After a shaky first period of action, the No. 15 Yale men’s ice hockey team notched a goal in the second period and four more in the third to win 5–0 over Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in the final 40 minutes of Senior Night.

Three Yale seniors, forwards Jesse Root ’14 and Kenny Agostino ’14 and defenseman Gus Young ’14, celebrated their final home game in style. The 2014 senior class had 81 wins over four years, including a national championship.

In the first period, the Bulldogs (15–9–5, 10–8–4 ECAC) failed to take advantage of a pair of power plays, with just three shots combined. Lyon had eight saves in the frame, but the Yale defense knocked away multiple pucks on RPI opportunities to help out the freshman netminder.
The next 20 minutes, however, were a completely different story. The Elis were aggressive the entire period, and it paid off when Root finished off a long possession in the offensive zone by knocking the puck in to take a 1–0 lead.

But despite having a 18–3 shot advantage in the second period over RPI (14–14–6, 8–9–5), Yale skated away with just a single goal to show. That changed just 2:25 into the third period after forward Anthony Day ’15 took the puck on a two-on-one advantage and wristed a shot above RPI goaltender Scott Diebold.

Ten minutes later, the Bulldogs struck again. Defenseman Matt Killian ’15 unleashed a long pass from deep in the Yale zone to the blue line, where forward Frankie DiChiara ’17 was waiting. The freshman collected the puck, skated down and put a shot on goal, which was mishandled by Diebold into the net to extend the Yale lead to 3–0 with 7:40 left.

In the final two minutes, the Elis poured it on, scoring two more: a power play goal from forward Mike Doherty ’17 and a slapshot from defenseman Ryan Obuchowski ’16.

Goalie Alex Lyon ’17 registered his second career shutout with 18 saves in the game, but just ten of those came in the final two periods as the Yale defense snuffed out many Engineer opportunities before they manifested into shots.

The win, coupled with a tie between Clarkson and No. 8 Quinnipiac, brings the Bulldogs into a tie for fifth place in the ECAC. But Yale’s 3–2 loss to Clarkson on January 17 meant that the tiebreaker is instead overall conference wins, an advantage that goes to the Golden Knights.