After Brown squandered a two-goal third period lead, Bears sophomore forward Tye Korbl tallied the game winner with just 2:04 remaining to knock off host Princeton. It was Korbl’s first of his career, and Brown held on for a big 5-3 win.
“I was about to get off the ice,” Korbl said. “But then I saw [Jason Wilson] streaking in. I found the loose puck and got by them. It felt great to pick up a big win like this.”
Brown’s freshman goaltender, Yann Danis, picked up the first victory of his young career with 26 saves. His performance was highlighted by an 11-save first period, where Danis held the Tigers scoreless.
Brown’s senior forward Doug Janjevich added an empty-netter with 1:10 remaining. A shot from across the red line deflected off two sticks before finding the vacated net.
“When you’re in this kind of slide, nothing seems to go right,” Princeton head coach Len Quesnelle. “We weren’t burying the goals early. It seemed like they were sprinting and we were skating at times tonight.”
Brown got on the board a little past the midway point of the first. Up a man, the Brown power play moved the puck very well until senior forward Matt Kohansky found defenseman Josh Barker cutter through the slot. Barker controlled the pass, and showed great patience before finally beating Princeton netminder Dave Stathos under his pads.
The Brown power play was much improved over last night at Yale. Tonight the Bears went two for four on the powerplay.
“Coach mixed it up a lot for us tonight,” Kohansky said. “We had three defensemen out there. We also did a much better job of getting shots from the point through and putting pressure on their cage.”
Princeton was unable to beat Danis until halfway through the second. Junior defenseman David Schneider walked the puck past several defending Bears and beat Danis upstairs to even in up for the Tigers.
Three minutes later Brown jumped back on top 2-1. This time it was J-F Labarre, also on the first goal of his career, who scored for the Bears.
“We got a great contribution out of some guys who hadn’t done a huge amount for us,” Brown head coach Roger Grillo said. “The line of Labarre, Shane Mudryk, and Brent Robinson was probably our steadiest line all night.”
Early in the third the Bears jumped out to a two-goal lead on the powerplay. This time sophomore defenseman Paul Esdale made a great pass from the center point position to Kohansky, who quickly redirected the feed for the 3-1 lead.
Just minutes later, the Tigers responded with two goals to knot the game up and stun the cruising visitors. The Princeton crowd erupted and it seemed the Tigers could be on their way to a much-needed win, or at least a tie.
First on the powerplay, Chris Corrinet found a loose puck in front all alone and beat Danis to cut the lead to one. After a shooting gallery left the penalty-killing Bears out of position, Corrinet found the puck and buried it in the open net.
Two minutes later, Princeton evened it for the second time at 3-3. After keeping the puck in the Brown zone and putting a great deal of pressure on Danis, senior forward Shane Campbell beat Danis from the left side past his blocker.
And just as the game appeared it would go to overtime, Korbl got the game winner for the Bears in dramatic fashion. A Princeton team that had battled back against a stingy goaltender was left stunned.
Korbl got a mini-breakaway on Stathos and deeked out the over aggressive goaltender. The Bears could then go to a defensive mode and perserve the huge road win.
“We worked hard all night,” Grillo said. “My hope for the future is we can start putting together efforts like this every night. It’ll take a lot more consitency to improve our results.”
“We need a ‘W’ in the biggest way,” Quensnelle said. “We have three weeks off for exams now. It’ll be a good time to get things together and get back on the right track.”
