After a mediocre start to the 2007 season, marked by lopsided defeats to Babson College and Little Three rival Amherst College, the men’s hockey team has suffered only one loss in its last 12 games. During the stretch, the Cards are also an impressive 7-1-2 in league games.

During winter break, the Cardinals notched several impressive victories, including a 4-1 triumph over nationally ranked Norwich University, a team that Wesleyan had not beaten in 14 meetings. The Cards finished up their winter break with a 4-1 victory over St. Michael’s College on Jan. 20, which raised the team’s confidence before last weekend’s key NESCAC match-ups with Williams and Middlebury, two teams that the Cards have had little success against in the past.

“We felt good going into those games,” said co-captain and current NESCAC points leader Will Bennett ’07. “We had some great practices and I really felt like we had found our stride on both sides of the puck. We knew that this weekend was really important for us to reach our goal of hosting a NESCAC playoff game.”

Bennett was right, as the Cardinals used two third-period power play goals from Taylor Evans ’07 and Brenton Stafford ’07 to overcome a 2-1 deficit and defeat Williams 3-2. At 8:20 in the third period, Evans took a pass from Stafford and scored to tie the game at two. After an interference penalty on the ensuing play, Wesleyan went back on the power play and this time it was Stafford who scored the game winner off a pass from Sam Robinson ’10 just 46 seconds after the game-tying tally. Prior to Friday evening’s victory, Wesleyan men’s hockey hadn’t defeated the Ephs since Feb. 19, 1982. In the past 25 years, the Cardinals were 0-18-5 against the Ephs.

“I think our recent success has been a combination of many things, but most importantly we’ve had great goaltending,” said Ryan Hendrickson ’07. “Dino [Mike Palladino ’09] has played great, making big saves at key times and helping us build momentum. It does a lot for a team’s confidence when they know they only need to score a few goals in order to win even against the best teams in our league.”

In beating Williams, the Wesleyan defense held the Ephs to only 17 shots, and Palladino stopped 15 of them to continue his superb play. Palladino is currently first in the NESCAC with a 1.82 goals against average and sits second in save percentage, stopping .927% of the shots he has faced.

After the big victory over Williams, the Cards had to travel to Vermont to face three-time defending national champion and Division III powerhouse Middlebury College. Prior to Saturday night, Middlebury had won the last 30 meetings between the two schools, with a shocking 216-47 edge in goals in those games.

But J.J. Evans ’09 put the Cardinals ahead at 8:56 in the second period with a laser shot just under the cross bar off assists from David Layne ’10 and co-captain Will Bennett ’07.

The Panthers had never scored less than 3 goals in a game against the Cards, but Palladino and the Wesleyan defense kept Middlebury scoreless for 58 minutes before a power play goal with under two minutes remaining in the game tied it for the Panthers.

Despite several threatening chances in overtime, the Cards were unable to break the tie and the game ended 1-1.

“We’ve done a great job of limiting the number of high quality chances our opponents have had, we’ve played well with the lead -not taking penalties, dumping the puck when we have a chance and being hard to play against by always working hard and not giving them much time and space,” Hendrickson said. “All in all, our best players are playing great and everyone else is doing their part.”

At 9-4-4 (7-3-3 NESCAC) Wesleyan is currently in second place in the conference, just two points behind Amherst and a point ahead of third-place Bowdoin.

The Cards are also excelling individually this year, with Bennett leading the league in points with 26 (eight goals, 18 assists). Rookie sensation Layne leads the NESCAC in power play goals with eight, and is currently fourth overall in goals scored with 10. Layne is also sixth in the league in total points with 20 (10 goals, 10 assists).

The Cardinals continue their NESCAC schedule this weekend with a pair of home games. They play Tufts (1-10 NESCAC) Friday night, and then Connecticut College (5-6 NESCAC) the following afternoon.