March 6, 2005

Four different players scored goals for the Dartmouth men's hockey team and the heavily favored home team closed out the best-of-three ECACHL playoff series with a 5-1 win over Yale in game three.

The Big Green (19-11-2) erased a 1-0 deficit with three straight goals in the second period and two in the third to advance to the conference quarterfinals at Vermont next weekend.

The loss spoiled another excellent effort by Yale goalie Josh Gartner, who had 53 saves and finished the weekend with 129 stops playing just two and a half games. He alone could not prevent the Bulldogs' season from coming to an end, but the Eli backstop stood on his head while allowing just 10 goals.

Dartmouth outshot the Bulldogs 12-6 in the first period but neither team lit the lamp, the first time in the playoff series without a goal in a frame. Gartner, the Yale junior goalie who had a career-high 60 saves the night before, got the most work with a dozen stops and another half dozen that went off target. The best scoring chance came late in the period when Big Green center David Jones was in the low slot with the puck and Gartner pulled to one side. Jones' shot was blocked by Robert Page to preserve the tie.

Yale (5-25-2), which snapped a seven-game Dartmouth win streak in the series last night, put the first goal on the board just 1:06 into the middle frame. Jean-Francois Boucher dove, stick-first, to tip a perfect Zach Mayer lead pass by the stick of Big Green goalie Dan Yacey. Boucher, who scored a similar goal on Friday night in the loss, tallied his fifth goal of the season.

"To get a goal at the start of the second period was a huge lift," said Yale head coach Tim Taylor. "But penalties got us and we lost Matt Cohen to a concussion. Our already depleted defensive corps was even more depleted."

The Elis could not stay out of the penalty box enough to keep the best offense in the ECACHL off the board. Nick Johnson's power-play goal tied the score during a flurry of Dartmouth offense that Gartner mostly handled with brilliant glove saves and rebound control. However, Johnson, the Ivy League's Rookie of the Year, was on the doorstep with an open side of the net and little in his way to his 16th goal of the year at 16:35. That was the first of two man-advantage chances for head coach Bob Gaudet's squad.

The Big Green garnered its first lead since Friday night at 16:35 of the second on a pretty move by Jones. On the power play, the freshman forward made a pretty move on Gartner after splitting the defense. The Yale goalie tried to poke it away but Jones tucked the puck and waited for the last moment to slip a backhander past Gartner's stick for his eighth tally of the season.

Dartmouth clearly has more team speed so the Elis wanted to avoid any kind of penalties including matching calls. The first matching infraction of the game cost the visitors with a goal by Green captain Lee Stempniak. He deked the Yale netminder and toward the right post before sending the puck on the ice in the opposite direction. Gartner, who made 20 saves in the middle frame, did not know that the shot had gone just inside the left post with 1:15 left in the period to make it 3-1.

"We came unraveled in the second period, but the five guys playing defense played unbelievably well," said Taylor. "They worked their tails off every minute of every shift."

Yet another penalty led to Dartmouth's fourth straight goal, and Gartner was most upset about this one because he was completely taken out of the crease 1:54 into the third. Eric Przepiorka (14th goal) was the recipient of the good fortune, as the Yale goalie had his feet pulled out from under him and he was pushed 10 feet from the goal. The junior Dartmouth center found a rebound and easily smacked it into the back of the net.

Report filed by Steve Conn, Yale Sports Publicity Director