With an outstanding effort on the road the Clarkson University Hockey team came through with its biggest win of the season, knocking off 7th-ranked Harvard 5-1 in ECAC Hockey action at Bright-Landry Hockey Center in Cambridge, MA on Saturday night.
The Golden Knights, who rebounded from Friday’s 5-2 loss at Dartmouth, have won three of their last four games to improve to .500 on the year at 10-10-2 overall. The Green and Gold, who have earned both of their league wins this week, stand at 2-6-2 in ECAC Hockey play. The Knights, who are 7-1-1 at home this season, play eight of their final 12 regular season games at Cheel Arena. Clarkson opens a four-game home stand this coming weekend hosting Yale and Brown.
The offense was on target with five different goal scorers, specialty teams play was sharp with a 2-of-4 effort on the power play and a 2-of-3 penalty-kill, and senior goaltender Greg Lewis was solid in the crease with a 21-save outing as Clarkson knocked off a Top-20 program for the third time in the new year. Clarkson defeated 18th-ranked St. Lawrence 3-1 this past Tuesday and 12th-ranked Bowling Green on January 3.
The Knights outshot the Crimson (9-4-3, 5-3-3) 34-22 and led from the start to snap out of a three-game losing skid in the series.
For the for the first time in nine games the Knights scored the opening goal when junior A.J. Fossen knocked in a big rebound off a shot from the point by sophomore Ben Dalpe at 5:18. Sophomore Sam Vigneault also assisted on Fossen’s eighth goal of the season and first since November 28.
A pair of second-period power-play tallies put Clarkson out in front 3-0 after 40 minutes. Vigneault tallied his team-high ninth goal of the season at 5:18 of the middle frame. Seniors, defenseman Kevin Tansey and Jeff DiNallo set up Vigneault’s fourth goal in the past four games.
Tansey followed with another power-play marker at 9:35 when he one-time a shot from the point off a pass from classmate Paul Geiger for his second goal of the year. Fossen also assisted.
Harvard, which used a third-period rally to defeat St. Lawrence 3-2 on Friday, connected for a power-play marker from Kyle Criscuolo at 5:05 of the final frame. There would be no comeback for the Crimson against the Knights, however, as the Green and Gold shut down the one of the top offensive teams in the nation the rest of the way, limiting Harvard to just five shots over the final 20 minutes.
Just over two minutes after Harvard’s score, Clarkson sealed its first league win on the road with goals by sophomore Nic Pierog and senior Pat Megannety 10 seconds apart. Pierog took a pass off the side glass from Geiger and fired in a snap shot just inside the far post at 7:08. Sophomore Brett Gervais started the play with a defensive-zone faceoff win. At 7:18, senior Pat Megannety finished off a pass in the slot from junior Perry D’Arrisso for his third goal of the season and first since the win over Western Michigan on October 24.
Michael Lackey started in goal for Harvard and made 12 saves before being chased from the net after Clarkson’s third goal. Merrick Madsen posted 17 stops over the final 30 minutes for the Crimson.
