{"id":171835796,"date":"2018-03-17T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2018-03-17T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.uscho.com\/recaps\/2018\/03\/17\/princeton-vs-clarkson-20180317\/"},"modified":"2018-03-17T23:32:31","modified_gmt":"2018-03-18T04:32:31","slug":"princeton-vs-clarkson-20180317","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/2018\/03\/17\/princeton-vs-clarkson-20180317\/","title":{"rendered":"Princeton overcomes late Clarkson equalizer, wins ECAC Hockey title on Becker overtime goal"},"content":{"rendered":"

LAKE PLACID, N.Y.<\/strong> — Just when it seemed Princeton\u2019s incredible postseason run couldn\u2019t get any better, it did.<\/span><\/p>\n

Senior Max Becker scored 2:37 into overtime to give the Tigers a 2-1 win over Clarkson in the ECAC Hockey Championship game before a raucous crowd of 5,950 at the Herb Brooks Arena. <\/span><\/p>\n

It was the first time that Princeton had won the Whitelaw Cup since 2008. Becker\u2019s winner came after the Golden Knights\u2019 Nico Sturm tied the game with 6.4 seconds left in regulation. <\/span><\/p>\n

Both Clarkson and Princeton will learn their NCAA opponent and destination Sunday at noon. Regular season champion Cornell will also earn an at-large bid to the national tournament. Had Clarkson won, it would have been the first time since 2012 that ECAC Hockey had less than three teams make the NCAA tournament, as Princeton wouldn\u2019t have qualified for an at-large bid. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThis one is tough. It\u2019s tough for the seniors, because they don\u2019t get another crack at it,\u201d Golden Knights coach Casey Jones said of Clarkson coming up short in winning its first conference championship since 2007. \u201cBut we\u2019re in a really good place because of that group of guys that collectively set a phenomenal culture.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Seventh-seeded Princeton (19-12-4) enters the NCAA tournament on a seven-game winning streak. The Tigers senior class won four games during their entire freshman season, which was coach Ron Fogarty\u2019s first year at Princeton.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a testament of all the classes that have come to Princeton,\u201d Becker said. \u201cIt\u2019s a pretty surreal moment to have gotten here in the first place and now to have gotten a championship. We\u2019ve definitely come a long way in the last four years.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s been a slow progress since Fogarty\u2019s first season, as the Tigers have seen incremental improvements each of the last three years. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe knew that just keep working on the systems and structure that wanted to see would pay off in the end,\u201d Fogarty said. \u201cWe knew it would take some time. We knew we were playing the right way our second year, we lost a lot of one-goal games, but they were tighter. Last year to get around .500 was pretty critical for our program.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

Princeton goalie Ryan Ferland was named the tournament\u2019s most outstanding player. The freshman made 31 saves Saturday, including several big stops during a Clarkson power play in the closing minutes as the Golden Knights pulled goalie Jake KIelly (21 saves) for an extra attacker. But the Golden Knights found the equalizer right before time expired. <\/span><\/p>\n

Sturm, who leads the country in faceoff winning percentage, won a draw in the Princeton zone and then went to the net, where he redirected a shot past Ferland to tie the game at 19:53. That set the stage for Becker, who beat Kielly from the top of the crease. The play was set up by Jeremy Germain, who skated behind the net before throwing the puck out front to a waiting Becker. <\/span><\/p>\n

The Tigers\u2019 first goal came at 16:43 in the first, when defenseman Josh Teves took a pass from Ryan Kuffner on the rush and fired a shot between Kielly\u2019s legs and into the net. Max Veronneau picked up the secondary assist on the play, setting a new school record with his 55<\/span>th<\/span> point of the year. It was also the junior\u2019s 38<\/span>th<\/span> assist, which tied a school single-season record. <\/span><\/p>\n

Princeton beat the conference\u2019s three top teams en route to winning the Whitelaw Cup. The Tigers swept No. 2 Union in the quarterfinals, and then beat top-seeded Cornell Friday before defeating No. 3 Clarkson on Saturday. That run has been sparked by a vastly improved defense. Princeton is 12-2-2 since Jan. 13, and have allowed three goals or less in all but three of those games. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOur defensive game is something that we worked a lot on,\u201d Teves said. \u201cIt hasn\u2019t always been there but we take a lot of pride in it.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

Fogarty said the Tigers\u2019 improved defensive play started with playing smarter and improved their play in the neutral zone.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe neutral zone is so key in college hockey and we started to prevent a lot of clean skates in [it],\u201d Fogarty said. \u201cWe were turning over a lot of pucks at the blueline midway through the season and we started to take care of the puck and do those [other things] and we\u2019re ECAC champions because of it.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

But before the on-ice adjustments, the Tigers\u2019 had to be confident in the direction they were heading, even if the on-ice results weren\u2019t there. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve just had a belief it\u2019s come from Ron all the through our entire program, that we\u2019re going to get here and we\u2019re going to win the championship,\u201d Teves said. \u201cFrom Day 1, obviously some of the tough times we had into tonight, I think that belief has never wavered.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

NOTES: <\/b>The only other seventh-seeded team to win the conference tournament was the Tigers in 1998, when they beat Clarkson in overtime… Princeton has won three league championships in program history \u2013 1998, 2008, and 2018. Becker, who wears No. 8 and is a native of Orange, California, said his parents were in the crowd\u2026 Becker, Teves, Eric Robinson and Clarkson\u2019s Rempal and Kelly Summers were named to the all-tournament team. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

LAKE PLACID, N.Y. — Just when it seemed Princeton\u2019s incredible postseason run couldn\u2019t get any better, it did. Senior Max Becker scored 2:37 into overtime to give the Tigers a 2-1 win over Clarkson in the ECAC Hockey Championship game before a raucous crowd of 5,950 at the Herb Brooks Arena. It was the first […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":22374,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[803,807,870],"coauthors":[836],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171835796"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=171835796"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171835796\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":171835830,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171835796\/revisions\/171835830"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=171835796"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=171835796"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=171835796"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=171835796"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}