Dartmouth Plays Host to No. 17 Harvard Friday Night

Friday, February 7

Hanover, N.H.

8 PM

Dartmouth College

Harvard

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Matt Baker

Photo by: Gil Talbot

Dartmouth Plays Host to No. 17 Harvard Friday Night

2/6/2020 1:33:00 PM | Men's Ice Hockey

8 PM puck drop set for Frirday at Thompson Arena between Crimson and Big Green

By: Pat Salvas

GAME 23
Dartmouth | 10-8-4, 7-6-2 ECAC
No. 17 Harvard | 10-7-4, 8-4-3 ECAC
Date: Friday, 2.7.20 — 8 p.m.
Location: Thompson Arena | Hanover, N.H.
Watch: ESPN+ | Tyler Murray (PxP) | Matt Corsetti (Color)
Listen: DartmouthSports.com | Rob Kennedy (PxP)
Follow Along: Live Stats

Game Notes

THIS WEEKEND
• The Dartmouth men’s hockey team is back home after a four-game ECAC Hockey road trip the last two weekends.
• The Big Green play host to Harvard Friday night at 8 p.m. as part of a Dartmouth hockey doubleheader with the women’s team playing Colgate at 3 p.m.

LAST TIME OUT
• The Big Green dropped a pair of games last weekend in the New York Capital Region, falling at Rensselaer, 7-1, and Union, 4-3.
• The game in Troy was a dominant performance from the home team from start to finish.
• The following night in Schenectady was a slightly different story. The Dutchmen controlled play early on and took a 4-1 lead into the third period. The Green and White responded with a pair of goals midway through the frame from Quin Foreman, but it wasn’t enough as the frantic final minute was unable to see the equalizer materialize.

GREEN OUT
• Fans are being encouraged to wear GREEN to Friday’s game in an effort to Green Out Thompson Arena.
• There is a t-shirt giveaway (while supplies last) as well as a Chuck-A-Puck with the winner taking home a Yeti cooler valued at over $300.
• Casella is Friday’s presenting game sponsor.

A DIFFERENT TEAM
• Dartmouth is one of the best home teams in ECAC Hockey, posting a 7-1-2 record in 10 games at Thompson Arena this season.
• On the flip side, the road has been a struggle for the Green and White as they are 3-7-2 in 12 road contests in 2019-20 after this past weekend.
• Fortunately, coming into Friday’s contest, five of the final seven games in 2019-20 are at Thompson Arena.

THIS WEEK’S OPPONENT…
• Harvard is 10-7-4 overall after a 3-1 loss Monday night to Northeastern in a small, regional in-season, non-conference tournament. In league play, the Crimson are 8-4-3 and are tied for third with Quinnipiac as each have 19 points.
• The team is ranked 17th in the latest USCHO.com Division I National Poll.
• They played one league game last weekend, besting Union, 8-5, on the strength of six second-period goals.
• The Crimson are 4-2-3 in true road games this season and 2-1-1 in neutral-site contests, meaning they are 6-3-4 away from Cambridge, while just 4-4 at home.
• The biggest task Dartmouth has in Friday’s game is limiting the Harvard offense that ranks third in the nation and tops in ECAC Hockey. The Crimson are averaging 3.76 goals per game with seven players boasting at least 15 points this season and three with at least 10 goals.
• Harvard Leaders:
o Points | Casey Dornbach (29)
o Goals | Jack Drury (14)
o Assists | Casey Dornbach (19)
o Goaltending | Mitchell Gibson: 7-5-2, 2.49, .922

GOOD WEEKEND FOR QUIN
• Junior Quin Foreman scored three of the team’s four goals in the trip to the Albany area last week.
• He netted the lone Dartmouth goal at RPI, scoring in the final second of the first period to tie the game at 1-1 at that point.
• The next night down the road, the winger netted a pair of third-period tallies to bring his season total to 10.

GOOD START TO THE WEEK FOR QUIN
• On Monday, Foreman was named a semifinalist for the Walter Brown Award, awarded annually to the top American-born player in Division I in New England.
• Foreman is one of just four players from ECAC Hockey to appear on the semifinalist announcement, joining Harvard’s Dornbach, Drury and Nick Abruzzese.
• Foreman is the first Dartmouth player to earn a spot on the initial release of the names since Eric Robinson in 2015.

SCORING FROM THE BACKEND
• Since making the move from forward to defense, senior Will Graber has had the ice open up for him.
• That was clear in his ability to get the puck into the zone, dangle a Union defender and the goalkeeper and deposit a backhand into the back of the net.
• Graber’s first game on defense was Jan. 10 at Vermont. Since then, he leads the team in both points (9) and assists (6), while third in goals (3).
• A third of that stems from his three-point night (1-2-3) at Union that was overshadowed by the two goals from his former linemate Foreman.
• More impressive is that since switching to defense, Graber leads the team in blocks (16).

TWO MAKES FOUR
• As part of Quin Foreman’s two-goal third period, Matt Baker also picked up a pair of points with assists on both scores.
• For Baker, it was his fourth multi-point effort of the season; the fourth-best mark on the team behind Drew O’Connor (8), Tanner Palocsik (6) and Foreman (5).

OK, LET’S TALK ABOUT IT…
• Dartmouth dropped in the standings from third place to seventh after picking up just one of a possible eight points on the road trip, giving the team 16 for the season.
• The good news is that the league is so tight that the Green and White are just three points out of third place, while also boasting a three-point cushion over eighth-place Yale.
• RPI and Colgate are a spot ahead of Dartmouth by just a single point, while Quinnipiac and Harvard are tied for third with 19.
• The Big Green and Crimson are tied for second in the Ivy League standings with 10 points with both trailing first-place Cornell (13) by three.

LET’S TRY SCORING FIRST
• Dartmouth is 7-1-3 when scoring first this season.
• When the opposition scores the first goal of the game, the Big Green are 3-7-1 including a pair of losses last weekend.

PLAYING A LOT
• After appearing in 19 straight games without surrendering time to another goaltender, Adrian Clark finally gave way to Justin Ferguson between the pipes at RPI 7:05 into the third period.
• Clark resumed his spot back in the crease the next night, playing well and making 34 saves as Union dictated pace of play.
• The senior netminder is one of 19 goalies from across Division I to appear in at least 90% of his team’s total minutes this season. Clark has been in goal for 94.1% of action this season, a figure that ranks fourth in ECAC Hockey and 12th nationally.

SPECIAL TEAMS
• Dartmouth is currently 20th in the nation on the power play, operating at a 21.1% (16-76) clip after a 1-for-4 weekend between both games.
• The 76 power-play chances are second fewest in the nation to this point along with Michigan State. Brown is the only program with less… an astonishingly low 59 power plays in 21 games.
• The PK has been steadily on the rise since the start of the season and, on the strength of a 6-for-6 night in Schenectady, the kill rate jumped up to 80.2% (69-86).
• That penalty kill will be put to the test as the Crimson’s power play is the best in the nation at an insanely productive 30.8% (24-78).

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?
• The Big Green will host Brown and Yale next weekend at Thompson Arena.