Men's Hockey: Kalemba comes up big in win

“[Kalemba] deserves a ton of credit for this one because we really didn’t play our best game,” head coach Guy Gadowsky said. “We took too many penalties, which is uncharacteristic of what we try to do, and every time we needed someone to bail us out, Zane was there. He really played spectacularly. There are shutouts, and then there are shutouts, and this was one of the better shutouts you’re going to see because we, as a team, didn’t have our best defensive effort.”

Quinnipiac (2-4-1 overall, 0-2-1 ECAC Hockey) outshot the Tigers (3-1-1, 2-1-0) 14-11 in the first frame, but the game remained deadlocked at zero after the first 20 minutes of play. The Tigers broke the stalemate three minutes into the second period when sophomore defender Matt Godlewski earned his first goal of the season.

After collecting a loose face-off, sophomore forward Sam Sabky sent a cross-ice pass through traffic to Godlewski, who was waiting above the opposite face-off circle. Godlewski unleashed a shot from the point, beating Quinnipiac goalie Nick Pisellini glove-side to give the Tigers the go-ahead goal. It was the second goal of Godlewski’s career, the first coming last season in a contest against the Bobcats.

Junior forward Dan Bartlett added to the Tigers’ lead late in the second frame. After disrupting a Bobcat rush, Bartlett received the puck from Sabky and carried it into the Quinnipiac zone. Deking a Bobcat defender, Bartlett found himself one-on-one with Pisellini and slipped the puck past him for his first goal of the season.

“[The second goal] was just a tremendous individual effort from Dan Bartlett,” Gadowsky said. “Not only offensively, but he was the one who broke up the play defensively, collecting the puck to break up [Quinnipiac’s] rush and then got it back to make a tremendous move on their defenseman and an even better one on their goalie.”

Kalemba weathered an onslaught during the second period, as 16 of the 17 shots he warded off came on the power play. While Quinnipiac managed to generate excellent scoring opportunities during man-advantage situations, Kalemba prevented the Bobcats from cashing in.

“One of the aspects of this shutout that makes it so great is that a lot of those shots were in tight and rebounds and deflections,” Gadowsky said. “They weren’t all from the perimeter; they were excellent attempts. [Kalemba] made several fantastic saves.”

Kalemba finished with game with 37 saves to earn his sixth career shutout. Though the Tigers didn’t play their best hockey against Quinnipiac, teamwork helped them pull out a victory.

“The positive that we can take out of this is that the team found a way to win. We certainly needed a great performance from Zane for that to happen, but they did find a way to win,” Gadowsky said.

Part of this can be attributed to Princeton’s balanced attack. Sophomore defender Cam Ritchie and senior forward Brett Wilson registered three shots apiece, while nine different Tigers each recorded a pair of shots.

With the win, the Tigers now sit atop the ECAC standings, sharing first place with Dartmouth and Harvard, while Quinnipiac slipped into last place with the defeat. Princeton remains the highest-ranked ECAC team in the national polls at No. 12. Given the level of competition in the league, the Tigers always view a victory as encouraging.

“Every win in this league is a good win, no matter how you get it, especially on the road,” Gadowsky said. “It’s really tough in this league to win on the road, and those are two big points for us. However, I certainly expect a much more disciplined team this weekend than what we saw Tuesday night.”

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Tuesday’s contest was the first in a series of five away games for Princeton, as the Tigers will next head to Troy, N.Y., to face Rensselaer on Friday.