Team Notes: Princeton Travels to Harvard and Dartmouth
PRINCETON - The Princeton men's hockey team looks to rebound from its first consecutive losses since the first three games of the season when it travels to New England this weekend to take on ECAC and Ivy League rivals Harvard and Dartmouth.
Princeton remains in the hunt for a top-four ECAC Hockey finish, but lost ground in the standings with two losses last weekend. The Tigers are currently sixth in the league standings with 19 points. That places Princeton two points behind third-place Rensselaer and one behind a fourth-place tie with Saturday's opponent Dartmouth and Cornell. Princeton has a three-point cushion with a game in hand on seventh-place Quinnipiac. Princeton's road to a top-four finish won't be easy though as four of Princeton's remaining six league contests come against teams ahead of the Tigers in the standings, including Saturday's game at Dartmouth, a home meeting with Yale and a series at Rensselaer and Union.
Princeton dropped a pair of games last weekend at home to Union and Rensselaer. The losses were the first consecutive losses for Princeton since the first three games of the season and snapped a 12-series streak of not being swept, which dated back to a 2010 series, also with RPI and Union. Princeton is now 9-3-1 in its last 12 games and 14-5-1 in its last 20 games after opening the season with three consecutive one-goal losses.
Mike Kramer led all Tigers with four points over the weekend, scoring a goal and adding an assist on Friday and notching two helpers on Saturday. He now has 22 points on the season and is four shy of matching his career high of 26 set last season. Kramer also now has 76 points in his career, which ranks 30th all-time at Princeton. Taylor Fedun and Derrick Pallis also had points in both games last weekend. Fedun scored in each game and his 64 career points are tied with Steve Shirreffs for third all-time among Tiger defenders.
Princeton opens the upcoming weekend on Friday night at Harvard looking to complete its first season-sweep of the Crimson since the 2003-04 season. Harvard is currently 4-18-0 overall and 3-13-0 in ECAC Hockey to sit in 11th in the league standings. Harvard enters the weekend with one win in its last 11 games, a 6-2 win over Colgate on Jan. 28 at home. Since, the Crimson has fallen to Cornell (2-1), Yale (1-0) and Northeastern (4-0). Harvard has wins this season against Rensselaer, St. Lawrence, Army and Colgate.
The Crimson leads the all-time series with Princeton 147-54-10 overall and hold a 71-16-4 edge in games played in Cambridge. Princeton has gone 3-1-1 in its last five regular season meetings with Harvard, but did drop a two-game playoff series to the Crimson last season. Earlier this season at Hobey Baker Rink, Princeton edged Harvard 1-0 behindKramer's first period goal and a 36-save performance from Mike Condon in the Princeton goal.
Princeton completes the weekend on Saturday afternoon at 17th-ranked Dartmouth. The Big Green is currently 13-7-3 overall and 9-5-2 in the ECAC. Dartmouth enters the weekend after a split on the road last weekend at Brown and Yale. Dartmouth is 6-3-1 in its last 10 games with all three losses coming to Top 10 teams RPI and Yale twice.
The Big Green leads the all-time series with Princeton 92-83-13 overall and 38-32-7 in games played in Hanover. The teams have alternated two-game win streaks over the past several years, with Dartmouth taking a playoff series in 2007, Princeton sweeping the 2007-08 league series, Dartmouth taking the 2008-09 league slate and Princeton sweeping the 2009-10 meetings. This year Dartmouth has already topped the Tigers twice, taking a non-league meeting to open the season 2-1 and a league game on Nov. 20 by a 3-2 score. Matt Arhontas, Eric Meland and Kevin Lohry have goals for the Tigers this season against Dartmouth.
Princeton returns home following the series for its final regular-season home series next weekend against Brown and second-ranked Yale.
