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Princeton University Athletics
Men's Hockey Hosts Dartmouth and Vermont in Final Home Games of Regular Season
February 17, 2005 | Men's Ice Hockey
Feb. 17, 2005
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The Princeton men's hockey team plays its final home games of the regular season this weekend when it hosts Dartmouth and Vermont at Baker Rink as the only four games remain prior to the start of the league playoffs. Three Tiger seniors and one junior will be making their final Baker Rink appearances and will be honored before the start of Saturday's game.
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. 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. Friday night's game will be televised locally in the Princeton area on Patriot 8.
Last weekend Princeton struggled to score goals against two of the stingiest defenses in the ECAC Hockey League. On Friday night, the Tigers No. 5 Cornell in check for 30 minutes, but the Big Red eventually broke through on the way to a 5-0 win. The following night, Colgate got a goal 2:21 into the game and never looked back in a 3-1 Raider win. Dustin Sproat scored Princeton's only goal of the weekend late in that game.
The losses leave Princeton at 6-17-2 overall and 4-13-1 in the league entering this weekend's play against a pair of teams which are tied for fourth in the ECAC Hockey League standings and are battling for the final first-round bye in the playoffs. Princeton now sits 11th in the ECAC standings, two points behind of 11th-place Rensselaer and two ahead of 12th-place Yale. Princeton has an outside shot of climbing into the middle four spots and earning a home first-round playoff match up. The Tigers can finish as high as seventh or as low as 12th in the final rundown, and can still meet up with any of 10 opponents in the first-round. The only team that the Tigers cannot face is Cornell.
If the season ended today, Princeton would meet Brown in the 6-11 playoff series in Providence. It would be the second time in three seasons that the Tigers and Bears met in the postseason.
Junior Dustin Sproat had Princeton's lone goal on the weekend and he continues to lead the Princeton scoring charts with 15 goals and 16 assists for 31 points. Sophomore Grant Goeckner-Zoeller comes next with 25 points. Luc Paquin's assist on Saturday gave him 22 points and he is the first Princeton defenseman to post a 20-point season since Steve Shirreffs had 33 in the 1997-98 season.
Junior Seamus Young also assisted on the goal and reached the 10-point mark for the second time in his career. With the assist, seven Tigers have now reached double-digit point totals this season.
Four Princeton players will be suiting up for their final regular season games at Baker Rink. The group includes three seniors: Jesse Masear, Luc Paquin and Neil Stevenson-Moore, and one junior: Dustin Sproat.
Masear is a molecular biology major from Calgary, Alberta. He has appeared in 87 games on the Tiger blueline and has scored four goals and added seven assists for 11 career points. Three of his four goals have come this season.
Paquin is an economics major from Le Gardeur, Que. After taking the 2003-04 season off, Paquin returned to the Tiger lineup this season and has five goals and 17 assists for 22 points. He tallied 10 total points in his first two seasons. Paquin currently leads all league defensemen in scoring. The two-time member of the ECAC All-Academic team shared the team's Hobey Baker Trophy as top freshman with Neil Stevenson-Moore in 2002.
Stevenson-Moore is a politics major from North Vancouver, B.C. Stevenson-Moore has worn the Orange and Black in 101 games and has collected 42 career points on 19 goals and 23 assists. As a freshman, he shared the team's Hobey Baker Trophy as top freshman with Luc Paquin in 2002. This season he has 12 points and will set a new career-high with the next point he tallies.
Sproat is a chemistry major from Red Deer, Alb. In three seasons he has appeared in 86 games and leads all current players on the roster with 53 points on 25 goals and 28 assists. This season he has a team-high 31 points and he leads the ECAC in scoring as well. Sproat is a two-time member of the ECAC All-Academic team and was the 2003 recipient of the team's Hobey Baker Trophy as top freshman.
The Tigers begin the weekend Friday night when they host a Dartmouth team that has won eight of its last 10 games after a sluggish start. Dartmouth was the preseason pick to finish atop the ECAC Hockey League standings, but stumbled out of the blocks. They are now 14-9-2 overall and 11-7 in the ECAC. A sweep last weekend moved them into a tie for fourth in the league standings.
It was at the start of November that Princeton shut down Dartmouth 3-0 in Hanover for the Tigers' first win of the 2004-05 season and Guy Gadowsky's first ECAC win behind the Tiger bench. Sproat, Goeckner-Zoeller and junior Brian Carthas provided the Tiger goals that day and junior Eric Leroux made 37 saves to preserve the shutout.
The weekend continues Saturday when Vermont visits Baker Rink. Vermont was one of the hottest teams in the nation, reeling off an 11-game unbeaten streak in November and December, but has cooled off of late, going 7-7 since that streak ended. The Catamounts are 16-11-3 overall and 10-6-2 in the ECAC. Saturday's visit to Baker Rink will be Vermont's last as a member of the ECAC, since it will be moving to Hockey East for next season.
Princeton and Vermont played a defensive game earlier this season in Burlington. The Catamounts scored early on the power-play and then held off the Tigers until a late empty-netter game Vermont a little breathing room in the 2-0 win.
Princeton closes the regular season out next weekend at Rensselaer and Union.