Men's Hockey: Tigers aim to regain league glory

The 2008-09 men’s hockey season didn’t quite end as planned. After putting together a 22-11-1 regular season, Princeton received an at-large bid for the NCAA tournament. The Tigers were seeded third in the Midwest bracket, their highest seeding ever. Princeton was pitted against Minnesota-Duluth in the first round, and though the Tigers held a 4-2 lead heading into the last minute of regulation, the Bulldogs scored two goals to send the game to overtime. The Bulldogs put Princeton away in the extra frame, capping a thoroughly demoralizing 5-4 loss for the Tigers.

That Princeton was in the position to suffer such a loss a mere four years after finishing 8-20-3 speaks to what a rapid ascent the program has made. The Tigers will look to pick up this season where they left off a year ago. While Princeton lost a few key players to graduation, it returns 10 of its 13 double-digit scorers, its entire defense and one of the best goalies in the country.

One key returning player is senior defenseman and co-captain Jody Pederson.

Pederson has high hopes for the upcoming season, especially for the defense.

“After such a good year last year defensively, we expect to be that much better this year,” he said. “It’s also comforting knowing that we have very strong goaltending behind us.”

Princeton will need Pederson’s senior leadership because the three skaters who graduated played very critical roles on the team. Forward Brett Wilson finished the season second on the team with 27 points, with 12 goals and 15 assists. Lee Jubinville, Wilson’s linemate, finished the year third on the team with 21 points on 10 goals and 11 assists, and he also led the team with two short-handed goals.

As a junior in 2008, Jubinville became Princeton’s first ever Baker Award nominee, and the forward will be missed for more than his offensive contributions. Something of a Pavel Datsyuk for the Tigers, Jubinville was as effective a defensive forward as there was in ECAC Hockey. Forward Brandan Kushniruk, the team captain, finished the season with seven goals and six assists, and three of his goals were game-winners.

“The three forwards we lost last season were excellent players and a big part of our offense and leadership,” head coach Guy Gadowsky said. “To recover from their departure, we will need to have more than just three guys step up their play offensively, and fortunately we have a large senior class who are excellent leaders in their own right.”

Despite the loss of Wilson, Jubinville and Kushniruk, Princeton does return significant offensive firepower. Senior forward Dan Bartlett tallied a team-leading 28 points last season, off 16 goals and 12 assists. Bartlett was especially successful down the stretch, scoring nine goals in his final seven games. Senior forward Mark Magnowski finished last season fourth on the team in points last season with 11 goals and 8 assists.

Juniors Sam Sabky, Kevin Lohry and Matt Arhontas all also made significant offensive contributions a season ago, with 42 points among them. Senior forwards Tyler Beachell and Kevin Kaiser will also play crucial roles in Princeton’s offensive attack this year.

The X-factor on offense will be senior forward Cam MacIntyre who missed much of last season with injury. At 6’ 1’’ and 225 pounds, MacIntyre is a physical and rugged player who has an uncanny knack for scoring. If MacIntyre can return to the form that saw him total 13 goals and 18 assists as a sophomore, the Tigers’ offense will have a much easier time moving on from the loss of Wilson, Jubinville, and Kushniruk.

Defensively, the Tigers are poised to be one of the best teams in the nation. Princeton returns every player from a defense that finished seventh in the country a season ago with a 2.11 goals-against average. Pederson and junior Matt Godlewski will lead the way for a unit that also welcomes freshman Michael Sdao.

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Sdao was drafted in the seventh round of the 2009 NHL Entry Draft by the Ottawa Senators, and he attended Ottawa’s summer prospects camp this past July.

Junior Taylor Fedun, sophomore Derrick Pallis, senior Kevin Crane, junior Cam Ritchie and senior Brad Schroeder round out an experienced unit that will certainly make a push to be the top unit in the nation.

“Our expectations are high considering we have our entire defense core plus Ottawa Senator draft choice Michael Sdao on defense,” Gadowsky said. “With the return of ECAC and Ivy Player of the Year, Zane Kalemba, we expect our defense to be a strong point of our team.”

In goal, Princeton has itself as good of a situation as a team could ask for. Senior Zane Kalemba returns for his final campaign, having put together two sensational seasons in the last two years. Kalemba finished third in the nation last year with a .932 save percentage and was a Baker Award nominee.

“Anytime you have the luxury of having the returning Player of the Year back in the most important position, you are in a good spot,” Gadowsky said.

Last season ended on something of a bitter note for Kalemba, with last-minute losses coming in the ECAC Hockey tournament to Cornell and in the NCAA tournament to Minnesota-Duluth. But the senior netminder has played successfully in many big games and will look to do more of the same this season.

Princeton also has two very capable backups in junior Alan Reynolds and freshman Michael Condon. Reynolds spelled Kalemba in Princeton’s recent game against Clarkson and finished with 31 saves on 32 shots, helping the Tigers earn a 4-1 victory.

“I think a true strength of our team will be the depth at that position. Alan Reynolds played a fantastic game on Saturday night and came into camp in tremendous shape,” Gadowsky said. “Michael Condon is a very talented and big goaltender who we expect to be an impact goaltender in this league. So we are certainly very fortunate with Zane and have a ton of confidence in him, but it is very nice to have depth at that position as well.”

Princeton will be tested in a number of non-league games this season. The Tigers have already played a set of non-league games against Ivy League opponents Yale and Brown. Princeton travels to the University of Massachusetts Lowell in mid-December, and it will face Maine and either Colorado College or Cornell in the Florida College Classic during the week following Christmas. Princeton will also host UConn later in the season.

The league schedule will be trying, with fellow NCAA tournament qualifiers and league opponents Yale and Cornell also ranked in the top 20 in the latest media poll. After a homestand this weekend against Dartmouth and Harvard, Princeton hits the road for nearly two months. The Tigers start with a weekend in upstate New York, taking on Cornell and Colgate. Two weeks later, Princeton will head to New England to face Brown and Yale.

Rematches against Cornell and Yale won’t come until the spring semester.

The current team has seen both sides: They’ve been the underdog that has burst to the top of the conference when no one expected it to happen, and they’ve also been the favorite to win the league title and fall a game short. If nothing else, this year’s Tigers will bring a complete understanding of what it takes to win key games down the line that few teams in the past have had.

“I believe we will benefit as much from the experience of making the NCAA tournament last season as we will from the loss, and how we lost at the tournament,” Gadowsky said. “We have extremely intelligent and high quality individuals on this team, and we expect them to learn from those experiences and be more mentally tough because of it.”

Pederson echoed his coach’s comments about the NCAA tournament.

“I think I can speak for the rest of the senior class, and the rest of the team as a whole, in saying that we would love to help this program return to the NCAA tournament.”