Men's Hockey: Win over Brown ends four-game league skid

Princeton (15-6-0 overall, 9-5-0 ECAC Hockey) had already wrapped up the win against its Ivy League adversary. If anything, Zuk’s play relieved junior goalie Zane Kalemba of making one more save after a busy weekend in the crease.

Yet the importance of Zuk’s effort could be felt beyond the box score. It demonstrated that after a two-week break and four straight conference losses, including a 3-1 loss at Yale (15-5-1, 10-3-1) on Friday night, Princeton was back to playing the tenacious hockey that has been its trademark over the last two seasons.

“I think we looked at the game [against Brown (2-15-4, 2-10-3)] as a ‘must have a good performance to get back’ [game],” head coach Guy Gadowsky said. “In the conference, we struggled a little bit lately. It’s tough in this league to have a must win, but we needed to have a good performance, and I felt like we did.”

Princeton was bolstered by junior forward Mark Magnowski’s two-goal, one-assist performance against the Bears. Magnowski’s effort gave him a team-leading nine goals on the year and tied him with senior forward Brett Wilson for the team lead in points.

The Tigers made it known early in the first period that any bad vibes that remained from the team’s difficult January had been discarded before entering Providence. Only four minutes, 11 seconds into the game, sophomore forward Mike Kramer took a pass from Zuk and put the puck through the Brown goalie’s legs for his third goal of the year to give Princeton a 1-0 lead.

Less than seven minutes later, junior defenseman Jody Pederson put the puck in the net on a five-on-three advantage to make the lead 2-0. The goal capped a dominant first period for the Tigers, in which they outshot Brown by an 18-4 margin.

“We wanted to get back to playing passionate hockey. I think that we lacked that a little bit,” Gadowsky said. “We weren’t playing poorly, but we lacked the passion that we had at the start of the year, but the guys took it upon themselves to get that back, and I think they did.”

The second period provided little respite for the Bears. Two minutes, 21 seconds after the intermission, junior forward Tyler Beachell banged in a rebound to give Princeton a 3-0 lead and the rout was on. For good measure, Magnowski added his two goals later in the game to put the score out of reach.

Princeton’s successful sojourn in Rhode Island was a complete reversal of its performance the previous night in New Haven. The Tigers were outworked, outshot and outclassed in a 3-1 loss that extended the distance between the two teams in the battle for second place in the ECAC.

“Friday night we got beat by a team that wanted it more than we did,” Gadowsky said. “I don’t think we played as passionately as we had to and as we have in the past. But I think we got that back on Saturday.”

Yale opened the scoring in the first period, when Sean Backman put a shot past Kalemba to give the Bulldogs a 1-0 lead. Princeton knotted the score at 1 early in the second period, when Wilson scored off an assist from senior forward and assistant captain Lee Jubinville.

Princeton appeared to take a 2-1 lead later in the period when junior forward Dan Bartlett rocketed a shot that set off the goal light. However, the referee did not recognize the goal, and play continued. Yale scored one more goal in each period to take home the 3-1 victory.

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“Hockey is a fast game, and the puck’s moving. We’re not placing blame,” Gadowsky said. “The puck went in, but [Yale] deserved to win that game, and [they] out-chanced us. We’re not blaming the game on that goal, but it might have changed things.”

Gadowsky noted that even with the goal, Princeton would have lost the game, albeit by a smaller margin. Furthermore, without the inspired play of Kalemba, who made a career-high 39 saves on the night, it is possible the game would have been decided by a larger margin.

“Kalemba played fantastic. If Zane wasn’t unbelievable, [Yale] might have been running away with [the game],” Gadowsky said.

Earlier in the week, Princeton wasted little time shaking off the rust from a two-week layoff, defeating non-conference opponent Robert Morris 2-1 at Hobey Baker Rink on Monday night. The Tigers were aided by goals from Jubinville and senior forward and captain Brandan Kushniruk.

“We had a good start,” Gadowsky said. “The good start was something that we really needed. It was a long layover, and we’d been off for 16 days. The quick start gave us some confidence that maybe we could get the rust off quickly.”

With only conference games remaining, Princeton will need to continue its return to inspired and tenacious hockey, even if it requires sacrificing a few sore feet in the process.

The Tigers head north next weekend to face Colgate and conference-leading Cornell.