Clarkson gave up two goals with in the last minute and a half but held on to defeat Dartmouth, 7-5, Friday night. Eleven Clarkson and nine Dartmouth skaters registered points in a wild affair before 2,800 fans at Cheel Arena.
With Clarkson resting on a 6-3 lead and a minute and a half remaining in the third, Dartmouth’s Mike Ouellette took a seemingly-harmless shot from the blue line, attempting to connect with winger Hugh Jessiman. The puck deflected off Clarkson defender Chris Bahen and wound up behind goaltender Dustin Traylen, giving new life to Dartmouth’s offense.
Dartmouth pulled goaltender Darren Gastrock and one minute and 18 seconds later found the back of the net as Eric Przepiorka buried a rebound past Traylen to make it a one-goal game with 11 seconds left to play.
But following an icing call, Dartmouth coach Bob Gaudet elected to leave the net empty with the faceoff in the Dartmouth zone. Clarkson won the draw and worked the puck to Dave Reid, who whistled a slapshot through the Dartmouth defenders and into the empty net with two seconds left, sealing the win for the Golden Knights.
Clarkson opened scoring at the halfway mark of the first period when Dave Reid notched his first goal of the night. Clarkson’s Kevin O’Flaherty slipped a pass through two Dartmouth defenders, leaving Reid all alone with Dartmouth goaltender Nick Boucher. Reid made a deke and beat Boucher under the glove to give Clarkson the 1-0 lead.
Clarkson added another tally at the 19:05 mark of the first when Joe Carosa found Bahen from the corner. Carosa made a nifty pass which Bahen tipped high stick-side past a sliding Boucher, making the score 2-0 at the end of the first.
The second period started with a bang as Traylen stopped a two-on-none at the 1:10 mark, and Randy Jones tallied four minutes later. Jones took a soft shot from inside the blue line, and with Matt Syrozinski screening Boucher the puck found the top corner.
Dartmouth stormed right back. Mike Murray tipped a Max Guimond shot out of midair and past Traylen to put Dartmouth on the board 58 seconds after Jones’ goal, and at 11:09 Eric Przepiorka blasted a hard slapshot which beat Traylen to the top glove corner, putting Dartmouth within one and shifting momentum to the Big Green.
O’Flaherty stopped that momentum with a great individual effort for a goal at 14:31, beating two defenseman and Boucher by controlling a bouncing puck and sneaking a goal in through the five-hole, restoring Clarkson’s two goal lead.
Clarkson tallied its only power-play goal of the night when Rob McFeeters buried a rebound of a O’Flaherty shot past an unbalanced Boucher, giving Clarkson a 5-2 lead at 16:13 of the second.
That goal chased Boucher, and entered Gastrock into the contest.
Dartmouth answered with its own power-play goal as Trevor Byrne sailed a shot from the top of the circles past a sprawling Traylen to cut the lead to 5-3 at the end of the second.
The third period started with John Sullivan netting his first collegiate goal, which turned into the eventual game winner. Adam Campana took the initial shot, causing Gastrock to fall over. Sullivan was patient and made no mistake, putting the rebound high and over the goaltender at 3:05.
With eight minutes left, Clarkson’s Jay LaTulippe was whistled offside on an apparent breakaway. LaTulippe continued play and put the puck in the net as Gastrock skated away, and was assessed a two-minute minor and a 10-minute misconduct for shooting after the whistle.
Dartmouth took the opportunity to call timeout and gather itself, then controlled the last five minutes of play, but fell short.
Clarkson went one-for-four on the power play, Dartmouth one-for-seven. Dartmouth outshot Clarkson 31-22.
