Men's Hockey Hosts A Pair Ranked Opponents This Weekend

Feb. 10, 2005

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The Princeton men's hockey team opens a four-game homestand Friday night, during which the Tigers will host four of the ECAC Hockey League's top five teams. The stretch begins when fifth-ranked and league-leading Cornell visits Baker Rink on Friday and continues against No. 12 Colgate on Saturday night.

Face-off is set for 7 p.m. on both nights. For ticket information, visit GoPrincetonTigers.com or call the ticket office at (609) 258-3538. Seating for Friday night's game against Cornell is sold out, but standing room tickets will be available at the box office. Tickets are still available for the Colgate game.

For those unable to join in person, the game will be broadcast live on the Internet at GoPrincetonTigers.com. The broadcast will begin approximately 10 minutes prior to the opening face-off and a link to the broadcast can be found on the hockey schedule page, the athletics front page, and the multimedia page. Additionally, live stats will be available through GameTracker.

Last weekend Princeton played its first road games since late December when the Tigers visited St. Lawrence and Clarkson. On Friday night the Tigers came away with a hard-fought point in an exciting back-and-forth 4-4 tie against the Saints. Saturday night Princeton scored first to take a 1-0 lead at Clarkson, but two second-period goals for the Golden Knights resulted in a Clarkson win.

Following the weekend, Princeton sits tied for 10th in the ECAC Hockey League standings with Rensselaer. Princeton has an outside shot of climbing into the middle four spots and earning a home first-round playoff match up, but it will be a difficult task as Princeton's next four opponents all sit in the top five of the league standings.

Princeton has nine points on the season with a record of 4-11-1 in the league. Clarkson sits ahead of the Tigers with 13 points. Union currently holds down the final home ice slot with 14 points, but has amore favorable schedule than Clarkson or Princeton, even though the Dutchmen and 1-10 in their last 11 league games. If the season ended today, Princeton would have the tiebreaker over Rensselaer and finish 10th, meaning a first round playoff series at St. Lawrence.

Junior Dustin Sproat had two points on Friday at St. Lawrence and he continues to lead the Princeton scoring charts with 14 goals and 16 assists for 30 points. Goeckner-Zoeller comes next with 25 points after an assist against the Saints. Luc Paquin's assist gave him 21 points and he is the first Princeton defenseman to post a 20-point season since Steve Shirreffs had 33 in the 1997-98 season. Patrick Neundorfer reached 20 points with a goal on Friday. The last time Princeton had four 20-point scorers came in the 2000-01 season.

Senior Neil Stevenson-Moore had an assist against the Saints and now 12 points, while Sebastian Borza's two-point weekend made him the sixth-Tiger this season to reach double-digits in total points. His 10 points is one more than the nine he combined over his freshman and sophomore seasons.

The Tigers begin the weekend Friday night when they host the nation's hottest team, No. 5 Cornell. The Big Red enters the game on an eight-game unbeaten streak (7-0-1), which is the longest in the country. In that span, Cornell has climbed into the top five nationally and has climbed atop the ECAC standings and now has a three-point margin on second-place Colgate.

Cornell is 16-4-3 overall and is 12-2-2 in the league. It has outscored its opponents 20-7 in its current eight-game run and its only losses this season have come at Michigan State, at Dartmouth, against then No. 5 Boston College, and at No. 12 Harvard.

Cornell has only allowed three or more goals three times this season, but Princeton was one of the teams to reach three, and is the only team that was able to do it at Lynah Rink. Princeton dropped that previous meeting, however by a 5-3 score. Princeton scored first in the game and made it 2-2 early in the second, but a pair of late goals in the second lifted Cornell to the win.

The weekend continues Saturday when Colgate visits Baker Rink. Colgate led the ECAC standings for a good portion of the season, but a record of 1-3-1 in its last five games, has allowed Cornell to take over the top spot. Colgate now ranks second in a tie with Harvard. The Raiders have also fallen in the national rankings, from a high of eighth on January 17th to the No. 12 spot this week.

Princeton and Colgate played a tight game when they met in early December at Starr Rink. Princeton came back to tie Colgate leads of 1-0 and 2-1 but Dmitry Yashin, Alexei's younger brother, broke the 2-2 tie at 7:46 of the third which lifted Colgate to the win.

Princeton's homestand continues next weekend when Dartmouth and Vermont visit Baker Rink. It will be Vermont's final visit to Baker Rink in the foreseeable future as the Catamounts will join Hockey East next season. Princeton then completes the regular season the following weekend at Rensselaer and Union

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