Coming off three straight games without a win, the men’s hockey team will look to get back on track against a high-powered No. 9 Quinnipiac team in Hamden, Conn., tonight.
The Tigers (3-4-1 overall, 2-3-1 ECAC Hockey) tied Harvard and lost to No. 7 Cornell since beating Dartmouth on Nov. 13, but their latest performance — an overtime loss to Colgate — has them confident they can skate with the league-leading Bobcats (10-1-0, 6-0-0) up north.
Against Colgate on Saturday, Princeton put forth its best team effort in a while, holding the Red Raiders off before conceding the game-winner two minutes into overtime.
Senior forward and co-captain Cam MacIntyre said that, since the team effort was so comprehensive, the players felt positive about their performance despite the game’s final outcome.
“It definitely wasn’t the weekend we hoped for, but I think we did some good things,” he said. “Obviously it was an unfortunate ending, but I think we played a good game, and we started to show some of the things we’ve been working toward.”
Head coach Guy Gadowsky also said he saw his team improve at the Colgate game. “It was one of the first games in which we saw our tempo and our identity coming out.”
Building off this momentum, the team will not look to change up its game plan too much in anticipation of Quinnipiac. Instead, the Tigers are opting to focus on playing “Princeton hockey,” MacIntyre said.
Senior forward Dan Bartlett explained that, against Colgate, the Tigers stepped up their backchecking, which would be important in the next portion of the season.
“We always focus on doing a few things every day, like going to the net hard and backchecking,” he said. “Being the best backchecking team in our league, we’ve gotten away from that a little in the beginning of the season, and it showed.”
Gadowsky noted that the Tigers had been inconsistent on the backcheck in recent games, and that allowed opponents to take the upper hand. “There’s a fine line between allowing odd-man rushes and creating a lot of offense, and we seem to do one or the other,” he said.
Though the team insists it will not change its strategy for the Bobcats, it is still wary of Quinnipiac’s scorching offense. Quinnipiac toppled Cornell earlier this season, and it currently leads the league in goals scored. Led by forwards Brandon Wong, Eric Lampe and Scott Zurevinski, the Bobcats pose a serious challenge to the Tiger defense.
“They’ve got a high-powered offense, that’s for sure,” MacIntyre said. “They’ve got some guys that can score, and that’s been Quinnipiac’s story for certainly the four years that I’ve been here … Like I’ve said a thousand times, we don’t really change anything for anybody. We just do what we do better.”
Princeton has won four straight against the Bobcats over the last two seasons, but it is currently eighth in the league standings, and the pressure will be on for the Tigers to perform.
Gadowsky said much of the onus would be on the goaltenders. Last year, senior Zane Kalemba was a finalist for the Hobey Baker Award, but this year the team has struggled with Kalemba splitting time with junior goaltender Alan Reynolds. The Tigers have allowed an uncharacteristically high 3.13 goals per game so far.
“Our goaltending has been good, but I’m not sure it’s been great,” Gadowsky explained. “Against, obviously, a team that’s scored the most goals in the league, [it will be important].”
Indeed, the whole team will have to come together and defend if Princeton wants to shut the Bobcats down. Quinnipiac has only lost once this season, an 8-5 decision to Robert Morris the day after beating it, 5-0.
“Not only our defensemen, but the whole team has been giving up really good opportunities,” Gadowsky said. “If you give up odd-man rushes to any team, you’re asking for trouble.” And against the Bobcats, it could spell disaster.
“We need everyone to come out and play well,” Bartlett said. “So far this year, we’ve had some people play well, but I don’t think as a team we’ve had everyone play well.”
With the narrow Colgate loss still in their minds, the Tigers will hit the ice hard, anxious to prove themselves contenders in ECAC Hockey after finishing third last year en route to the NCAA tournament.
Though the Tigers have topped the Bobcats in recent years, the latter seem to have the offensive advantage this season. Still, Bartlett stressed, each team in the league is remarkably evenly matched, so there is no way of telling how this game will go.
“Even the games we lost initially, they were pretty close games,” he said. “Top to bottom, any team can beat anybody.”
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