Hat trick or treat, anyone? Not quite, but Dartmouth sophomore Tanner Glass came pretty close. Glass banged in two goals during the Big Green’s three-goal first period, which powered No. 12 Dartmouth to a 4-1 win over Connecticut on Sunday night before 3,031 in a Halloween special at Thompson Arena.
Trying to cast off the stink of a 2-1 loss to Quinnipiac on Saturday, Dartmouth (1-1) fired 22 shots at freshman UConn goaltender Brad Smith over the first 20 minutes and gained an insurmountable 3-0 lead for its troubles.
The Big Green ripped 47 shots Smith’s way for the game, one night after piling 46 on – but getting only one past – Quinnipiac netminder Jamie Holden.
“We talked a bit about just getting more inside penetration, getting more quality scoring opportunities,” said Glass, who recorded the first multi-goal game of his college career.
“We had a lot of shots (Saturday), a lot of chances, and we wanted to get inside, get in the goalie’s face and take away his eyes on a lot of those plays.”
Which is exactly what Dartmouth did at the outset. The Big Green went to work early, taking a 1-0 lead on a power play just two minutes into the game. Defenseman Grant Lewis pinched in from the right point and fed Mike Ouellette behind the Huskies’ net. Ouellette quickly reversed play with a pass to Glass at the right post for the jam past Smith (43 saves).
Hugh Jessiman made it 2-0 at 6:17, roofing a point-blank backhander over Smith’s shoulder, again on the man-up. Glass filled the Connecticut net once more at 17:06, banging a high-slot drive past Smith and off the left goalpost on counterattack passes from Ouellette and freshman Nick Johnson.
“Mike is a really solid center iceman; he’s just a hard-working, skilled kid,” Dartmouth coach Bob Gaudet said. “Tanner is a big, strong guy who finishes checks, but can shoot a puck and score. And Johnson is a guy who just quietly goes about his job; he’s not a flashy kid, sort of like Tanner in some respects. You never know, but it seems to be a good complement of styles and personalities.”
Connecticut (1-3-1) showed more spark in the second period, and even managed to solve Dartmouth goaltender Sean Samuel (20 saves) with an Eric Helstedt man-advantage strike at 4:45. The Big Green gave UConn 11 power plays on the night, but the Huskies didn’t find a way through Dartmouth’s penalty killers again, even when given two-man edges in each of the final two periods.
Connecticut coach Bruce Marshall admitted the worst thing that could have happened to the Huskies was seeing Dartmouth lose on Saturday.
“I tried to prepare my team for that, what had just happened to them, and they wanted to make a statement,” Marshall said. “They didn’t respond to that. They did in the second period, we kind of woke up, but by then it was too late to chip away at it.”
Senior Max Guimond set the final margin of victory for Dartmouth at 4:50 of the third, jamming home a Jarrett Sampson drive that squeezed through Smith’s pads.
The complete-game win was the first of Samuel’s career. The sophomore netminder had earned his first college win by beating Minnesota State at Vermont’s Sheraton-BankNorth Classic last December despite being pulled in the third period.
Having opened with a pair of nonconference games, ECAC action is next for the Big Green in the form of home contests with Yale on Friday and Princeton on Saturday.
Greg Fennell covers Dartmouth hockey for the Valley News of West Lebanon, N.H.
