Senior goaltender Dan Yacey made 43 saves and a pair of goals 2:19 apart in the second period sent Dartmouth on its way to a 4-1 ECAC Hockey League win over St. Lawrence Saturday night.
Dartmouth snapped a three-game losing skid, sealing the win with two empty-net goals, and is now 3-3-0 overall and 2-2-0 in the ECACHL. St. Lawrence dropped its second of the weekend and is now 5-6-1 overall and 1-3-0 in the ECACHL.
Neither team scored in a wide-open first period, although both had great chances. Dartmouth’s Lee Stempniak hit the post on a partial breakaway midway through the period and Dan Yacey came up with big saves on a pair of Saint power plays as St. Lawrence had a 15-11 edge in shots in the first 20 minutes.
The Big Green broke the scoring ice at 6:10 of the second period as Stempniak snapped a shot past Saint goalie Mike McKenna for his second of the season. Dartmouth made it a 2-0 game just 2:19 later as David Jones tipped a shot from the point by Dave Thompson into the net for his second of the season.
Yacey had 30 saves through two periods and had to help kill off a Saint power play to start the third. St. Lawrence went scoreless in seven power play tries for the game and was successful just once in 14 attempts in the two losses.
“We obviously need to address the power play,” said Saint coach Joe Marsh. “And we don’t have a lot of turnaround time to do it.”
The Saints play arch-rival Clarkson on Wednesday and the Saints need a win to get back into the tick of things in league competition.
“We had a great start to the year, but now we find ourselves looking up from a hole in terms of league play,” Marsh said. “True, we have played some good teams and played them close, but we need to find a way to win those games, particularly in our own building. Dartmouth played very well and earned the win, but we have to figure out a way to put the puck behind the goalie and get some second and third chances to score.”
The Saints pulled McKenna, who made 33 saves in the game for an extra attacker despite being down a man in the final two minutes and it paid off in a shorthanded goal by Max Taylor, his third goal of the weekend and sixth of the season with 1:23 to go, but Dartmouth countered with an empty net power play goal by Jarrett Sampson with 1:06 to play and added another empty net goal with 35 seconds left as Jones scored his second of the night to wrap it up.
