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Knights close out regular season with comeback win on the road

Posted 2/26/17

Down 3-0 midway through the first period the Clarkson University Hockey team stormed back over the final 40 minutes with six unanswered goals to close out the regular season with a 6-4 victory on the …

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Knights close out regular season with comeback win on the road

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Down 3-0 midway through the first period the Clarkson University Hockey team stormed back over the final 40 minutes with six unanswered goals to close out the regular season with a 6-4 victory on the road over Dartmouth in Hanover, NH on Friday night.

The Golden Knights stand at 15-14-5 overall and finished sixth in the ECAC Hockey standings with a 10-9-3 league mark. Entering postseason play on a high note, Clarkson opens the conference playoffs hosting Rensselaer in a best-of-three game first-round series at Cheel Arena next weekend.

Senior Troy Josephs (Whitby, ONT) continued his late-season scoring outburst with his fifth career two-goal game, and second in the last three outings, to help power the Green and Gold come-back against Dartmouth (10-16-3, 7-13-2). Clarkson captain, senior defenseman James de Haas (Mississauga, ONT) also played a key role in one of the Knights' most productive offensive outings of the season with a career-high four-point effort. The Knights' leading scorer from the blueline, de Haas tallied one goal and three assists to extend his current point streak to four games.

Clarkson outshot Dartmouth 34-24, including a 25-13 margin over the final two periods. The Knights also received a boost from their revived power play, which broke out of a six-game scoring drought with a 2-of-4 effort on the man-advantage.

Locked into sixth place in the conference and with no chance to move up or down in the standings, the Knights came out flat against the Big Green and found themselves in a 3-0 hole before the game was 13 minutes old.

Just 94 seconds after the opening faceoff, Troy Crema scored to get the home team rolling on Dartmouth's Senior Night. Ryan Blankemeier connected for an unassisted goal at 10:16 and Corey Kalk followed with a power-play marker at 12:42 to give the Big Green a solid 3-0 lead.

The Knights regrouped after the first-period intermission and came out flying to start the second. Playing in only his fourth game of the season and for the first time since January 13, sophomore Marly Quince (Sioux Lookout, ONT) started the Clarkson rally with his first point of the season. Quince finished off assists from de Haas and junior defenseman Terrance Amorosa (Kirkland, QUE) at 7:59 for his first goal since scoring at Bowling Green on January 2, 2016.

Struggling on the power play since the start of February, the Knights broke out of a 0-of-24 drought on the man advantage when junior defenseman Kelly Summers (Golden Lake, ONT) connected at 10:07 for his second goal of the season. Josephs and freshman Haralds Egle (Liepaja, Latvia) assisted.

The power play came through again to tie the game when Josephs netted his first of the night at 14:10 with Egle and de Hass recording the assists on the goal, which made it 3-3 after two periods.

Josephs open the final frame with his team-high 15 goal of the year at 8:40. Junior Sam Vigneault (Baie-Comeau, QUE) and de Hass were credited with the assists.

Just 72 seconds later de Haas came through with the eventual game-winner, with his first career shorthanded tally, unassisted for his sixth goal of the season.

Freshman Sheldon Rempal (Calgary, ALB) closed out the Clarkson scoring with his eight goal of the year at 11:50 with classmate Devin Brosseau (St. Lambert, QUE) and Amorosa assisting.

The Big Green's Cam Strong tallied the game's final goal with 2:29 remaining.

Senior Ville Runola (Raisio, Finland), making only his second start of the season and his first appearance in the Clarkson crease since December 30, posted 20 saves to record his second win of the season.