Men's Ice Hockey Heads To Ohio State For Thanksgiving Break Series

Friday, November 24

Columbus, Ohio

5:00 PM

Princeton University

Ohio State

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Photo by: Shelley M. Szwast

Men's Ice Hockey Heads To Ohio State For Thanksgiving Break Series

November 21, 2023 | Men's Ice Hockey

Princeton at Ohio State
November 24 | 5 p.m. | Value City Arena
BTN+ | Tickets | Live Stats | Game Notes

Princeton at Ohio State
November 25 | 5 p.m. | Value City Arena
BTN+ | Tickets | Live Stats

THE ALL-TIME SERIES WITH OHIO STATE
The all-time series between the two teams is not that extensive, with just four all-time meetings between the two programs and only two since the start of the 2000s. Ohio State has the better of the results, with a 4-0-0 record all-time. Included in those victories is a 4-2 win in the 2018 NCAA Tournament First Round in Allentown, Pa. The two teams have never met in Columbus, all four meetings have been neutral site matchups in Cleveland, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh and Allentown.

SMITH NAMED ECAC ROOKIE OF THE WEEK
Freshman goalie Arthur Smith made 36 saves in a 2-1 (OT) win over No. 10 Cornell last weekend to earn ECAC Rookie of the Week honors for the first time in his career. Smith is now 2-1-0 to start his career, with both of his wins coming in overtime against ECAC and Ivy League opponents. Smith is No. 6 among ECAC netminders in both GAA (2.73) and save percentage (.913).

Among freshmen goalies in the country, Smith ranks No. 5 in winning percentage (.667), No. 5 in GAA and No. 6 in save percentage.

OFFENSE ON POINT
Princeton has scored 21 total goals over its first six games to start the season, ranking No. 2 in the ECAC and No. 10 in the country in Scoring Offense (3.5 goals-per-game). The Tigers scored 3+ goals in their first five games to start the year, the last time that had happened since the 2006-07 team also had 3+ goals in five consecutive games to open that season. There has been balance to the scoring with 13 different goal scorers and 15 different players with at least one point.

CARDIAC CATS
So far through six games this season, Princeton has reached overtime in four of its six games, with another decided by one goal with under 1:00 left in regulation. The Tigers have won three of their four overtime games during the 5:00 OT period and claimed the shootout over Harvard in the other.

Princeton's three overtime wins so far this season are most in the ECAC and No. 2 in the nation alongside Air Force, Arizona State and Lake Superior who each have three. Ferris State leads the NCAA with four overtime wins.

Fun Fact Of The Week: Princeton (3-2-1) and Ferris State (4-7-1) both have yet to win a game in regulation this season yet are mopping up in OT.

Nerd Nugget: There are 12 teams in the country who have played 3 or more overtime games this season, Princeton is the only team to get the two points in each game to extend past regulation time.

GETTING YOUR MONEY'S WORTH
From strictly a cost-benefit analysis, a ticket to a Princeton game is one of the most efficient uses of your hockey-fan budget. Four of the six games have reached overtime, and of those four fans have seen one move on to a shootout and two others were decided with under 0:10 left in OT.

To put it another way, Princeton has played 16:59 of its possible 20:00 of overtime this season and ended each of those four games with a winning pigpile.

AMONG THE NATION'S TOP OFFENSES
The Tigers enter this weekend ranked No. 2 in the ECAC and No. 10 in the country in goals-per-game (3.5). Quinnipiac (4.54) leads the ECAC, while Denver (5.25) leads the NCAA.

POWER PLAY POPS OFF
The Tigers are 6-for-18 on the power play this season, connecting at a 33.3% clip to lead the ECAC and rank #3 in the country behind Michigan (35.6%) and Minnesota-Duluth (34.0%). Six different players have PPGs for the Tigers -- Nick Seitz, Kai Daniells, Tyler Rubin, David Jacobs. Jack Cronin and Nick Carabin.

FIRST-TIMERS CLUB GAINS NEW MEMBERSHIP
Three Tigers scored their first collegiate goals during the Harvard/Dartmouth weekend. Joshua Karnish scored in his first collegiate game -- on his first collegiate shot -- at Harvard, while Kai Daniells scored the next night in his second collegiate game. Sophomore Jaxson Ezman found the back of the net at Dartmouth, scoring in his 24th college hockey game.

BUILDING OFF 2022-23
Picked to finish 12th in the ECAC Preseason Poll last year, Princeton entered its game at St. Lawrence last season in 6th place with an 11-12-0 record overall and a 7-9-0 record inside the ECAC. Right in the middle of a race towards a home playoff game, a season-ending injury to starting netminder Ethan Pearson 5:00 into the SLU game knocked the season off course. The Tigers went 1-5-0 down the stretch before rallying for a 6-4 win at Union in the ECAC First Round.

The 13 wins overall and 8 inside ECAC play were the most by a Princeton team since the 2017-18 ECAC championship team won 19 and 10, respectively. Against Ivy opponents, Princeton went 5-5-0 for the second season in a row – tied for the most Ivy wins by a Ron Fogarty coached team (2018-19, 2021-22, 2022-23).

YOUNG GUNS READY TO ROLL
Princeton may very well line up the youngest team in the nation in terms of games played entering this season. Only 19 of the 26 skaters on the roster had skated in a college hockey game with seven freshmen joining the team for 2023-24. Prior to the start of the season, those 19 returning players had played in a total of 785 college hockey games – an average of 41.3 games-per-player. Only Nick Seitz (84 games) and Adam Robbins (81 games) had played three full seasons entering 2023-24. The other five members of the Class of 2024 did not play during 2020-21 as the Ivy League did not compete due to COVID-19.

REELING IN RANKED TEAMS
The Tigers have 20 wins over ranked opponents during Ron Fogarty's tenure, including a 1-0 (OT) win over No. 10 Cornell on 11/18/23. Princeton also picked up a 5-0 win at No. 20 RIT and a 3-2 (OT) win over No. 12 Providence last year and a 5-4 win at No. 8 Cornell in 2021-22. Princeton has at least one win over a ranked team in each of its last eight seasons including 2023-24.

CAREER YEARS
Eight of Princeton's returning skaters had career years during the 2022-23 season. Joe Berg (+2 points), Nick Carabin (+10 points), Jack Cronin (+12 points), Noah de la Durantaye (+7 points), Mike Kennedy (+2 points), Ian Murphy (+10 points), Adam Robbins (+1 point) and Nick Seitz (+6 points) all increased their scoring output from 2021-22 to 2022-23. In goal, Ethan Pearson turned his freshman season (0-2-0; 7.16 GAA, .826 sv%, 100:16 of play) into a sophomore season where he was among the ECAC's top goalies (11-9-0, 4 shutouts, 2.71 GAA, .903 sv% 1174:14 of play) before his season-ending injury.

BRINGING BACK THE POINTS
Princeton returns 173 of its 230 points from last season, accounting for 75% of points tallied during the 2022-23 season – a percentage which ranks No. 10 among all Division I teams entering the season.

TIGERS RETURN TWO ALL-IVY SELECTIONS
Ian Murphy (second-team All-Ivy) and Ethan Pearson (honorable mention All-Ivy) are the two of Princeton's four All-Ivy selections from last season returning this campaign. For Murphy, this was the second All-Ivy honor of his career after being named first-team All-Ivy in 2022.

THE MURPH
For the second year in a row, Ian Murphy is the top returning scorer on the team. After posting 9-10-19 numbers in 2021-22, he popped off for 15-14-29 last season to lead Princeton in goals, assists, and points. This year, he is just under a point-per-game player (2-3-5) to start the season. He had two hat tricks last season, tying for most by an ECAC player and second-most by any player in the NCAA. After spending the summer of 2022 at NHL Development Camp with the Vancouver Canucks, he spent this past summer at NHL Development Camp with the St. Louis Blues.

JACK ATTACK
Jack Cronin struck for five PPGs and was second on the team with 12 goals overall last year. He scored 10 more goals last year than he did in his freshman season, and his 12-point growth from 2021-22 to 2022-23 was the most of any player on the team. In the opening weekend, Cronin had three points in two games, including a two-point game (1g, 1a) at Harvard -- his first multi-point game since 12/30/22 at Colorado College.

Cronin's 17 career goals are second-most by an active Princeton player, and his two-goal game last weekend against Colgate was the first of his career after 15 previous one-goal games.

DE LA SOUL
Junior defenseman Noah de la Durantaye tallied a career-high 17 points last season, up from 10 as a rookie in 2021-22. He leads all returning defensemen in goals (4), assists (13) and points (17).

GORMAN FAMILY SCORING RACE
Sophomore Brendan Gorman is chasing down his older brother, Liam (Class of 2023), and already surpassed his father, Sean (Class of 1991) on his family's all-time scoring leader list. Brendan averaged 0.6 points-per-game last season as a true freshman.
1. Liam Gorman -- 36 pts. (16g, 20a) in 91 games
2. Brendan Gorman -- 26 pts. (7g, 19a) in 37 games 3. Sean Gorman -- 23 pts (5g, 18a) in 99 games

ABOUT ADAM
Adam Robbins tallied 14 points (5g, 9a) in 32 games last season after registering 15 points (5g, 10a) over his first 49 combined games. Of his nine assists last season, seven came on the power play. He has three assists this season, two of which have come on the power play. During the 2020-21 year, Robbins won a Clark Cup with the Chicago Steel.

Robbins scored the OTGWG against Yale, landing at #5 on that evening's Sportscenter Top-10 Plays -- the second time in his career he landed on the #SCtop10 following a penalty shot goal against Harvard on 1/6/23 which was #4.

SETTING SEITZ
Another NYC product had a standout 2022-23 in Nick Seitz. Last year, he connected for a career-high 15 points (9g, 6a) in 28 games after tallying 11 points (3g, 8a) over his first 56 games. He has 6 points (1g, 5a) in 6 games this season, including a 3-assist game at Dartmouth.

He enters the weekend tied for No. 7 in the ECAC and No. 30 in the country in assists-per-game (0.83) and is No. 12 in the ECAC in points-per-game (1.00).

CARABIN CARRIES HIS WEIGHT
Assistant captain Nick Carabin stepped into a larger role last season as a junior and delivered with a career-high 11 points (1g, 10a) in 32 games after registering just one assist in 21 games during the 2021-22 season.

He has 4 points (1g, 3a) in 6 games this season.

EZMAN IS THE MAN
After tallying 2 points in 22 games as a freshman last season, Jaxson Ezman has started the 23-24 season with 3 points (1g, 2a) in 6 games.

DJ SPINS GOLD
David Jacobs had 15 points (5g, 10a) as a freshman last year over 32 games. He had five different one-goal games, and is looking for his first career multi-goal game. To start this season, Jacobs has 6 points (1g, 5a) including a 3-point game (1g, 2a) against Yale last weekend and is No. 12 in the ECAC in points-per-game (1.00).

FRESH FACES FIND FOOTING IN NET
Princeton's two wins two weeks ago each provided the first career win in their first career start for Princeton's two freshmen netminders. Arthur Smith made 24 saves in the 5-4 win over Yale, while Conor Callaghan made 30 saves in a 3-2 win over Brown.

PEARSON PROTECTS THE NET
Junior Ethan Pearson had taken over the starting goalie role before a season-ending injury at St. Lawrence last season, posting an 11-9-0 record with a 2.71 GAA. He had four shutouts last season, which tied for No. 2 all-time in a season by a Princeton netminder. His 2.71 GAA in 21 games played ranks No. 7 in a season all-time by a goalie to play in at least a third of Princeton's games.

COACH FOGARTY
Ron Fogarty began at Princeton in 2014 after seven years at Division III Adrian, rolling up a 167-23-10 record. Since coming to Princeton, he has won 83 games, already the fifth-most in program history and trailing Guy Gadowsky (2004-2011, 105 wins), Don Cahoon (1991-2000, 122 wins), Jim Higgins (1977-1991, 130 wins), and Richard Vaughan (1935-1959, 158 wins). Prior to Adrian, Fogarty was an assistant coach at his alma mater Colgate from 1996-99, Clarkson from 1999-2002, and Bowling Green from 2002-06. In 2018, he led Princeton to its third ECAC title, along with 1998 and 2008. Fogarty's overall head coaching record is 250-178-34; .578).

Fogarty is 2-5-1 as head coach at Princeton against Big Ten opponents, with wins over Michigan State (3-1; 11/28/14) and Penn State (5-4; 1/28/17) to his resume.

LET'S GO CAMPING
Three players on this year's team have attended NHL Development Camps:
Noah de la Durantaye - Vegas (2022)
Brendan Gorman – Vegas (2023)
Ian Murphy - Vancouver (2022), St. Louis (2023)

A total of 24 Tigers have been drafted in the NHL since the draft began in 1963.

GORMAN'S GOAL TOPPLES #10 CORNELL
Brendan Gorman fired a wrister home from the top of the slot with 6.6 seconds remaining in overtime to cap a 2-1 (OT) win over #10 Cornell at Baker Rink on November 18. Adam Robbins had the other goal, tying the game at 1-1 in the second period. Princeton was 4-for-4 on the PK against the Big Red, successfully killing off a 5:00 major in the third period and a minor that covered the final 0:12 of regulation and the first 1:48 of overtime.

BEDLAM AT BAKER HIGHLIGHTS SWEEP OF YALE & BROWN
The Tigers won both games at home against Yale and Brown in overtime, the first time we can find in the record books that the Tigers won back-to-back home overtime games in the same weekend. It was just the fourth time in recorded Princeton men's hockey history that the team won consecutive games in overtime and the first time it happened in the regular season since 1986-87 when the Tigers won both games of a home-and-home with Army in OT.

2023-24 OPENS WITH SHOOTOUT "WIN" AT #15/19 HARVARD
Princeton was all over the Crimson in the season-opener, outshooting Harvard by a 43-21 margin, before securing two points via a win in the shootout in a game that officially is in the books as a 4-4 tie. Adam Robbins and Noah de la Durantaye had the goals in the shootout, while Ethan Pearson stopped 3-of-4 shots faced.