Men's Hockey: Regular season closes at Baker

This is it — or might be it. Depending on the outcome of this weekend’s games, the Class of 2010 — the winningest class in the history of the men’s hockey program — may be playing its final games at Baker Rink.

Princeton (11-13-3 overall, 7-11-2 ECAC Hockey) will square off against perennial rival No. 5 Yale (16-8-6, 10-4-4) tonight before taking on resurgent Brown (8-15-4, 6-10-4) on Saturday afternoon. The Tigers are currently tied with the Bears for ninth place in the ECAC Hockey standings, while the Elis sit in first.

To earn a home playoff series, the Orange and Black must jump to at least eighth place in the league rankings. Both Princeton and Brown have 16 points in conference play, while seventh-place Quinnipiac has 18, and eighth-place Harvard has 17.

“As far as a goal for this weekend, we want to win both games,” sophomore forward Marc Hagel said. “We’d prefer to have our destiny in our own hands. But that’s the way it is, and it’s our job to win the games.”

One of the Tigers’ toughest tasks of the season arrives Friday night when Yale visits Baker Rink for the first time since Oct. 31, when the Bulldogs emerged victorious, 5-2. In that contest, Princeton held a narrow 2-1 lead entering the third period when Yale’s high-octane offense exploded for four goals in 15 minutes against senior goalie Zane Kalemba.

The next meeting between the two squads proved to be more of the same, with Yale earning a commanding 4-1 win, this time with junior goalie Alan Reynolds in net for Princeton.

If the Tigers are to be successful on Friday, they will need to find a way to shut down Yale’s league-leading offense. That offense is led by the Bulldogs’ top line of Broc Little, Brian O’Neil and Sean Backman, who have tallied 35, 34 and 32 points, respectively, on the season. Little’s 19 goals in conference play is tops in the league, while O’Neil is tied for second with 18 assists.

“They’re a quick team. They like to get pucks to the net,” Hagel said. “We just need to focus on getting pucks out of our own end, making a good first pass, avoiding turning the puck over.”

In contrast, Princeton has only one skater among the league’s top 40 scoring leaders: senior forward Dan Bartlett, who is tied for 23rd with 19 points in conference games.

Though the Bulldogs have been very successful at putting pucks in the net this season, they’ve had slightly less luck keeping them out. Yale head coach Keith Allain has employed a goalie-by-committee system, using four netminders — senior Billy Blase, junior Ryan Rondeau and freshmen Nick Maricic and Jeff Malcolm. None of them played more than 12 games or fewer than four.

Rondeau got the nod in the Oct. 31 meeting, making 40 saves, while Maricic was in net for Yale’s win over Princeton on Dec. 5, recording 33 saves.

On the defensive end, Yale is led by senior Tom Dignard, who has recorded 21 points on the season despite missing six games.

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“People just need to be awake in all aspects of the game,” junior forward Kevin Lohry said. “We need to be strong on the puck and make it easier on ourselves in all areas of the ice.”

Lohry also pointed out that reversing Princeton’s recent trend of taking the occasional bad penalty will be crucial to the team’s success.

“We’ve been having trouble staying out of the box, so we need to be better about that, or else they will kill us,” he said. “We’re a good skating team when we’re ready to play, and we’re focused, so we need to keep our feet moving.”

Though Friday night’s matchup is likely to be the more trying one for the Tigers, they cannot overlook their opponents on Saturday. Princeton won the first meeting between the Ivy League foes — a 1-0 overtime nailbiter at Baker Rink — but Brown claimed the second contest, winning 3-1 in Providence, R.I.

Despite most pundits picking Brown to finish in the basement of the ECAC Hockey standings, the Bears, under the tutelage of first-year head coach Brendan Whittet, have enjoyed their best season since 2006-07.

“Brown’s a tough team, but it’s just like every other ECAC Hockey game: They’re going to be intense,” Lohry said. “Hopefully we can just exploit them when we can and bury our chances [of scoring].”

Much of Brown’s success can be attributed to the play of sophomore goalie Mike Clemente, who supplanted Dan Rosen last season. Just two games under .500 on the season, Clemente has recorded a .900 save percentage so far. On the offensive end, the Bears are led by forwards Jack Maclellan and Harry Zolnierczyk, both of whom have recorded 11 goals on the season.

Despite the play of its talented forwards, Brown has been inconsistent on special teams, especially the power play. The Bears have converted on just 20 of their 131 chances, a 15.3 percent clip. In contrast, Princeton has scored on 19.4 percent of its opportunities, while Yale has registered a 23.9 percentage.

“We feel that special teams and the power-play [opportunities] are within our control,” Hagel said. “We have a pretty good idea of how the refs are going to call the game, so we just have to find a way to take advantage of our chances.”

For Princeton, the key to this weekend’s contests will continue to be finding ways to overcome the injuries that the team has sustained. In nearly every contest during the last two months, the Tigers have played with fewer than 12 forwards, sometimes as few as eight.

Last weekend, when Princeton faced Union and Rensselaer, the team was without senior forwards Cam MacIntyre, Kevin Kaiser and Tyler Beachell.

“There’s no denying that having Big Mac or Kais or Beachell in the lineup — all seniors who’ve won an ECAC championship — and Kramer, too, means a lot,” Hagel said. “But recently [head] coach [Guy Gadowsky] has had to put guys in different situations, and they’ve stepped up big.”

The absence of the seniors did, however, give some of the Tigers’ younger players a chance to step up. Freshman forward Will MacDonald recorded two goals and two assists in the pair of games to earn ECAC Rookie of the Week honors. If Princeton is to be successful this weekend, the team will need players to continue to step up to pick up the slack.

“It’s been difficult not having the guys who are rehabbing around, but the guys who are playing realize that we’re going to be without them and just put more responsibilities on ourselves on the ice,” Lohry said.

Regardless of the weekend’s results, Princeton will be back in action next weekend for the best-of-three first round of the ECAC Hockey playoffs.