Dartmouth men’s hockey (3-14-3, 2-10-1 ECAC) fell to Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (10-10-4, 4-5-3 ECAC) 4-2 on Friday night in Troy, N.Y. Dartmouth played competitively all game but came just short of equalizing the score with an empty net as time ran out.
“RPI played a pretty good defensive game, especially down low in the corners,” forward Grant Opperman ’17 said. “I think we did a good job keeping our feet moving down there and drew a few penalties off that, but we didn’t have a power play goal.”
Head coach Bob Gaudet pulled goaltender James Kruger ’16 in the final minute in an attempt to force overtime, but RPI junior netminder Scott Diebold turned away every desperation shot.
Neither team scored in the first period, but the game heated up quickly in the second. RPI built a 2-0 lead with goals by junior Ryan Haggerty and sophomore Milos Bubela before Geoff Ferguson ’16 put Dartmouth on the board at the 17:13 mark.
Haggerty, who has a league-leading 19 goals, scored 45 seconds into the period and set up the second goal with a nice pass to junior Jacob Laliberte to Bubela set up Bubela’s goal from the far post at 14:07.
Ferguson’s goal, came on a shot from just above the near circle, which deflected through the defense and snuck past Diebold.
“We had a great face-off win by Troy Crema [’17] and a great screen by Brandon McNally [’15] and a little bit of a pick by Tim O’Brien[’16],” Ferguson said. “It was mainly them, not me. I just put it in the net.”
Junior Matt Neal restored RPI’s two-point lead with his 10th goal of the season from the crease at 7:48 into the third.
With 8:21 remaining in the final period, Opperman picked up a pass from Connor Dempsey ’16 and, two quick dekes later, cut the difference to one goal with his fourth of the year.
“I practiced [the deke] on Cab [Morris ’14] and he said it was a tough move to read,” Opperman said. “I went with his word there. Again, I was lucky enough to get the chance.”
Opperman had just finished serving time in the penalty box for slashing and received the pass right out of box.
“I experienced a big swing of emotions,” Opperman said. “I was a little frustrated. I took a huge selfish slash.”
But the tide turned as Opperman snuck behind the Engineers’ defense.
“I remember there was four seconds left in the penalty and we had the puck in the corner, I was thinking ‘Ah, hopefully this works out and maybe I’ll get something. Chances are slim but I hope so,’” Opperman said. “I came out and Dempsey had it. I had a couple steps on the D-man. I knew he was going to get the puck to me, and I figured I was lucky enough to get that bounce, to get that chance and score on the breakaway.”
RPI’s fourth goal, an empty netter, sealed the game with six seconds left.
The puck never went into the net, sailing wide, but the referees awarded a goal to sophomore Mike Zalewski who they ruled had been impeded by a hold on his way to an open-net scoring opportunity.
Dartmouth missed several opportunities to score by going 0-of-5 on power plays, putting it at 0-of-20 in its last six games. Dartmouth’s last power play goal came on Dec. 30, 2013 in the wild 8-8 tie with No. 17 Northeastern University.
“We had shots, we had chances, but we need to put on in the net,” Opperman said.
RPI also went scoreless on all three of its power play opportunities but ultimately it didn’t need the chances to win.
Kruger finished Friday night with 18 saves. His RPI counterpart, Diebold, finished with 25.
After outshooting RPI 27-22, Dartmouth has now outshot its last five opponents. However, the shots haven’t translated into goals and wins as Dartmouth is 1-3-1 in those five games.
“We got out chances and we played well offensively,” Ferguson said. “I think we need to tighten up in the defensive zone.”
Dartmouth returns to Thompson Arena next weekend for a pair of major conference games against Quinnipiac University on Friday and Princeton University on Saturday. Both contests are set to start at 7 p.m.
