Men's hockey hopes to garner first road victory

Challenges are nothing new to the men's ice hockey team. Each weekend this season has been an adventure for the team, as it has gone through ups and downs in its play. Inconsistency has plagued Princeton (3-8-0 overall, 3-5-0 Eastern College Athletic Conference), exemplified in its consecutive games against Yale, where it won the first in overtime and was blown out in the second.

This weekend, the team will be on the road against Union Friday night and Rensselaer on Saturday. All three teams are looking to pick up points in ECAC hockey standings, so each game will be crucial to the season in a league where only a couple of points could separate the top teams from the rest of the pack.

Union (3-4-3, 0-2-1) has had many of the same problems that the Tigers have experienced this year, especially with coming up with a way to defeat other ECAC teams. The Dutchmen's freshman class has contributed offensively this season, but the more experienced players lead the team in scoring. Helping them to out-of-conference wins, goaltender Brandon Snee has a .897 save percentage. But in the ECAC, the Skating Dutchmen have yet to find the right game plan to manufacture wins.

It is a similar situation with Rensselaer (4-4-1, 1-1-1). Of the 30 goals the Engineers have scored this season, 18 come from their trio of experienced forwards — Matt Cavosie, Matt Murley, and Nolan Graham. Their two goalies that share time both have comparable save percentages at .897 and .917, but the team has been outscored 6-4 by ECAC opponents.

When Union and Rensselaer played each other last Saturday, they tied 1-1.

Yet with two teams nearly identical in the ECAC, Princeton cannot be sure that what happens in one game will hold for another. Once again, the Tigers are not battling their opponents, but instead battling themselves to put out a consistent level of effort. What better way for Princeton to test itself than on the road against teams that are in many was similar to the Tigers?

This weekend, the challenge then is to find what it is going to take to be a competitive team in the ECAC. In order to do so, the Tigers are going to need to score more. Opponents have outscored Princeton 43-19 this season, in what sounds more like a football game than hockey. But the Tigers had not been shut out all season until last weekend against No. 9 Cornell.

"In order to compete with teams like [the Big Red], we will have to keep our goals against at a minimum, and capitalize on our chances in the offensive zone, particularly on the power play," junior forward George Parros said.

The junior leads the team in scoring with four goals on the season.

Offensive production has been a sore spot for Princeton this season. Head coach Len Quesnelle '88 has been trying to tighten up the defense so that the Tigers can support a poorly producing offense.

In order to stop the offenses of Union and Rensselaer, Princeton will need a solid defensive effort and less miscommunication when guarding man-to-man. Neither the Skating Dutchmen nor the Engineers have particularly strong offenses, so as long as the Tiger defense continues to hit its opponents hard instead of trying to skate around them, Princeton should prove successful against its weekend opponents.

An anchoring point in the defense has been senior netminder Dave Stathos, whose save percentage of .897 has been a cornerstone for the team from which to build. Yet this weekend will provide a challenge to Stathos as well.