St. Lawrence 4 - Dartmouth 3

By Dave Sherzer

HANOVER, N.H. -- Which Dartmouth team will show up?

That is becoming an increasingly relevant question for the Big Green, which played its worst league game at home in over a year Saturday night in a 4-3 loss to the St. Lawrence Saints in front of 2,719 at Thompson Arena.

Dartmouth (8-8-2, 5-4-2 ECAC) was behind the 8-ball from the opening faceoff, getting beat to pucks left and right as the defending-ECAC-champion Saints (6-13-0, 4-5-0) surged back into playoff contention by completing a four-point weekend.

Including a 3-3 tie with Clarkson Friday night, the one-point two-game set was Dartmouth's least productive league weekend at home since Nov. 17-18, 2000, when the Big Green dropped a pair to Yale and Princeton.

"St. Lawrence is a very good hockey team," head coach Bob Gaudet said. "Not that Colgate and Vermont aren't, but we played them in their buildings. It's not easy to win on the road.

"But I don't like losing at home. Period. I don't care who comes in here. I think we should win every game at home. I'll always feel that way."

The Big Green was thoroughly out of synch in front of the unusually small crowd of folks who braved the snow and preferred hockey over the New England Patriots' playoff game.

After looking like a title contender the past two games against very tough competition, the Big Green slumped back into the mode that saw them lose to last-place contenders Vermont and Colgate earlier this season.

Dartmouth had a few flashes of its high potential throughout the night, but inconsistency and untimely penalties allowed the Saints to skate away with the victory.

"It's extremely frustrating for the whole team," said center Gary Hunter, who scored Dartmouth's first goal. "We realize the potential and the opportunity we have this year with the team we have. We have to collect ourselves and get back at it."

St. Lawrence grabbed control early, as junior Jim Lorentz one-timed a centering pass from Stace Page past Nick Boucher (28 saves) at the 4:15 mark.

The Big Green nearly equalized when Chris Baldwin hit a post on a Dartmouth power play, but instead the Saints claimed a 2-0 advantage at the 13:05 mark, when Rich Peverley tapped in his own rebound off a 2-on-1 rush.

Dartmouth seemed temporarily energized by Hunter's goal at 3:20 of the middle frame. Hunter redirected a Chris Hontvet blast from the blueline, lighting the lamp for the first time since Feb. 2, 2001, at Rensselaer.

"It's always nice to get a goal," Hunter said. "Chris Hontvet made a splendid play. He had some great patience and poise with the puck. He put it right on my stick and I didn't have to do much."

But any momentum the Big Green gained from Hunter's goal was sapped away by a 5-on-3 St. Lawrence power play moments later. With Mike Murray and Pete Summerfelt both in the sin bin - Summerfelt was whistled on a controversial slashing call that Dartmouth argued was stick-on-stick - Page snuck the puck inside the right post from the top of the left circle.

The Big Green had three separate 5-on-4 power plays after Page's goal and ultimately converted on the third one at 6:05 of the third stanza.

Center Kent Gillings netted the goal, chipping the puck past Mike McKenna's reach to make it a 3-2 game.

But again, St. Lawrence responded to the brief Dartmouth momentum boost, as Robin Carruthers redirected a Page pass Gary Hunter-style on a power play to reclaim St. Lawrence's two-goal lead.

"That was a huge goal for us," Saints veteran head coach Joe Marsh said. "It gave us some energy. It was just a bullet shot that got tipped by Carruthers. He's done that his whole career. He doesn't have a hundred goals, but the ones he gets are huge."

The Big Green climbed to within 4-3 when Summerfelt lined in a blazing shot from the blueline with 4:01 to go, but the Saints survived a challenge from Dartmouth's best string of shifts of the night to complete the two-win weekend.

McKenna finished with 34 saves in the St. Lawrence net.

"St. Lawrence is a hard-working team," Hunter said. "Tonight, as well as last night, we didn't seem to have our 'A' game. We sort of threw away the weekend by not working our hardest and not sticking to the game plan.

"We just have to work hard all week and look forward to next weekend."

Dartmouth returns to action next Friday at Union's Achilles Rink.