Hugh Jessiman and Jarrett Sampson each had a goal and an assist and Nick Boucher had 26 saves, including all 11 shots he faced in the third period, to lead the Dartmouth Big Green to victory over the Yale Bulldogs, 4-3, before a sellout crowd of 3,486 at Ingalls Rink.
The win extends Dartmouth’s streak to three (and snaps Yale’s four-game winning stretch) and gives the Big Green the season sweep of the Bulldogs.
“Yale is a great team,” said Dartmouth head coach Bob Gaudet. “This was an excellent college game and we are fortunate to come out on top.”
After a back and forth start to the first period, Yale got on the board first with a goal from its fourth line. Nathan Murphy jarred the puck from the corner and fed Zachary Mayer, who skated behind the net with the puck on his backhand and slid it past the far post at 10:36 for his first career goal.
The Eli advantage did not last long, though. Just moments after Yale had killed a penalty, Mike Ouellette skated in from the corner and fired a shot that Josh Gartner made the initial save on. Ouellette snagged the rebound and pushed it through traffic and past Gartner (28 saves) low on the glove side at 15:31.
Yale capitalized on an impending penalty late in the first period to take a 2-1 lead. With the referee signaling a call on Dartmouth, Eli captain Denis Nam flipped the puck ahead to Mike Klema who controlled the puck despite several tough bounces and fed Jeff Hristovski in stride between the circles. Hristovski backhanded the puck past Boucher with 1:41 remaining in the period.
The Big Green dominated the second stanza, lighting the lamp three times, which was all they would need for victory. Dartmouth scored two goals in 37 seconds a third of the way through the period to take the lead, 3-2. Kent Gillings’ spin move and perfect pass from behind the net resulted in a one-timer by Sampson at 6:48. Then Joe Gaul scored his first career goal by skating out from behind the net and tucking it inside the near post at 7:25.
Yale used a power play to come back less than a minute later when Ryan Steeves sent a pretty feed to Nick Deschenes. Deschenes took the crossing pass and fired Yale’s first shot on net of the period from the left circle and snapped off a shot that handcuffed Boucher at 8:40, knotting the game at 3-3.
Just under three minutes later, Dartmouth went up for good. Jessiman, the Big Green’s star freshman, recorded his 15th goal of the year (15-18-33) off a feed from Sampson. Jessiman fired a one-timer that made it 4-3 at 11:34 of the second. Like each of the other three Dartmouth goals, Jessiman’s tally came from just outside the Yale crease.
The teams played a scoreless third, though Yale made it interesting right down to the end. Gartner was pulled with 1:30 left in favor of an extra skater, and the Bulldogs’ efforts almost paid off with a few seconds left. Boucher saved an initial shot on net, but the rebound was perilously close to the goal line, and Evan Wax was attempting to poke it in, but it was too tightly lodged to tie the game.
Gaudet was pleased with the commitment to defense his team exhibited in the victory.
“Our problem has been giving up defense to try to get offense,” Gaudet said. “We did a better job of that tonight, because we had a lot of respect for Yale coming in, and they are a great team.”
