No. 6 Fighting Irish are final home foes of 2007

The men's hockey team has just two games standing between it and a three-week break from action, but the pair of games coming up this weekend will be anything but an early Christmas present.

No. 6 Notre Dame (14-4-0), the highest-ranked opponent the Tigers (5-5-0 overall, 4-4-0 ECAC Hockey) have faced so far this season, will visit Baker Rink. They will be riding a seven-game winning streak, intent on preventing Princeton from heading into the holidays with a winning record.

Though it has been over two years since the teams last met, the Tigers know enough about their opponent to know that the two-game series won't exactly be a skate in the park.

"Last year [Notre Dame was] the No. 1-ranked team for most of the year. They're definitely going to be a very good hockey team," sophomore forward Dan Bartlett said.

Of the four non-conference teams Princeton will play this year, the Fighting Irish are having the best season and are currently in first place in the Central Collegiate Hockey Association, one of the strongest leagues in Division I hockey. Even so, sophomore forward Tyler Beachell was hesitant to call Notre Dame the Tigers' toughest opponent this year.

"I don't know about that, the ECAC has a lot of good teams," Beachell said. "We definitely respect [the Fighting Irish], and it's gonna be a good battle. I think we're coming in there confident and expecting to win both games."

For its part, Princeton split its two games last weekend and has only won two of its last seven after winning its first three matches to start the season. The Tigers have at times had trouble scoring and have too often given up early leads, though they have the talent to both score plenty of goals and prevent them.

"I think it's just a matter of, when we do the things our coaches stress, we play well. When we get sloppy and make little mistakes, that's where we start getting into trouble," Bartlett said.

Like many of his teammates, Bartlett stressed the team's need to stay committed to playing "Princeton hockey." But what exactly is "Princeton hockey?"

"We have a few mottoes on the team. Everyone protects the house. Everyone drives the net hard. We get pucks deep, we get pucks out, we backcheck hard, we forecheck hard," Beachell said.

If the Tigers can keep from straying from "Princeton hockey," according to Beachell, they can force their opponent to change its style of play to adapt to Princeton's.

Notre Dame is a fairly high-scoring team — averaging 3.3 goals per game — with a well-balanced offensive attack. Seven players have four goals or more, and as a team the Fighting Irish have outshot their opponents by an average of over seven shots per game. Ryan Thang, who leads the team with 10 goals, is the sniper to look out for.

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Defensively, Notre Dame is even better — it only allows an average of 2.0 goals per game. Starting goaltender Jordan Pearce, who posted his first career collegiate win two years ago against Princeton, is 12-4 in 16 starts this year and has an excellent .912 save percentage.

Trying to crack that stingy defense will be the speedy Tiger forwards, led by the top line of juniors Lee Jubinville and Brett Wilson and sophomore Cam MacIntyre. Together, the trio have a combined 39 points this season, including 16 of Princeton's 29 goals. Lately the three have been on fire, scoring five goals in their last two games and showing no signs of slowing down.

Though no other player on the Tiger roster approaches the numbers those three have put up, sophomore forward Mark Magnowski has two goals in just six games, including one last weekend. He certainly has the firepower to add to that total, having scored 10 times in 33 games last year — good enough for third on the team — as he tries to hit his stride after missing time with an injury.

According to Beachell, the team's goal at the beginning of the season was to have a .500 or better winning percentage at Christmas. To achieve that goal, Princeton will have to beat one of the top teams in the nation, a team that hasn't lost since Nov. 10. If any of the men's hockey players thought of complaining about not having pre-break tests, they can think again.