Men's Hockey: Tigers hope for return to better form

The Class of 2010 gave Princeton nine men’s hockey players who would collectively become the winningest class in the program’s history. They had more than 20 wins their sophomore and junior seasons and qualified for bids in the NCAA tournament those years. With that class gone, this year’s team aims to return to winning form following a disappointing injury-ridden season last year.

Senior forward and co-captain Matt Arhontas described the team’s attitude going into the season: “We’ve had some success in past years,” he said. “Last year was a bit of a down year. We want to get back to the way we were playing and the success we had in my first two years here.”

The Tigers (1-3 overall, 1-1 ECAC Hockey) won only 12 games in the 2009-10 season, missing the NCAA tournament and posting a losing record for the first time since the 2006-07 campaign. The team is eager to put last year’s disappointment behind it, however, and has a hopeful outlook and clear goals for this season.

“We have goals that build off each other,” freshman forward Andrew Calof said. “We want to start off with a winning season, winning the Ivy League, winning the ECAC, winning a game in the NCAA tournament, and finally winning the national championship.”

The team espoused a clear ideology for returning to winning form: total team unity and a focus on the basics.

“It’s something special where you know that the other guys on the team are going to take care of individual goals and team objectives,” senior forward Mike Kramer said of the team’s principles. “It’s something you never have to question.”

Sophomore goalie Mike Condon echoed this sentiment of unity. “Our team goal is simple: to all pull the same way,” he said.

“We’ve got to get back to the basics of what we’ve decided Princeton hockey is,” Arhontas said. “Going to the net hard, back-checking — hard work, basically.”

The Tigers’ major obstacle this year will be their youth and inexperience, but the team was not concerned with these factors and will try to leverage them as strengths. The Tigers know, however, that the leadership of their returning players will be vital for the squad to achieve success.

“We’re really young,” Kramer said. “But we have a lot of veteran leadership as well.”

“With such a winning tradition in the past, the seniors on the team are helping all the younger players know exactly what they have to do in order to be successful, since they’ve been there,” Calof explained.

The team hopes to complement its commitment to unity and hard work with a game strategy suited to both its youth and its depth of talent.

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“We want to play an overwhelming offensive game with a lot of speed,” Kramer said of the team’s strategy. ”We like to run through, roll lines, play everybody, and beat teams with shots, to run them down.”

On the defensive side, the team intends to shut down opponents in order to facilitate offensive production.

“In particular, the team is committed to being the best back-checking team in the nation, preventing odd-man rushes against, minimizing penalties and blocking shots,” Condon said. “By doing this, we can minimize goals against and focus on creating more offensive opportunities.

The Tigers enter the season after a summer of training and a preseason tournament, the Ivy Shootout. Despite losing both games in that tournament and its season opener, the team feels these early games were an important testing ground for its summer preparation. The team will look to build upon Saturday’s win at Brown and continue to improve throughout the year.

“How we started off was a little bit of a disappointment, but each game seems to be getting better," Arhontas said. “We haven’t always had the results, but each game the team’s looking better, the new guys have been contributing more, and I think we’re going in the right direction.”

Princeton continues its season with a game Friday at Colgate, and the team hopes to chalk up another win en route to a successful year.

“Everyone on the team has high expectations,” Calof said. “We all know the talent we have on our team, and we know we can be competitive for the national championship.”