HAMILTON — Three first period goals led Colgate past Dartmouth as the Raiders picked up a 5-1 victory in ECAC Hockey action Friday evening.
Reid Irwin tallied three assists in the game, providing one on all three first period goals. It was the first multi-assist game of the sophomore's career.
Five different players scored for Colgate, including
Daniel Panetta, who notched his first collegiate goal in the third.
Alex DiPaolo,
Alex Young, and
Ross Mitton each had two points, with DiPaolo and Young each tallying a goal and an assist and Mitton recording a pair of helpers.
DiPaolo opened the scoring a minute and a half into the game. Mitton passed to Irwin, who ripped a shot that got saved. The sophomore skated in and finished a shot off the rebound to put the Raiders up 1-0.
Halfway through the first,
Alex Young doubled the Raiders' lead on a power play.
Colton Young skated behind the net before passing to Irwin, who played the puck to
Alex Young for a shot he ripped into the goal.
Simon Labelle topped off the first period scoring when he found the back of the net on another power play with just over five minutes remaining. Irwin played the puck to Labelle, who passed to Mitton. The junior played the puck back to Labelle for a one-timer from the left face-off circle that he hammered home to make it 3-0.
The game was heavy in penalties, with each team accumulating eight. Colgate had one more man-up opportunity in the first, and both teams had two power plays in the second.
Dartmouth got one back in the middle frame when John Fusco scored five minutes into the period. Jack Cameron played the puck to Matt Hubbard in the left face-off circle. Hubbard hit a centering pass to Fusco, who ripped a shot into the goal.
The Raiders could not get anything going early on in the second. Dartmouth got hit with a game misconduct penalty for contact to the head at the 5:45 mark, but Colgate could not take advantage of the five-minute power play.
With a minute and ten seconds remaining in the second,
Matt Verboon pushed Colgate's lead back to three.
Nick Anderson played the puck ahead to Verboon, who tapped it to DiPaolo before he hit a centering pass back to Verboon, as he slid a shot past the goalie to make it 4-1.
In the third, the Raiders kept the Big Green off the scoreboard with two big penalty kills. Panetta finished the scoring with his first collegiate goal at the 4:39 mark. The freshman notched an empty-netter off passes from
Alex Young and
Ben Raymond.
Carter Gylander made 11 saves in the third period as he totaled 16 in the game, picking up his seventh win.
Colgate finished with a 22-17 advantage in shots and held control in the face-off circle going 30-27.
FROM THE SOURCE
Head Coach Don Vaughan
"Special teams played a big part in tonight's game. Dana and Chris do such a thorough job with those groups. It is just hard to win in this league. Even at 4-1, I never felt comfortable. That said, our guys played hard and did what we needed to do to get the win. I thought
Reid Irwin was particularly good tonight. He controlled the play when he was on the ice. It was also great to see
Daniel Panetta get his first and
Bobby Metz to appear in his first game with a solid effort. It doesn't get any easier with Harvard rolling in here tomorrow night. Time to reset."
UP NEXT
The Raiders welcome #7/9 Harvard to the Class of 1965 Arena for a 7 p.m. matchup Saturday. Fans are encouraged to bring a teddy bear or other stuffed animal for the teddy bear toss occurring during the second period intermission.
