Dec. 5, 2008
Photo Gallery 
NEW HAVEN, Conn. - The Yale men's hockey team erased a two-goal deficit with six straight goals on the way to a 7-3 win over Rensselaer before 2,644 at Ingalls Rink in an ECAC Hockey game.
Mark Arcobello and Kevin Peel had two goals each and Broc Little had a goal and two assists as the Bulldogs (7-2, 4-1 ECAC), who outshot the Engineers (2-11-1, 1-5) 41 to 27, won for the third straight time and the fifth in the last six games.
Senior goalie Alec Richards earned the win in net with 24 saves. He did not allow an RPI goal after giving up a third tally late in the first period and had 13 saves in the final frame. Mathias Lange saw more rubber than the visitors would like and finished with 28 stops through 43 minutes of action. Both goalies gave up a pair of power-play goals.
Things started well for the Blue but quickly turned sour.
Peel notched his first collegiate goal with a rising blast from the point while Yale had the last eight ticks on a 5-on-3 advantage in the first period. Charles Brockett won the draw in the right circle and tapped it over to Broc Little, who immediately sent it high to Peel. The freshman blueliner's slapshot whizzed high on the glove side of Lange at 11:15.
The visitors evened things 64 seconds later with a power play of their own. Matt Angers-Goulet skated low into the left circle and sent a perfect crossing pass to Patrick Cullen, who was low in the right circle. Cullen (4th goal) one-timed the shot into the open side of the net at 14:19.
The Engineers made it two in a row with a bang-bang goal with 3:50 left in the first. Chase Polacek's shot from the point hit the post and bounced to the right just as Cullen was skating in alone from the right corner. Cullen (5th) quickly sent it back inside the near post at 16:10 for a 2-1 lead.
Yale could not end the bleeding in the opening frame. RPI jumped all over a late 5-on-4 to make it a two-goal lead at the intermission. Andrei Uryadov (1st) banged home a rebound on the edge of the crease with a low shot that found the five hole with 15.3 seconds left
"They deserved to be ahead," said Keith Allain '80, Yale's Malcolm G. Chace Head Coach of Hockey. "We were not as quick as we should have been and they are a strong-skating team. When they have the puck, you better watch out."
"We came out a little slow and it may have been the long break between games," said Little. "Our legs got moving in the second and we got rolling."
What happened in the middle frame - a three-goal explosion by the Elis -- might have been the result of the intermission discussions in the Yale locker room. The Bulldogs came out flying and outshot RPI 15-2.
The home team used some momentum from a penalty kill (Yale bench penalty) to close the gap to 3-2 at 7:14 of the second. Sean Backman was behind the net with the puck and sent a pass to the low slot that a teammate fanned on. The puck bounced around until Brian O'Neill (2nd) flicked it past Lange.
The Elis evened things at 3-3 on Peel's second tally. Michael Karwoski tapped a loose puck to Brockett who skated out from behind the net and fed the high slot for Peel. The rookie defenseman waited a second before snapping off a shot that sailed over Lange's left shoulder at 9:30.
Arcobello (6th) got in the scoring act at 14:50 to give the Blue its first lead since 14:19 of the first. The junior forward got a juicy rebound off Tom Dignard's shot from the point and quickly sent it back into an open near side to make it 4-3.
Arcobello was back at it to pad the lead with Yale on the man-advantage early in the third. His lead pass to the low slot bounced off a defender's skate and hit the net 55 seconds into the period.
Karwoski, playing his third game of the year, made it five straight for the Elis with his first tally of the season on a solo effort. The senior winger took the puck from behind the net, made the wheel route through the left circle and sent a low wrister inside the left post that chased Lange from the net in favor of Allen York little more than three minutes in.
The Bulldog special teams got working again to increase the lead to four goals at 13:25. Killing off a penalty, Little (3rd) and Denny Kearney combined on a pretty give and go that may have been the best looking goal of the night. Little stole the puck at mid ice and fed Kearney heading over the blueline. Kearney gave it back to Little in the right circle heading toward the net and the sophomore winger snapped off a shot that eluded York's glove.
The Elis host Union Saturday night at Ingalls at 7.
Video by David Dikranian
