Men's hockey dominates NESCAC minnows Team survives scare against Conn. College before trouncing Tufts Jumbos

Author: Jason Lockhart

The men's hockey team had much to prove coming into the New Year. They handled everything that was thrown at them in 2004 finishing off the year with a nearly unblemished record of 6-0-1. They continued their undefeated season starting off the year with a perfect NCAA record of 3-0 while tying the U.S. under-18 National Team.

While most students were at home celebrating the New Year with friends and family, the men's hockey team was at Middlebury participating in the Holiday Classic on January first and second. There they faced off against New York State rival Skidmore defeating them by the score of 3-1 and then tying U.S. National Team 2-2.

The Panthers continued their nation-leading stingy defense on the first evening of 2005 by holding Skidmore to a mere 16 shots on net for the entirety of the game. In addition they tacked on two power play goals to seal the deal maintaining their position in the national top 10 in power percentage.

Brian Phinney's '05 two goals and Patrick Nugent's '05 lone goal were all the Panthers needed to skate past Skidmore.

Phinney scored his first goal of the season 8:27 into the first period, unassisted, to give Middlebury the lead for good. He followed up his first goal of the season with his second goal with 7:56 left in the second period on the power play to give the Panthers a 3-1 lead. Nugent scored his third goal of the season 8:11 into the second period on the power play.

Mark Spadaccini '06 made 15 saves to earn his first win as a Panther in his first career start. The Panthers faced a tougher opponent the following afternoon, the U-18 National Team, which nearly defeated Division I-University of New Hampshire. In the game, Middlebury fell behind early by the score of 2-0. The Panthers, however, showed their resilience by scoring two goals in the final two periods to even the score at two. Tim Graham '05 chipped in his fourth goal of the season with an assist going to Rob MacIntyre '08. Freshman Scott Bartlett scored the game-tying goal at 8:56 of the third period. Yen-I Chen '06 made 28 saves in the tying effort.

The Panthers followed up their New Year's weekend with a couple of wins against NESCAC rivals Connecticut College and Tufts. Middlebury struggled to find the back of the net against a presumably weak Connecticut College opponent, but managed to score just enough goals in order to earn the victory, but not without giving up the lead in the middle of the third period.

Nugent, once again helped the Panthers offense scoring with only 16 seconds left in the first period on the power play to give Middlebury a 1-0 lead. It looked as though Nugent's goal would be enough to earn the win for the Panthers, but Connecticut College tied the score with just under 10 minutes remaining in the third period. Only seconds later, freshman Jed McDonald scored his first goal of his career to give the Panthers the lead.

Chen stonewalled Connecticut College for the rest of the game to earn his seventh victory of the season. The Panthers were able to limit the Camels to only 13 shots.

Middlebury bounced back offensively in a strong way, steamrolling past Tufts by the score of 7-0. "It was important to bounce back against Tufts," said Nugent. "But more important, was our response to Friday night's performance. It was important for us to come out and play our game. Get back to what makes us successful as a group."

MacIntyre scored two goals and added assist, while Graham scored two goals of his own, with Eric Lafreniere assisting on three goals. Graham was ejected from the game and suspended for the next game after getting into a fight in the third period with a Tufts player. Graham opened the scoring 7:02 into the first period to give the Panthers all the scoring they needed. MacIntyre rounded out the scoring with his second and third goals of the season with two third period goals. "

It was very important for us as a team to play the way we did on Saturday," said Lafreniere. Middlebury outshot Tufts by an astonishing 50-7 margin

"Being able to limit a team to 8 or 10 shots in a game needs everyone to play strong defensively," said MacIntyre. "Yen-I has been incredibly solid when he has been called upon, and he will need to continue to be for us to be successful."

The Panthers will face their toughest NESCAC weekend as they travel to Maine to face Bowdoin and Colby. "-The Maine weekend always presents great opportunity for our team to get better and play great competition," explained Nugent.