senior Daniel Warpecha scored the Big Green’s goals.

PROMOTIONS
• Fans coming to Friday’s game against the Bears can get their picture with the Ivy League Football Championship trophy on the concourse from 6 p.m. through the end of the first period.
• Saturday is Youth Night at Thompson Arena with Cardigan Mountain School serving as the game’s presenting sponsor.
• The first 500 youths (12 and under) through the door will receive a Dartmouth Hockey mini stick.
• Youth tickets for Saturday night will also cost just $2.

THIS WEEK’S OPPONENTS…
• Brown is 6-16-1 overall this season with all six wins coming in league play as the Bears are 6-9-1 in ECAC Hockey games.
• The team is coming off its best weekend of the season as they overcame deficits of 2-0 and 3-2 in the third period to defeat Princeton, 4-3, on Friday before earning a 2-2 draw the following evening against No. 156 Quinnipiac.
• For their efforts, Brent Beaudoin (Player) and Bradley Cocca (Rookie) earned weekly ECAC Hockey awards.
• Yale is another team battling for home ice in the upcoming postseason as the Bulldogs are 7-8-1 in ECAC contests. Overall, the team is 10-12-1 this season.
• They suffered a 3-2 overtime setback to Quinnipiac at home Friday night after scoring the tying goal with 2:47 remaining in regulation. However, Yale bounced back with a 5-3 win the next night against a struggling Princeton team.
• Brown Leaders:
o Points | Zach Gluttari (13)
o Goals | Justin Jallen (9)
o Assists | Zach Gluttari (10)
o Goaltending | Gavin Nieto: 5-13-1, 2.64, .909
• Yale Leaders:
o Points | Justin Pearson, Tyler Welsh (17)
o Goals | Curtis Hall (13)
o Assists | Jack St. Ivany (16)
o Goaltending | Corbin Kaczperski: 9-10-1, 2.93, .901

AGAINST THESE TEAMS
• Dartmouth swept Yale and Brown on the road in mid-November.
• The Green and White started the weekend with a 4-3 victory at Yale thanks to Will Graber’s game-winner with 1:25 left in regulation. For Graber, it was his second GWG in as many games after also scoring the winner the Saturday before in a home game against Princeton.
• The following night saw Dartmouth take down Brown, 4-1, at Meehan Auditorium powered by the top line of Drew O’Connor (2-1-3), Graber (1-0-1) and Quin Foreman (0-2-2).
• For his six-point weekend on consecutive three-point outings, O’Connor was not only named the ECAC Hockey Player of the Week, but also the NCAA’s First Star of the Week.

GOTTA TURN IT AROUND
• Dartmouth is currently in the midst of a tough stretch of games and is winless in five straight (0-4-1).
• Prior to the current run, Dartmouth was 10-5-3 and averaging 3.11 goals per game. In the last three weekends, the scoring has dropped to 2.20 a night.
• The Big Green are capable of scoring at one of the highest rates in ECAC Hockey as proven by the first two months of the season, they just need to find that touch again. Even with the struggles, the team is still fourth in the league with 2.91 goals per game this season, just .02 back of No. 5 Clarkson.

A BAKER’S DOZEN
• With his first-period goal against Harvard last week, Drew O’Connor pushed his season total to 13.
• That figure is tied for second in ECAC Hockey behind only the Crimson’s Jack Drury (15).
• O’Connor is tied with Yale’s Curtis Hall and Quinnipiac’s Wyatt Bongiovanni for second.
• Hall did not dress in the earlier game against the Green this season in New Haven, while O’Connor had a goal and two assists against the Bulldogs. Bongiovanni scored once in the home game against Dartmouth last month, but did not register a point in Hanover in November.

STREAKS!
• With the great individual effort and primary assist on O’Connor’s goal, Quin Foreman pushed his point streak to four games (4-1-5).
• Matt Baker has a three-game streak (0-4-4) going thanks to his assist on the Warpecha goal. The junior now has points in six of the last eight games (1-7-8), and is tied for the team lead in scoring in that time while leading in helpers.
• Despite the Big Green’s strong scoring touch for most of the season, four games is the longest streak of the season by any player and has been reached eight times by seven players (Tanner Palocsik, Collin Rutherford, Baker, Foreman, O’Connor, Jeff Losurdo and Will Graber). Foreman is the only player to do it twice.

50.
• With his goal against the Crimson, O’Connor reached the 50-point mark (30-20-50) for his career in just 57 games.
• After 26 points (17-9-26) in 34 games last season, he has 24 (13-11-24) in just 23 games this year.
• With an assist, Baker moved to within a point of 50 for his career as he now has 49 (19-30-49) in 88 games in a Dartmouth sweater.

WHAT’S LEFT?
• Six games and 12 possible league points are between the Green and ECAC Hockey postseason.
• Of those six games, four teams are currently behind Dartmouth’s 16 points in the standings: Brown (13), Yale (15), St. Lawrence (3) and Union (11). The Big Green are 3-1 against those teams this season.
• Two games come against teams who have more points: Clarkson (26) and RPI (17). Dartmouth has a home win against the Golden Knights and a road loss at Rensselaer in 2019-20.
• With Harvard holding a five-point edge for the fourth and final bye-week spot, Dartmouth will likely need to earn 8-10 points and get help for a bye week to be a reality.

DANNY WARPS
• Daniel Warpecha’s third-period goal against Harvard was his first tally in 11 games.
• His fifth of the season, he had not found the back of the net since Dec. 14 at Northeastern in the final contest before the winter break.
• Warpecha’s career high is six as a rookie in 2016-17, while also netting five as a sophomore.
• He now has 17 goals and 34 points in 117 games.

COMING UP SHORT(HANDED)
• Dartmouth does not have a shorthanded goal on the season, making them one of nine teams in Division I without.
• Of those nine teams from across the country, five are in the ECAC: Colgate, Cornell, St. Lawrence, RPI and Dartmouth

POWER(PLAY) OUTAGE
• Friday’s game features teams with the fewest power-play opportunities this season:
o Brown: 66
o Dartmouth: 80
o Michigan St.: 80
o Notre Dame: 80

DOWN BUT NOT OUT
• Dartmouth leads the ECAC in goals when trailing this season with 29.
• Considering the Big Green are above. 500, that is a telling stat about their ability to fight back in games.
• That figure is also twice inflated by instances of the team being down three goals and battling back to tie the game (Northeastern, BU).
• 29 goals when behind is the 17th best in the nation, while the 1.26 per game ranks fifth in DI.

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 is in his third season with the team and will broadcast all 29 regular season games via an audio link through DartmouthSports.com.

WHAT’S AHEAD?
• Dartmouth heads to the North Country to take on St. Lawrence and Clarkson next weekend in the final road trip of the regular season.