UNH (8-11-2, 5-8-1 Hockey East) snatched the cup back from the Big Green (7-7-2, 4-4-1 ECAC), which took the title last season with a 5-4 victory that broke a two-year Dartmouth losing streak in the series.
This year, the Big Green faced a Wildcats squad that went 1-5 in its six games leading up to its game against Dartmouth. UNH still proved to be the stronger team, however, in front of 5,301 boisterous fans.
"It's an exciting game," captain Mike Keenan '13 said. "It was definitely a UNH crowd ... We expect that, and we know UNH has a big following. No one gets rattled by it."
Dartmouth jumped out to an early 1-0 lead off the stick of Matt Lindblad '14 before conceding four unanswered goals. Doug Jones '12 and Taylor Boldt '12 each registered an assist off of Lindblad's tally.
Big Green players were penalized seven times throughout the game, including four times in the first period, granting UNH an abundance of power play opportunities. Dartmouth goaltender James Mello '12 pushed away 28 shots on the afternoon but allowed Moses to drill two power play goals and even one short-handed goal.
Capitalizing on a two-man advantage at 15:03 in the first stanza, Moses knotted the game at 1-1 with his first power play goal of the game.
The Big Green was able to maintain the tie throughout the rest of the first period.
"We knew coming in that UNH was good," Mello said. "It allows us to gauge where we stand with other hockey teams that we don't get to play. We played well and discovered some things we need to tweak we need to get back to the basics."
Just over a minute into the second period, Moses drilled a short-handed goal past Mello to give the Wildcats a lead they would not relinquish. Moses notched his second power play goal at 15:50 in the second stanza before finishing Dartmouth off with another goal at 7:27 in the third period.
Moses leads UNH with 26 points on the season and has scored 16 goals so far, the most in the Hockey East conference.
He has been a consistent, dominating force for the Wildcats offense this season, as the second-highest goal-scorers on the team have registered just six goals each.
"[Moses] is really fast and skilled, and one of those electric guys that is a really good player," Keenan said. "He had a strong night. We played in the same league growing up I have always played against him."
Underclassmen Lindblad, Eric Robinson '14 and Tyler Sikura '15 lead the Dartmouth squad in scoring with 11 points each. This was Lindblad's second goal of the season, to go with nine assists. Robinson and Sikura have both scored seven goals on the year.
"We have some skilled younger guys," Keenan said. "It always helps when we get contributions from all the classes. Having Dustin Walsh ['13] injured puts a damper on our offense and really hurts."
Walsh, who missed time earlier this season to a hip injury, recently re-injured his hip and has sat out the past two games. He is currently tied with Jones for third in total scoring on the team, posting 10 points this season, after netting 10 goals and tallying 20 points last season.
The Big Green returns to the road this weekend, confronting No. 9 Cornell University on Friday and No. 12 Colgate University on Saturday. The Big Red (10-4-3, 7-1-2 ECAC) currently sits atop the ECAC standings with 16 points, while the Raiders (12-8-2, 6-4-0 ECAC) are tied with Princeton University for fourth with 12 points. Dartmouth sits in a tie for 10th place in the 12-team league, but a string of good results could see it move up the standings quickly. Places four through 11 are separated by just three points.
"We have the skill and the talent we just need to put it all together," Mello said. "The only thing that is going to hold us back is ourselves. I think we'll be just fine on the stretch going into the playoffs, and hopefully we'll hit it at full speed."
Dartmouth finished third in the ECAC standings in the 2010-11 season, behind Union and Yale University. The Big Green advanced to the semifinals of the ECAC tournament where it fell to Cornell, 3-0.
Earlier this season, Colgate shut out the Big Green, 4-0, at Thompson Arena, while Cornell pulled off a 3-2 victory against Dartmouth, also in Hanover.
Keenan said the Big Green is ready to avenge its earlier losses on Friday and Saturday.
"We look forward to next weekend to try to turn things around," Keenan said. "We definitely need to be more disciplined and stay out of the penalty box. Both teams have good power play units, so we can't put them on the power play."
