Mike Marnell put the St. Lawrence men's hockey team on the board first midway through the second period, but Dartmouth answered with two goals in less than a minute en route to a 2-1 win in the first game of a best-of-three ECAC Hockey first-round playoff series in Hanover, New Hampshire on Friday night.

With the loss, the Saints drop to 7-26-2 overall on the year. Dartmouth improves to 14-14-2 and carries a 1-0 series lead into Saturday's rematch at Thompson Arena.

Junior netminder Arthur Brey made a number of high-caliber stops for the Saints on Friday night finishing with 30 saves, with half of those coming in the second period.

After a scoreless first period, Marnell gave the Saints a 1-0 lead at 10:58 of the middle frame with his team-leading 11th goal of the season.

Dartmouth goaltender Devin Buffalo made a kick save on a shot from the point by the Saints' Bo Hanson and puck skipped directly to Michael Ederer at the bottom of the left circle. His turnaround shot attempt hit the stick of a Dartmouth defender but, fortunately for the Saints, it deflected right onto Marnell's tape for an easy redirect and the goal.

The St. Lawrence lead was short lived, as less than seven minutes later Shane Sellar buried the rebound from a shot from the half wall by Will Graber to tie the game at 1-1 at the 17:27 mark of the middle frame.

Then, at 18:20, a flat-angle shot from the wall hit Kevan Kilistoff's skate in front and ended up behind Brey as the eventual game winner. Official review confirmed that there was no kicking motion and Dartmouth went into the third period with a 2-1 lead.

The Saints outshot the Big Green 12-6 in the third period, but struggled to maintain possession in the final minutes to get Brey to the bench for the extra attacker and ended up with just 44 seconds of 6-on-5.

Buffalo made 25 saves for Dartmouth in the win. Both teams went 0-1 on the power play.

St. Lawrence will return to Thompson Arena on Saturday, at 7 p.m. for a must-win game two.