Dartmouth Falls To Princeton To Open 2026

Friday, January 2

Hobey Baker Rink / Princeton, N.J.

7:00 PM

Dartmouth College

12-3-0, 6-1-0

Princeton

9-4-0, 5-2-0

Dartmouth

Princeton

1/2/2026 11:27:00 PM | Men's Ice Hockey

Box Score

By: Dan Richeal

PRINCETON, N.J.—No. 9/8 Dartmouth men's hockey fell 5-4 to Princeton on Friday night on the road.

It took the Big Green just 4:39 to open the scoring. Colin Grable gained control of the puck at the top of the circle and fed a pass to Hayden Stavroff in the slot. Stavroff fed a pass back across the crease to Hank Cleaves who tapped in his seventh goal of the year. Stavroff notched his eighth assist and it was Grable's fourth assist.

The teams went to the locker room with the Big Green leading 1-0, Dartmouth won five of seven faceoffs in the first period.

3:23 into the second period, the Big Green got their second goal from Cooper Cleaves. There was a scrum around the Princeton net and the puck popped out to H. Cleaves, he slid a pass across to his younger brother who one-timed home his second goal of the year. H. Cleaves notched his 11^th assist while CJ Foley picked up his eighth assist.

Less than two minutes later, the Tigers scored on the power play to cut the Dartmouth lead in half. At the 12:09 mark of the frame, Princeton tied the game at two.

The Big Green responded with 5:01 left in the middle stanza. Dartmouth dumped the puck in and the Princeton goalie played it up the wall. Stavroff was waiting for it and pulled it off the wall and fired it towards the net. The puck beat the goalie back to the net and Stavroff had his 15^th goal of the year.

Dartmouth held a 3-2 lead heading to the third period and a 17-12 advantage in the faceoff circle.

4:11 into the third period, Princeton tied the game at three. Just under 11 minutes later, the Tigers took a 4-3 lead. With the Dartmouth net empty, Princeton scored its fifth goal of the game at the 17:23 mark.

The Big Green didn't go down without a fight. With 23 seconds left, Brock Devlin threw a shot towards the net that was deflected by a Princeton defender and into the net. After notching his first two career points last game against Arizona State, the first-year picked up his first collegiate goal.

The late push wasn't enough as Princeton held off the push for the final 22 seconds.

Roan Clarke started in net for the Big Green and made 23 saves in the loss. This season he is 6-2-0 with a 2.15 goals against average and a .897 save percentage. 12 of his 23 saves came in the opening period.

Both H. Cleaves and Stavroff has two points while six members of the Big Green had points.

Dartmouth went 33-20 in the faceoff circle with H. Cleaves winning a game best 15 draws on 24 faceoffs. Nathan Moring won nine draws while Andrew Clarke had five wins.

With both Cleaves brother scoring, they become the first set of brothers to score in the same game since John Fusco '25 and Matt Fusco '27 scored against Union on Jan. 17, 2025. With H. Cleaves assisting C. Cleaves, it is the first time since Jan. 10, 2010 that a Dartmouth player assisted his brother on a goal. Connor Goggin '12 assisted his brother Mark Goggin '13 against Yale.

The Big Green travel to Hamden, Conn to take on No. 10 Quinnipiac on Saturday, Jan. 3 at 7 PM. Dartmouth is now 12-3-0 overall and 6-1-0 in ECAC Hockey play.