Big Green Down RPI To Complete Six Point Weekend

Saturday, January 18

Troy, N.Y. / Houston Field House

7:00 PM

Dartmouth College

10-6-2, 7-3-1

Rensselaer

9-12-2, 4-8-0

Dartmouth

Rensselaer

Big Green Down RPI To Complete Six Point Weekend

1/18/2025 11:48:00 PM | Men's Ice Hockey

Box Score

By: Dan Richeal

TROY, N.Y.—The Dartmouth men's hockey team completed a six-point weekend on Saturday night with a 5-3 win over RPI on the road.

For the fourth straight game, the Big Green got on the board first. Just past the halfway mark of the first period, Luke Haymes scored to make it 1-0. Nikita Nikora carried the puck into the RPI zone and fed it Cooper Flinton who was skating backwards towards the net. As Flinton took the pass, he turned and fired a no-look backhand pass to Haymes on the back door. Haymes tapped home his third goal of the season while Flinton picked up his ninth assist and Nikora notched assist number 15.

Less than a minute later at the 11:11 mark of the period, the Big Green found themselves on the power play. Haymes won the offensive zone faceoff and Nikora dished it back to CJ Foley at the point. Foley passed it across to Flinton who one-timed home his seventh goal of the season. Foley picked up his 11^th assist of the year while Nikora notched his second assist of the game.

After 20 minutes of play, Dartmouth led 2-0 and were outshooting RPI 14-5.

10:29 into the second period, the Big Green struck again. The Big Green had a faceoff deep in the RPI zone, despite Dartmouth losing the faceoff, Hank Cleaves battled with a RPI defender for the puck. After winning the puck, he fired home his fourth goal of the season.

RPI scored back to back goals at the 13:19 and 16:08 mark of the second period to make it a 3-2 game with less than four minutes left in the period.

Dartmouth went back on the power play late in the second period. The Big Green had control of the puck with the man advantage when John Fusco fired a puck towards the net. The shot missed the net but bounced off the back wall to Sean Chisholm who tapped home his eighth goal of the year to make it a 4-2 game. J. Fusco picked up his fifth assist of the season while Cleaves notched his sixth assist.

Dartmouth outshot RPI 29-14 in the first two periods after outshooting the Engineers 15-9 in the second periods.

RPI once again made it a one goal game at the 13:17 mark of the third period.

The Big Green put the game on ice with 58 seconds remaining as Chisholm drilled an empty netter from the Dartmouth zone to make it 5-3. J. Fusco and Flinton picked up assists on the play.

Emmett Croteau made his second straight start in goal for the Big Green, he made 16 saves while improving to 6-1-0. On the weekend he made 35 saves for a .921 save percentage and a 1.50 goals against average.

The Big Green went 41-31 in the faceoff circle on Saturday night with Haymes winning 14 of 26 draws. Steven Townley won 13 faceoffs on the game.

Dartmouth finished with 40 shots on goal, it is the second time this season the Big Green have tallied 40 or more shots.

The Big Green blocked nine shots on Saturday night with Tucker McRae blocking a game high four. Eric Charpentier had two blocks along with four shots on goal.

The Dartmouth power play went 2-5 on the man advantage while totaling seven shots. On the weekend the power play went 4-8 with 12 shots.

RPI went 0-3 on the power play and only tallied two shots. Dartmouth's penalty kill was perfect on the weekend going 5-5 and allowing just five shots.

Flinton, Chisholm, J. Fusco, Nikora, and Cleaves all tallied multi point games. It is the first time this season that Flinton tallied three points, he has four three-point games in his career including two against RPI.

Following the six-point weekend, Dartmouth sits in sole possession of second place in the ECAC. Dartmouth is five points back of Quinnipiac with 11 ECAC games remaining in the regular season.

Dartmouth closes out its four-game road swing next weekend with a trip to Colgate and Cornell. Dartmouth takes on Colgate on Friday, Jan. 25 at 7 PM before taking on Cornell on Saturday, Jan. 26 at 7 PM.