The opening stretch of the college hockey season is officially in the past, as all six Ivy League teams were in action for the first time last weekend.
Harvard was the last Division I men’s team to get underway, but the Crimson made up for lost time quickly, beating Dartmouth 5-0 at the Bright-Landry Hockey Center Sunday night.
Ryan Donato had two goals, including a short-handed goal. For Dartmouth, it was the second time in as many games this season that it gave up five goals. The Big Green opened its season with a 5-3 loss at Holy Cross Friday.
Princeton got off to a good start, beating Holy Cross 4-2 Sunday in its season opener.
One of the biggest questions for the Tigers was who would start in goal following the graduation of Colton Phinney last spring. Freshman Ryan Ferland got the start against the Crusaders, and turned away 38-of-40 shots in his collegiate debut.
Cornell began its season with a sweep of Alabama-Huntsville at Lynah Rink. The Big Red also had a freshman goalie make his collegiate debut, as Matthew Galajda started both games against the Chargers and stopped 39-of-40 shots on the weekend in place of injured senior Hayden Stewart.
Union on a roll
Any memories of a 0-5 start appear to be quickly fading for the Union Dutchmen. Union swept rival Rensselaer in a home-and-home series last weekend to push its winning streak to four games.
The Dutchmen held off a late RPI rally Friday, when the Engineers scored twice to pull to within 4-3 and then won Saturday after trailing 2-1 entering the third period.
Freshman goalie Darion Hanson has started all four of those games for the Dutchmen, recording a .920 save percentage and 1.75 goals-against-average. Junior Jake Kupsky had started the first five games of the season for Union.
The games marked the first league games of the season for both teams. The travel partners will continue their conference schedule with games at St. Lawrence and Clarkson this upcoming weekend.
Saints get on the board
A tough early season schedule for St. Lawrence wasn’t made any easier by the fact that the Saints entered the year down several important defensemen and their starting goalie.
The loss of graduating seniors Gavin Bayreuther, Eric Sweetman, and Ben Massella was expected. The early departure of goalie Kyle Hayton was not.
“In our year-end meeting, his plan was to come back here. And that changed,” St. Lawrence coach Mark Morris told USCHO executive editor and Wisconsin State Journal writer Todd D. Milewski.
But Hayton finished his undergraduate requirements early, and transferred to Wisconsin as a graduate student. The Saints and Badgers met last weekend, with Hayton starting in Wisconsin’s win on Friday that dropped St. Lawrence’s record to 0-7.
Hayton wasn’t particularly sharp, as the Saints only had 19 shots, but scored two goals. However, St. Lawrence rebounded Saturday, scoring six goals, albeit on only 13 shots on goal. Jack Berry got the start in goal for Wisconsin before getting pulled for Hayton, who gave up one goal without making a save.
The six goals were nice, but the Saints only managed to put 32 shots on goal during the whole weekend. St. Lawrence entered the weekend averaging 26 shots per game on goal. That’s not a huge number, but the Saints will need to be closer to that figure for the rest of the year as they can’t count on scoring on a quarter of their shots, which they did against the Badgers
