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Princeton Ties Yale 2-2; Bulldogs Advance To LHI Final In Shootout
October 31, 2014 | Men's Ice Hockey
The 251st meeting between Princeton and Yale in men's hockey is a little less than three months away. By the time the puck drops in that one, each team will have played more than 20 games and have a pretty good feel for how their seasons are going.
The 250th meeting? Well, that was something of an appetizer for both.
Princeton and Yale opened their seasons with a 2-2 tie in the nightcap of Day 1 at the Liberty Hockey Invitational at the Prudential Center in Newark. Yale's Ryan Hitchcock then scored the only goal of the three-round shootout, which advanced the Bulldogs to the championship game Sunday.
Both Princeton goals were scored by freshmen, the first by David Hallisey and the second by Eric Robinson.
Princeton will take on Merrimack at 1 p.m., Sunday in the third-place game. Like Princeton, Merrimack also played a 2-2 tie, only to fall to Connecticut in a shootout. UConn and Yale will therefore meet at 4 p.m., in the final.
The opening of the 2014-15 season also marked the first game at Princeton for new head coach Ron Fogarty, who spent the last seven years starting the program at Division III Adrian and then building it into a powerhouse. Fogarty's record with Adrian was 167-23-10, which makes him the leading active NCAA coach in career winning percentage.
While Adrian was playing Northwood in its season opener, Fogarty was making his debut with his new team. And while Adrian is a newbie in college hockey, Princeton and Yale are old-timers, partners who were dancing for the 250th time together.
This one had a little of everything. Both teams killed off a 5-on-3 power play. Both teams had runs of dominating shots. Both teams hit pipes.
In the end, not much separated them. Actually, nothing separated them, and were it any other regular-season game, there would have been no shootout.
Princeton fell behind almost exactly midway through the first period, when Yale's John Hayden backhanded one into the net. The Tigers needed 88 seconds to tie it, when scored the first goal of the Fogarty era.
Robinson made it 2-1 Princeton when he took advantage of a bounce off the boards behind the Yale that came right out in front with 2:37 left in the second. Yale answered to tie it seven minutes into the third, and neither team would score again.
Yale had a power play that began with exactly two minutes left in the third, but ironically Princeton had the best chance, when Tucker Brockett had a breakaway that was saved by Yale's Alex Lyon.
It stayed even through the five-minute overtime, setting up the shootout. Princeton's best chance was its first, when Hallisey hit the pipe. Neither team scored until Hitchcock ended it on Yale's final shot.
Colton Phinney was sharp for Princeton all night with 45 saves.