Men's Hockey: Tigers attempt to snap 4-game winless streak

The senior graduating class is perhaps one of the most successful in the program’s history. With two wins in their final four games and 71 victories total, they would surpass the Class of 2010 as the most winningest class in Princeton history. Along with the Class of 2010, these seniors were ECAC Champions in 2008 and captured two bids to the NCAA tournament.

Currently, Princeton sits at sixth in the conference standings with 20 points, trailing several teams by only a handful of points. With only four games left on the Tigers’ schedule, it is mathematically impossible for them to place higher than third. First-place Union is nine points ahead and second-place Yale would own the tiebreaker — the most wins overall — even in the best-case scenario. However, a strong finish by the Tigers can catapult them into the top four and earn them a bye in the first round of the conference tournament.

On Friday at 7 p.m., the Bears will enter Baker Rink in a game with playoff implications. Brown is in ninth place in the conference and could soon find itself in a postseason matchup with the Tigers.

The two teams met twice earlier this season. The Bears won the first game 2-1 on neutral ice during the Ivy Shootout, a pre-league tournament.

A week later, on Nov. 6, Brown hosted Princeton yet failed to protect its home ice. The Bears jumped out to an early lead thanks to a power-play goal in the first three minutes of play, and at the end of the first period Brown led 2-0. The Tigers, led by a pair of goals from senior forward and co-captain Matt Arthontas, rallied from behind to take a 4-3 victory. Sophomore goalie Mike Condon had a strong game between the pipes, yielding only three goals on 40 shots.

Recently, both Princeton and Brown have struggled in conference play. The Tigers are currently winless (0-3-1) in their past four games, and the Bears broke their own five-game losing streak with a victory this past weekend against St. Lawrence.

On Saturday, the Tigers will battle the Yale Bulldogs in a nationally televised game on ESPNU. The Tigers fell 5-3 to the Bulldogs in the opener of league play for both teams back on Nov. 5. A highlight of the game was freshman forward Andrew Calof’s first goal as a collegiate player, which was scored shorthanded off an assist by fellow freshman forward Jack Berger.

At the time, Yale was ranked fifth in the nation and has remained ranked since then. They rose to first before dropping four of the past nine games and are currently ranked third. The Tigers, on the other hand, have fallen completely out of the national top 20 after a three-week span during which they were ranked between 17 and 20. A strong showing against Yale could provide the national voters with enough reason to give the Tigers another top 20 spot.

With the ECAC Hockey standings as tight as ever, every point the Tigers can grab this weekend will be pivotal in their quest to recapture the ECAC Hockey Championship.