Rensselaer 2 - Dartmouth 2 (OT)

By Dave Sherzer

HANOVER, N.H. -- Dartmouth is getting good at coming back.

The Big Green fell behind, 2-0, but fought back from a second-intermission deficit for the third straight game to tie visiting Rensselaer, 2-2, Friday night in front of 2,702 at Thompson Arena.

Superstar Marc Cavosie scored a goal in each of the first two periods to give RPI its two-goal lead, but Frank Nardella and Lee Stempniak each scored to allow the Big Green to forge a stalemate in this highly physical contest.

"This was a hell of a good hockey game," Dartmouth head coach Bob Gaudet said. "To be down 2-0 and come back says something about our team. I thought we played outstanding hockey, especially in the second half of the game. We had our 'A' game, from the goal on out."

Dartmouth (9-8-4, 6-4-4 ECAC) was very nearly down for the count, but Nardella's line gave the home team the break it was looking for.

With only six seconds left in the second period, Chris Baldwin cradled the puck behind the net and sent it out front to a waiting Nardella, who one-timed it into an open net for a momentum-shifting goal.

"That goal was huge," Gaudet said. "A two-goal deficit going into the third period is not insurmountable, but it's very difficult because you're one break away from the game being over."

Nardella and his linemates began the comeback. Stempniak completed it.

The rookie wowed the crowd with a sterling individual effort midway through the third stanza, securing the puck along the boards before dancing past defenders into the slot and punching his sixth goal through Nathan Marsters' legs.

"Stempniak made a great play," Gaudet said. "You could almost feel one coming. It was a really big-time play. Stemper is as good a young player as I've had in a long time."

The Engineers (9-10-4, 3-7-3 ECAC), true to form, were led by the superstar Cavosie.

The junior's two goals extended his point-scoring streak to nine games and increased his league-leading season totals to 16 goals and 35 points.

"Marc is a threat any time he's out on the ice," RPI head coach Dan Fridgen said. "He's tough to get a piece of. He takes a lot of cheap shots, which I'd like to see get called at times, but he's certainly a force to be reckoned with."

RPI outshot Dartmouth, 11-3, in the first 10 minutes, but could not solve Nick Boucher (33 saves) until late in the first period. Cavosie was the goal scorer, sending the puck between the pipes as he collided with a Dartmouth player in front of the net.

The Big Green held the Engineers to just one shot in the first half of the middle frame, but an undeterred RPI squad patiently waited its turn, finally forging a 2-0 advantage at the 15:53 mark when Cavosie one-timed a Carson Butterwick feed past a helpless Boucher on the power play.

"We have the two scoring leaders in the ECAC," Fridgen said, referring to Cavosie and senior Matt Murley, "but we have to be a better team around them. At times, we've relied on them too much. No two guys are going to win a hockey game for us."

Indeed, Dartmouth held Cavosie silent after the junior's second goal and earned the tie with some offensive handiwork of its own.

Nardella's goal, his sixth of the season, made all the difference.

"It was a back breaker for them," Stempniak said of Nardella's goal. "It put them in the same position as last week, being up a goal going into the third. Frankie's goal really helped build it for us."

Stempniak applied the finishing touches, helping the Big Green turn a potentially devastating loss into a more acceptable tie.

"As a team, I think we began to string good shifts together at that point in the third period," Stempniak said of his goal. "My goal was a culmination of that. It gave us some momentum, but we didn't end up pulling off the win."

The Big Green returns to action Saturday night when Union pays a visit.