As a team that went 5-8 on the road a year ago, the Dartmouth men's hockey team couldn't have been happy about hitting the road for nine straight games from Nov. 14 to Dec. 28.
Tell that to forward Hugh Jessiman '06.
Jessiman said, "I'd rather have that stretch at the beginning of the season, for the young team we have. It sort of toughens up the freshmen right away, those guys that are going to be playing and contributing night in, night out on the road. It's good for them to get some seasoning right up front at the beginning of the season."
Sure enough, while the Big Green men were certainly happy to be back home on Friday for a 7-5 win against ECAC travel partner Vermont, they returned to Thompson Arena as a seasoned -- and successful -- team.
As the Big Green heads back into ECAC play, the team holds a 6-2-5 record (4-0-3 ECAC), and is the No. 13 team in the country according to both USA Today and US College Hockey Online. Furthermore, the Dartmouth offense, a source of concern after several low-scoring games early in the season, has exploded to become the most potent in the ECAC, averaging 3.62 goals a game.
The key for Dartmouth seems to have been head coach Bob Gaudet's decision to shuffle the team's offensive lines. With opposing teams locking in on the highly successful combination of Jessiman, Mike Ouellette '06 and assistant captain Lee Stempniak '05, Gaudet broke up the "J-O-S" line in order to create two powerful scoring units.
Jessiman is now joined on Dartmouth's top line by fellow sophomore Eric Przepiorka and highly touted freshman Tanner Glass '07, while Nathan Szymanski '05 has joined Ouellette and Stempniak on an equally successful second line. While Jessiman and Stempniak remain the team's top two scorers, Przepiorka and Szymanski have matured into dangerous scoring threats as well, with 22 points between them.
Much of Dartmouth's offensive surge had come on the road, where the Big Green posted a 9-4 win over Yale, a 6-3 win over Princeton, and an 8-5 victory over Minnesota State at the Sheraton/Banknorth Classic at UVM. In a conference where upsets have been regular occurrences for some teams (preseason favorite Harvard is 5-6-1 in ECAC play), the Big Green has been remarkably consistent, with the team's two losses coming on the road against No. 2 Boston College and No. 4 Maine.
"Our goal at the beginning of the year was not only to do well in the big games, but also to take care of the games that we should win," Jessiman said. "Last year, we dropped a few to teams in the bottom part of the standings. Those losses came back to hurt us, and this year, in order to gain full national respect, we wanted to make sure we took care of all the teams."
For Stempniak, though, there's only one thing that will guarantee the Big Green the "full national respect" that the team seeks.
"The only way for us to really get respect would be to win the ECAC championship, which is our goal every year. Our other goal is to make the NCAA tournament, so we try to play every game like it's our last one, and with the intention of making the tournament," Stempniak said.
The Big Green appear to be in position to make good on that intention, according to the latest edition of USCHO's Pairwise Rankings. The PWRs, which mimic the selection process for the 16-team NCAA tournament, rank Dartmouth tenth in the country. Cornell, the only other ranked team in the ECAC, is 13th in the PWRs. Dartmouth and Cornell will first meet in Ithaca on Jan. 24, before a return engagement at Thompson Arena on Feb. 6.
After playing nine of their first 13 games on the road, the Big Green men will play half of their remaining games at Thompson Arena, which should play to Dartmouth's advantage. The Big Green is undefeated at home this season, and is averaging over 4,100 fans per game.
"It was great to be home," Gaudet said after the win over UVM. "The support has just been fantastic."
Gaudet and his charges will be looking for "fantastic" support away from Thompson Arena in their next two games, as the Big Green heads into a pair of local matchups. First, the Big Green travels to Gutterson Field House for a rematch with Vermont next Saturday at 7 p.m. Then, on Jan. 13, Dartmouth and No. 7 UNH will play for state supremacy at the Verizon Wireless Arena in Manchester. Student tickets for the UNH game are still available at the Dartmouth Athletics ticket office in the Berry Center.
