After playing most of its season in a daze, the men's hockey team finally woke up in the past few weeks to see if it could make something of its berth in the Eastern College Athletic Association tournament. It was too little too late for the Tigers (2-18-2 ECAC, 3-26-2 overall), however, as their strong efforts were not enough to prevent No. 5 Brown (10-8-4, 14-11-5) from moving on to the quarterfinals.
In two games at Meehan Auditorium in Providence, R.I., the Bears used superior third periods to scramble to victory in the best-of-three series. The 2-1 and 3-1 losses were the closest games the Tigers have played against Brown this year.
The decisive goal of the series came at nine minutes, 50 seconds into the third period Saturday when Brown's Brent Robinson beat freshman goaltender Eric Leroux to a loose puck near the Tiger net and fed teammate Chris Swon for the easy point.
This put the Bears up, 2-0, with only five minutes remaining in the decisive game and would eventually prove to be the game-winner.
Earlier, Brown's Pascal Denis had opened the scoring for the Bears when he collected a loose puck behind the Tiger net and found teammate Shane Mudryk in front. Mudryk fed linemate Keith Kirley who was camped out just outside the crease, and Kirley fired the puck behind Leroux to gain a lead that Brown would never relinquish.
Although their chances did not look good after Brown's second goal, the Tigers refused to concede the game and the series. Only 10 seconds after the Brown goal, senior forward Scott Prime was assessed a major penalty for charging, landing him in the penalty box for five minutes and granting Brown its ninth power play of the game.
Junior defenseman Matt Maglione made it look like Princeton was the team with the extra skater, however, as he broke in on Brown's all-star goaltender Yann Danis and ripped a shot high glove side to bring the Tigers within one at 10:08. But the Bears still had the man advantage, and they would capitalize only a minute and a half later to ice the game and the series.
"We had a lot of penalties in the second game, 27 minutes to their 18," senior defenseman Neil McCann said. "We played half the second period shorthanded.
"Third period we had a big penalty kill. It was 2-0 for them and we got a major penalty and Matt Maglione got a great goal shorthanded to make the score 2-1, but we couldn't quite get it all back."
In the first game it was Brown battling back from an early deficit. Junior forward Chris Owen scored 6:56 into the final period to give Princeton the first lead of the series.
The play began when sophomore forward Tommy Colclough broke down the right wing and rifled a shot from the top of the circle. The shot squeaked past Danis and Owen pounced, pushing it in for his team-high 17th goal of the season.
Just as in the second game, though, the Tigers could not hold the lead. Only 23 seconds later Swon avoided a poke check by Leroux to dump the puck in the net and even the score at one apiece. The Bears' Pascal Denis secured the victory for Brown at 12:07 of the third period when his shot trickled past Leroux to put the home team up in the series, 1-0.
The story of both games was the wall that both Leroux and Danis formed in front of their nets. Although both the Tigers and Bears generated many shots over the weekend — 67 and 65, respectively — both teams were repeatedly blocked by the opposing goalie. Danis, who was a Second Team All-America selection last season, posted a .97 save percentage, while Leroux was not far behind at .923.
"They were what we expected, but I thought we played well," McCann said. "Their goalie played really well. I thought we had our chances, I know I had a few chances and didn't bury them. Looking back on the game, it was pretty frustrating. We also got good goaltending, Leroux played well."
Although the loss to Brown ends Princeton's season, the Tigers finished on an up note.
"We played pretty well this weekend," McCann said. "We probably played our best hockey of the year."
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