When questioned as to the impact of the next several days on Dartmouth men's hockey, team co-captain Lee Stempniak '05 said it all: "This weekend is the most important of the season to this point."
The Big Green will be looking to avenge an early-season shutout at the hands of Princeton when the team travels to the Garden State for a Friday night match up. The next night, Dartmouth men's hockey travels to New Haven to face off against the Bulldogs of Yale.
While neither opponent has fared exceptionally well this season, both games have major implications for the Big Green's potential standing in both the ECACHL and national rankings.
The Tigers (6-17-2, 4-13-1 ECACHL) have hit a severe cold spell and are winless in their last eleven league games, most recently falling to Colgate and Cornell this past weekend. After a strong start, highlighted by wins over Dartmouth and Brown, Princeton's defense has been disappointing, allowing more than four goals per game.
"We want to get them back for not letting our fans throw tennis balls on the ice," said Garret Overlock '06.
Dartmouth's scorching attack should certainly perform favorably against the Tigers, but, as the Big Green learned in a November 3-0 loss, it cannot underestimate Princeton's sporadic scoring power. Junior forward Dustin Sproat leads the Tigers, and boasts an impressive 15 goals and 16 assists on the season.
Yale (4-19-2, 3-14-1 ECACHL) has had even less success in '04-'05 than its New Jersey rival. Dartmouth defeated the Bulldogs 5-2 at Thompson back in November and looks to repeat the deed this Saturday.
Yale's defense has struggled all season long and shows little sign of improvement, though on the other side of the puck, sophomore Brad Mills and junior Christian Jensen are always a threat to score. Both players have at least 20 points this year.
Another weekend sweep would prove invaluable to both of Dartmouth's season goals: securing a first round bye in the ECACHL playoffs and making the NCAA tournament.
"We have been trying to get into the top four spots in the league to get a bye all season, and we've finally got into a tie at fourth place with Vermont," explained Stempniak. "We need to win both games this weekend to stay in fourth place and to improve our Pairwise ranking for a possible at-large birth to the NCAA tournament."
Pair-wise ranking is a system that attempts to mimic the method used by the NCAA Selection Committee to determine participants for the NCAA Division I men's hockey tournament. It judges teams by four criteria: record against common opponents, head-to-head competition and record against other teams with RPIs at or above .500 and the RPI. Dartmouth currently sits in a three way tie for 16th in pair-wise ranking, meaning that if the season ended today, the Big Green would lie precariously on the bubble for a bid to the 16-team tournament.
Dartmouth has climbed back up to 17th in both of college hockey's major polls, run by USA Today and US College Hockey Online. The Green has even cracked the top fifteen in Inside College Hockey's power ranking system. Dartmouth's resume is further padded with eight wins against ranked opponents.
In related news, Overlock was named the ECACHL Player of the Week, a first for the junior defensemen. Overlock sparked Dartmouth's offense Saturday versus Clarkson with a career-high three points.
Overlock currently leads the Big Green with seven power-play goals and fronts all defensemen with 20 points, more than doubling his output of the past two seasons. Furthermore, he is the 11th leading scorer among defensemen nationally and second in the ECACHL.
Commenting on Dartmouth's recent success, Overlock noted the effects of a strong defense.
"As a team we feel we have been playing well defensively, which enables us to spend the majority of the game in the offensive zone," he said. "If we can continue to eliminate both Yale and Princeton's chances and give our forwards some good opportunities with the puck, then we feel very confident in how the games will turn out."
Dartmouth has won seven of its previous 10 league contests and looks to add to that total come Friday.
