Published: 3/9/2019 10:53:05 PM
Modified: 3/9/2019 10:53:06 PM
HANOVER — The Dartmouth College men’s hockey team lost, 3-2, to St. Lawrence in overtime on Saturday, setting up Sunday’s deciding game in the ECAC teams’ best-of-three first-round playoff series at Thompson Arena. The Big Green won Friday’s opener and hopes to advance to the conference quarterfinals at Harvard next weekend for another best-of-three matchup.
Michael Ederer’s seeing-eye pass from the left corner was knocked in at the far post by a backhand redirection from Zach Risteau 17 minutes into extra time. The Saints broke into the zone on a 3-on-2 on what at first seemed an innocuous rush, but the feed zipped behind a pair of defenders and past goaltender Adrian Clark.
The visitors were outshot, 60-24, and freshman goaltender Daniel Mannella made 14 saves in overtime, during which St. Lawrence managed only three shots.
“If we play the same way tomorrow, the odds are in our favor,” Dartmouth coach Bob Gaudet said. “We’ve been in this position a lot in my career here. (St. Lawrence) is a big, strong team with 18 full scholarships, and we just didn’t get the bounce we needed.”
The 12th-seeded Saints (6-29-2) opened the scoring during the 15th minute when Dartmouth got caught in a sloppy line change and Ederer ripped a shot from the far left side low and inside the post off an odd-man rush. The fifth-seeded Big Green (13-15-4) answered two minutes later, Jeff Losurdo poking in a backhand shot from the left post after a protracted goalmouth scramble.
St. Lawrence took a 2-1 lead four minutes into the second period when Cade Gleekel redirected a low shot from the right point past Clark. Dartmouth countered with Drew O’Connell’s rebound goal, his fifth strike in the last four games.
“We had plenty of chances, some of them glittering, but they made a play at the end,” Gaudet said. “I thought during the second and third periods and overtime, we played some of the best hockey we have all year.”
Notes: Dartmouth’s Daniel Warpecha sat out with an injury suffered during Friday’s game. He was replaced by Ryan Blankemeier. … Big Green defenseman Cam Roth is colorblind. … Dartmouth freshman forwards Erik Urbank and Christian LaSueur have not played this season. Urbank spent the first half of the season recovering from shoulder surgery. ... The Saints were 1 of 3 on the power play and the Big Green was 1 of 4. … Dartmouth is 8-4 in the deciding contests of best-of-three series.
Tris Wykes can be reached at twykes@vnews.com.