Princeton visits two of ECACHL's finest

After last weekend's losses to Union and Rensselaer, the men's hockey team is languishing in 10th place in the Eastern College Athletic Conference Hockey League standings. The Tigers (2-4-0 overall, 1-3-0 ECACHL) are ahead of only Dartmouth (1-4-0, 1-4-0) and Yale (0-4-0, 0-4-0), and though the preseason media and coaches' polls picked Princeton to finish exactly in 10th, the Tigers feel they have more potential than that.

"The ECAC is a league marked by great parity," senior goalie Eric Leroux said, "so we recognize the importance in playing our hardest each night. As we continue to do this, hopefully a few of the close games will start to go our way."

Princeton's attempt to pull itself into the upper half of the league standings will be complicated this weekend when it travels to upstate New York to take on two teams that rank in the top five in the ECACHL. The Tigers were only able to score three times in two games this past weekend, and both Clarkson (6-3-1, 2-1-1) and St. Lawrence (6-3-0, 3-1-0) have combined to outscore their opponents by a 24-goal margin.

"Clarkson and St. Lawrence are both offensively dangerous teams that have been getting scoring from all their lines," Leroux said.

Princeton's endurance, in addition to its ability to score, has been a major question mark for the squad so far this season. In preparation for the weekend set, the Tigers have been focusing on their weaknesses in practice.

"This past weekend, we did not capitalize on our power-play opportunities," senior forward Patrick Neundorfer said, "so this week we have been focusing on getting the puck to the net and being creative when we have the man advantage."

Both the Golden Knights and the Saints are known for their physical and fast-paced styles, both of which will disrupt Princeton's ability to implement the changes it made during practice. In order to record wins against these two teams, the Tigers will have to hold fast to their pregame strategy and maintain a consistently high level of play and intensity throughout the three periods.

"They are very difficult to play against when they are at home," senior defender Seamus Young said, "and we have addressed the fact that we will need to come out ready to play from the drop of the puck and take the play to them for a full 60 minutes. We feel that special teams will be very important in determining the momentum shifts throughout the games, as we have worked on our power play this week in practice."

Capitalizing on power-play opportunities is not the only thing that Princeton will need to improve on from last week. The defensive breakdown in the second half of the game against Rensselaer is something that the Tigers cannot continue to allow in the coming weeks. On a positive note, the defensive unit does seem to be holding up well on the other side of the power play. They have demonstrated their ability to effectively kill power plays, limiting their opponents to three goals on 13 attempts in last weekend's defeats.

"Our team is about working hard and creating offense," Leroux said, "both of which we have been doing throughout this week of practice. We have given considerable time to further developing our power play."

St. Lawrence has already had a man advantage 96 times this season, scoring 19 goals on the power play. Clarkson has recorded 17 goals on 74 power plays, so Princeton's penalty kill unit will most likely see a lot of action.

The Tigers look to recapture a .500 league winning percentage as they face off against the Golden Knights on Friday night at 7 p.m. and the Saints on Saturday at 7 p.m.