February 13, 2010

Tigers Skate to Tie with Saints

CANTON, N.Y. - Matt Arhontas and Dan Bartlett scored goals to help the Princeton men's hockey team to a 2-2 tie at St. Lawrence on Saturday afternoon at Appleton Arena.

Princeton opened the scoring on the power play with less than two minutes remaining in the opening period on the rush. Taylor Fedun started the play behind the Princeton net and fed mark Magnowski along the boards to start the break out. Magnowski chipped the puck to Arhontas on the opposite side in the neutral zone. Arhontas skated into the offensive zone and skated around a St. Lawrence defender to go in alone on Saint netminder Alex Petizian and scored his fifth goal of the season.

Princeton led after a period, but the Saints drew even at 10:02 of the second when Travis Vermeulen scored through a screen on the power play after winning an offensive zone face off. Brandon Bollig, who provided the screen, and Kyle Flanagan had assists on the goal.

Princeton answered back to regain the lead with under five minutes of play left in the second period as Bartlett put Princeton ahead with his team-leading 16th goal of the season. Brodie Zuk caused a turnover on the forecheck behind the Saint goal and brought the puck in front before feeding Bartlett at the opposite post for the goal.

St. Lawrence got the only goal of the final period as Vermeulen netted his second of the game with 7:11 left in regulation. Princeton survived a Saints push after the goal and then killed off a penalty over the final three minutes to force overtime. Princeton nearly had a chance to end the game with seconds on the clock when Will MacDonald led a 3 on 1 into the Saint zone, but his Michael Sdao couldn't get the pass to his forehand and the attempt went wide and overtime ensued.

Princeton had two good chances early in overtime as Petizian made big saves on both Bartlett and MacDonald from the slot. Those were two of the 43 saves he made in the game. Meanwhile Zane Kalemba made 28 saves, including three in overtime for the tie.

Princeton is now 10-12-3 overall and 6-10-2 in the ECAC. The Tigers visit Union next Friday at 7 p.m.