Between the two games, both captain Rob Pritchard '09 and goalkeeper Jody O'Neill '12 expressed the team's need to step up its play in the first moments of the game, O'Neill told The Dartmouth.
"In the dressing room, we talked about wanting to get a bit of a better start, coming with a little more energy, getting on top of it quicker and not waiting until the second half of the game to get after it," O'Neill said.
The Big Green (10-6-0, 7-4-0 ECAC Hockey) did get a better start, coming out to make 13 shots and a goal in the first period against the Bears (1-10-4, 1-5-3 ECAC Hockey).
While the majority of points came in the second period, Dartmouth dominated all three.
Changes in offensive lines proved to be effective for the Big Green as a number of players stood out in the Brown contest. Joe Gaudet '10 had a near-hat trick with two goals and an assist, marking his second and third goals of the season. Matt Reber '11 had three assists and Scott Fleming '11 had a goal and an assist.
Dartmouth reversed the 55-30 shot ratio of the Yale contest by more than doubling Brown's efforts, taking 47 shots to Brown's 22.
Midway into the first period, Gaudet put the home team on the scoreboard with a wrap-around shot that he pushed past the left post, assisted by Fleming and Reber.
Early in the second, the Bears put in a tally to tie the game.
The tie, however, was short-lived, as just under two minutes later, Pritchard scored what would be the game-winning goal off a shot by Kyle Reeds '11, assisted by Connor Shields '09. The tally marked the first in a series of four unanswered goals in the second period.
The next goal came at 11:17, when Fleming put one in past the fallen goalie with the help of Reber and Gaudet.
With less than two minutes left in the period, Doug Jones '12 put in a goal off a series of passes from Adam Estoclet '11 and Peter Boldt '10.
Just over thirty seconds later, Gaudet scored his second goal of the evening with the help of Reber and Evan Stephens '11.
The 5-1 score held through a scoreless third period, despite some notable shots, including a flick from Estoclet that hit the left post.
"We came out a lot faster, a lot harder than we did last night," Gaudet said. "Last night, we came out a little slow. The first 10 minutes are always really important, and in the first 10 minutes today we all played and we were up one nothing, which set the tone. When you get up early, it's a lot easier to play than coming back two nothing like last night."
The Yale game was marked with significantly less success, although head coach Bob Gaudet '81 said he was not disappointed with the team's effort.
"We tried really hard," he said. "I thought we had a couple of good chances. I'd like to get a couple more situations, but towards the end of the game, there's a lot of fatigue. A lot of those guys have been playing quite a bit. I'd like to be crisper, but we worked really hard to try to score there at the end and we worked hard to draw those penalties to give us that chance, and I was pleased with that."
The main highlight from the contest with Yale (11-4-0, 6-2-0 ECAC League) was a career-high 53 saves from O'Neill. O'Neill's save percentage of .939 puts him in fourth place among ECAC goalkeepers.
While O'Neill himself wasn't overly enthusiastic about his accomplishment, coach Gaudet was impressed.
"I thought by far he was the best player for either team on the ice," he said. "He was absolutely outstanding. He gave us a chance when we didn't have our best game, and I thought he was clearly the best thing about the game."
According to Pritchard, one of the most important deciding factors in the contest was the early aggression of the Bulldogs.
"They definitely carried the physical play for the first half of the game," he said. "I think we took the momentum back going into the third period as we started to pick up our physical play. Like I said, it just boils down to effort. They just worked us into corners and they threw more hits, and that was what decided the result of the game."
Scoring late in the first period and a little more than halfway through the second, the Bulldogs put themselves in a position to hold onto their lead through the scoreless third period.
Andrew Owsiak '11 put a dent in Yale's lead just a minute and a half after the Bulldogs' final goal. Jones passed to Stephens, who wrapped the puck around the goal to Owsiak who found the back of the net.
But neither the goal nor several solid penalty kills were enough to win the game for Dartmouth.
In the last minutes of the contest, the Big Green had another opportunity to score when Yale lost two men to penalties, but the team, as both coach Gaudet and Pritchard described, was unable to capitalize.
"We gave ourselves a good opportunity with the five-on-three and then the six-on-four," Pritchard said. "That's the way you want to finish a game, that's the opportunity you need, we just didn't execute. We practiced that and knew what they were going to do, we just didn't do what we needed to do to score a goal. It just came down to effort."
With 17 opportunities total, seven for Dartmouth and 10 for the opposition, no team made a power play goal the entire weekend.
Next weekend, the Big Green will travel to Manchester, N.H., to face New Hampshire (10-6-4, 7-4-3 Hockey East) at the Verizon Wireless Arena.
