N.D. ends tourney dreams

But those on hand at the Kohl Center in Madison, Wis., will know the truth: that the game was much closer than any box score can relate, and that the No. 13 Tigers outplayed the No. 3 Fighting Sioux for most of the three periods. In truth, until midway through the third period, it would have been impossible to predict how this game would turn out. Princeton outshot North Dakota 39-18, but it was penalties, of all things — the Tigers were the third-least-penalized team in the ECAC this season — that spelled an end to its season.

In all, the Tigers were whistled for five penalties, and the Fighting Sioux capitalized on three of their first four power-play opportunities. North Dakota failed to score at even strength — the other two goals were empty-net tallies — but though it was far from pretty, the Sioux advanced to play Wisconsin on Sunday night. The Sioux won 3-2 in overtime.

“You have to find ways to win games this time of year,” UND head coach David Hakstol said. “You have to hand it to Princeton. They played through 60 minutes from the drop of the puck, and it took everything we had to get past them.”

The Tigers opened the game strong, but the Fighting Sioux took advantage of a Princeton penalty 12 minutes, 11 seconds into the first period to open the scoring.

After a few early clearing attempts from the Tigers, North Dakota’s forwards went to work, passing the puck around and eventually finding forward Andrew Kozek open inside the right circle. Kozek fired a wrist shot over the right shoulder of Zane Kalemba as Princeton’s sophomore goaltender slid across his crease. Following the goal, Princeton picked up the intensity, and play remained even until the end of the first period.

If the Tigers had any feelings of intimidation matching up against the Sioux in the first period, those doubts were erased in the second. North Dakota seemed sluggish at the start, and Princeton took full advantage. The Tigers cycled the puck deep and established sustained possession in the offensive zone, allowing defensemen to get involved up front, but goalie JP Lamoureux, one of college hockey’s 10 finalists for the Hobey Baker Award, was up to the challenge.

With 5:45 to go in the period and North Dakota still on its heels, senior defenseman and captain Mike Moore was whistled for holding. The call was certainly questionable — Moore and a Sioux forward were tangled up, and Princeton’s captain was seemingly trying to break free — but the two minutes that followed would mark the turning point of the game.

In the early part of the penalty kill, the Tigers went on the offensive. Sophomore forward Mark Magnowski had a couple of chances in front of the UND net, including one in which he tried to bait Lamoureux to commit, but the North Dakota goaltender was patient and turned aside four straight Princeton shots.

Back at the other end of the ice, the vaunted Sioux power play finally got set up, and as the penalty expired, junior forward Ryan Duncan, last season’s Hobey Baker winner, made the game 2-0. Duncan received a beautiful cross-ice pass from linemate TJ Oshie and, as Kalemba went low, buried the shot up high.

“It is not going to count as a power-play goal in the box sheet, but it was,” said Princeton head coach Guy Gadowsky, the ECAC’s Coach of the Year. “The puck just went to the wrong guy, and Ryan Duncan is so good; he had his head up the whole way and was able to see that Zane dropped.”

Down 2-0, the Tigers continued to apply pressure, but Lamoureux remained solid, stopping quality opportunities from Magnowski and sophomore forward Cam MacIntyre. The Fighting Sioux, well known for their physical style of play, tried to up the intensity as the period came to a close, but Princeton, an aggressive, physical team in its own right, stayed with North Dakota.

“We were expecting them to come out physically,” Moore said. “They are very talented. They also have some size and some speed, so we expected a great game. We were prepared to match that.”

Get the best of the ‘Prince’ delivered straight to your inbox. Subscribe now »

In the third, much like the previous period, the Tigers got the better of play but were unable to solve the man in the UND goal. With 13:37 left in the game, junior forward Brett Wilson was called for interference, and on the ensuing power play, good cross-ice passing put the puck on Duncan’s stick. The shot hit Kalemba before sailing over the Princeton goalie’s arm.

The goal, which opened a 3-0 lead, seemed to finally discourage the Princeton attack. With a little under six minutes to play, Gadowsky pulled Kalemba in favor of an extra skater, but Duncan found the empty net almost immediately for his first career hat trick. UND made the score 5-0 on another empty-net goal less than two minutes later.

Princeton did get on the scoreboard late in the game — MacIntyre scored on a shot from between the circles for his fifth career playoff goal — but it proved too little too late, and the Tigers, having outplayed the Fighting Sioux all night, fell 5-1.

Following the game, the team’s leaders refused to make excuses and were honest about the season’s finish.

“I thought we played well,” said junior forward Lee Jubinville, Princeton’s first-ever finalist for the Hobey Baker award. “We moved the puck a lot and got down low and generated a lot of shots, but at the same time were not able to finish.”

“You never want to make excuses for anything, but we could not solve their goaltender or their defense,” Moore added. “We could not score until the end, but we knew we needed more than one goal to win.”

In all, this will go down as the most successful season in Princeton hockey history. The Tigers have made the NCAA tournament once before — in 1998 the team lost 2-1 in the first round to Michigan — but this year’s team eclipsed that team in total and conference wins and is the only team in program history to win an outright Ivy League title. The Tigers also garnered a number of individual honors — including ECAC Coach of the Year, Player of the Year, Student-Athlete of the Year and an ECAC Team Sportsmanship award, as well as a Hobey Baker finalist and two All-American candidates — but because of the way they played tonight, this loss will prove particularly difficult.

“It is disappointing,” said Moore, who, along with senior forwards Kyle Hagel, Keith Shattenkirk, Erik Pridham and Landis Stankievech, has played in his last college game. “The only thing that you can take away from something like this is that you know you are leaving a locker room with a group of guys who have an incredible commitment to the program, and that is something, as seniors, that you can be proud of. You want to see that camaraderie there, and it’s not going to leave next year, and you are excited that they are going to have success in the future. That is the only feeling of satisfaction right now, but other than that, it’s just very disappointing.”

The Tigers played well enough to win Saturday. They outplayed the No. 3 team in the nation, but solid goaltending from one of college hockey’s best and a few key penalties proved too much to overcome.

And so as most of the nation looks at the score and jumps to false conclusions, the Tigers can take solace in the reality: that they defied the odds Saturday, and proved to anyone who actually watched the game that they are one of the best teams in the country.