No. 14/12 Dartmouth Sets New Attendance Record In Regular Season Finale Tie Vs Princeton

Saturday, February 28

Hanover, N.H.

7:00 PM

Dartmouth College

19-7-4, 13-5-4

Princeton

15-12-3, 11-9-2

OT 1

OT 2

Princeton

Dartmouth

A record setting Thompson Crowd covers Thompson in tennis balls

No. 14/12 Dartmouth Sets New Attendance Record In Regular Season Finale Tie Vs Princeton

3/1/2026 12:53:00 AM | Men's Ice Hockey

Box Score

By: Dan Richeal

HANOVER, N.H—No. 14/12 Dartmouth men's hockey closed out its regular season and clinched the second seed in the ECAC Hockey Tournament with a 2-2 tie against Princeton.

It took until the 15:52 mark of the opening period for a team to open the scoring as Princeton took a 1-0 lead.

The Big Green could not tie the game in the opening frame as they trailed going into the locker room, the Big Green won the faceoff battle 12-10 in the opening 20 minutes.

Neither team scored in the second period despite the Big Green outshooting Princeton 7-4 in the frame.

56 seconds into the third period, the Tigers made it a 2-0 game.

The Big Green cut lead in half at the 3:39 mark as Hank Cleaves scored his 13^th goal of the season on the transition. Tim Busconi fired a pass to Hayden Stavroff from the Dartmouth zone. Stavroff one touched the pass to H. Cleaves at the red line and H. Cleaves sped around defenders and cut to the net. The sophomore beat the goalie with a deke and tennis ball rained down from the Thompson Arena crowd. Stavroff notched his 16^th assist while it was Busconi's eighth.

Dartmouth pulled its goalie 2:10 left in regulation. After a minute of six on five, the Big Green tied the game with 1:10 left. The Big Green had sustained pressure and worked the puck around the top of the zone. Cam MacDonald was battling in front and was checked into the Princeton goalie as the puck was worked around. With the goalie out of position CJ Foley fed a pass across to H. Cleaves who one-timed home his 14^th goal. Foley picked up his 16^th assist, it was Stavroff's 17^th of the season.

Neither team found the back of the net for the final 70 seconds and the game went to overtime.

Princeton had the lone shot on goal in the overtime session as neither team earned the win, and the game officially ended in a tie.

The Tigers scored the only goal of the shootout to take the extra point.

Emmett Croteau made 19 saves in the game including nine in the opening period.

The Big Green blocked 13 shots in the game with Dartmouth block leader Eric Charpentier blocking a game high four shots.

H. Cleaves is currently on a six-game point streak as he has tallied five goals and three assists since Feb. 13 at Yale.

With his two assists on Saturday, Stavroff has now tallied a point in five straight games and seven of the last eight. Over the last eight games he has seven goals and seven assists.

Busconi is riding a four-game point streak as he has five assists in that span.

The Big Green penalty kill was perfect on Saturday as they went 4-4 while allowing just three shots. The biggest kill came in the overtime session as they allowed just one shot on the four on three power play.

Dartmouth set a new Thompson Arena attendance record as 5,195 people were on hand for the regular season finale. The previous record was set on Feb. 14, 1981 as 5,048 were inside Thompson to watch Dartmouth square off with Brown.

With the results from around the ECAC, Dartmouth is the two seed in the upcoming ECAC Hockey Tournament. The Big Green have earned an opening round bye and will face the second lowest remaining seed at Thompson Arena for a three-game series starting on Friday, Mar. 13 at 7 PM. Stay tuned to DartmouthSports.com and Dartmouth men's hockey social media for ticket and opponent information.