March 19, 2009 — There are a lot of ways that people analyze the playoffs. Who’s played the best this year. Who’s played best lately. Who beat whom, how often, and how convincingly in the regular season, or who has the greatest incentive. For that matter, which is a greater incentive … playing for a title, or playing for your lives?
But count on St. Lawrence’s veteran head coach Joe Marsh to make one thing clear: these games no longer ride on talent, work ethic or momentum. They are powered by heart.
“In the playoffs there’s almost the mentality that you have to go twice as hard to go half as far,” he said. “I told the guys the other night how hard it is to end a team’s season, and don’t be surprised by how hard it is. It’s supposed to be hard this time of year.”
Gotta hand it to Joe; he knows how to make a complex subject accessible.
And now without further ado, the rundown of our remaining contenders.
Tigers summed: Princeton is a very aggressive, tenacious, high-intensity team that still maintains a firm sense of discipline and defensive responsibility. They won’t try to confuse you with pretty plays too often … they prefer to gain the zone, shoot, and beat you to every rebound. Be prepared to score some ugly goals if you hope to top the Tigers.
Concerns: What does every coach harp on in crunch time? The importance of good goaltending, special teams, and defense. The Tigers have the former, latter, and half of the middle, but the power play has been really struggling of late, going 0-16 against Union last weekend and scoring only four times in the Tigers’ last 53 man-ups.
The Tigers and Big Red have seen each other twice this season, and the results don’t get much closer than the 1-0, 2-1 scores would indicate. But as far as coach Guy Gadowsky is concerned, Friday’s final could end up 25-14 for all he knows.
Princeton’s last game against Cornell “seems like a year ago now, and when you get to Albany, it’s a whole new animal,” he said. “So I’m not sure that anything that has been done in the regular season matters.”
One difference for the Nassau Stripes will be the return of talented striker Cam MacIntyre, who missed the first two-thirds of the season.
“Yeah, I think he is (back to full strength). We sort of wanted to rest him as much as possible, so he is 100 percent healthy and just having him in the lineup obviously is huge. He’s an incredibly strong, big horse who can score, make plays, and having him in the lineup, I think, is a big confidence boost for our team,” Gadowsky stated.
Mac’s return should give an already powerful attack an additional boost, and there is no letting up against Princeton’s 12-deep death trap.
“We feel pretty comfortable that we have balanced scoring on all four lines,” said Gadowsky. “Everybody knows Brett Wilson and Lee Jubinville and Cam MacIntyre, but now when you have the emergence of guys like Dan Bartlett, Mark Magnowski, and (Kevin) Lohry and Kush (Brandan Kushniruk), now that we’re balanced it makes it a little easier for everyone.”
Bartlett, in particular, has been a revelation for the Orange & Black. The junior forward that scored only 22 points in his first two seasons has glowed in ’08-09, notching 13 goals and 10 helpers in a full 32-game complement.
“If you look at the scoresheet and see those four goals (that he scored against Union last weekend), that’s probably the least impressive part of it. If you saw the goals, I think three of them were highlight-reel goals,” sang his coach. “He’s a very competitive kid with sweet, sweet hands. When you watch him start going, you think he’s just a mild-mannered, skilled guy, but he’s really a tough tough competitor with sweet hands.
“He’s just been playing great; he’s really taken off in his overall game. No matter what team he plays for or what league, he’s going to have the goal of the year. He’s done that every year he’s been here, but he’s really played a great all-around game, and that certainly has been reflected in leading the team in plus-minus (with a +16).”
Last year’s Player of the Year led the league in scoring, but finds himself only third on his own squad this time around. Yet Lee Jubinville is having as good a season as any he’s ever had, according to his coach.
“Lee Jubinville, in my mind, he’s been the (league’s) best two-way player not only this year, but probably for the last three years. He absolutely does so much to help the team win that it’s funny: I think that him winning the league scoring title was almost a curse, because I think people look at him now as an offensive guy. He has great offensive talent, believe me, but he is a great defensive player and he has always taken pride more in his own end than he has offensively.
“To me he’s had a great great year, because of everything he does to make the team win, and so many things that don’t show up on the scoresheet. He’s got great offensive value and he certainly gets his big goals and his big offensive plays, but his value to the overall team is way more than you’ll see on a scoresheet.”
And last but not least, some attention for this year’s ECAC Hockey Player of the Year, junior goaltender Zane Kalemba.
“It’s funny to have what we feel is the top goalie in the nation, yet you have other goalies in your same league that are probably feeling the same way,” Gadowsky began. “What he’s been to us, I guess I can’t overstate it enough: he’s had a tremendous year not only in the numbers he’s put up, but in the way he does it. He’s the calmest guy under pressure that I know, he’s an incredibly intelligent man, he’s a great person, and I don’t know if anybody that was at Albany last year is surprised at the numbers he’s putting up and the season he’s having, because the playoffs that he had last year were tremendous.
“We went to Albany and I think we played maybe one of our poorest games of the year Friday (against Colgate), and he was just unbelievable getting the (27-save) shutout. I don’t think anybody that saw that tournament is surprised at what he’s doing now.”
Final thoughts on the weekend included an awed perspective on the competition that remains.
“The top four teams (as they) finished the regular season are going to Albany. It’s something that, you know, it’s going to be really high-quality hockey,” mused Gadowsky. “These aren’t just the top four teams in your league; these are four of the top 15 teams in the nation right now.
“Other than that, we’re not thinking of wins and losses and what it does to our national fixture. We certainly know where the four teams in Albany fit nationally, and I think it’s a great thing for our league.”
Big Red summed: Cornell is back to playing classic Cornell hockey: airtight defense, a national-caliber goaltender, and just enough scoring and stamina to grind out deceptively dominant one- and two-goal wins. This defense won’t be out-muscled, so your systems had better be perfect to catch Scrivens and the D a little bit out of position. Want to beat the Red? Figure out the best way to out-Cornell Cornell.
Concerns: Blake Gallagher is questionable for the weekend, weakening a humming CU power play. Joe Devin hasn’t played since the regular season, costing the Red some scoring depth, and superstar Ben Scrivens - who only allowed more than two goals once in his first 17 games - has done so a half-dozen times over his latest 15 outings.
After facing an elimination game last Saturday against Rensselaer, Cornell has learned its lesson and won’t be taking anything for granted anytime soon, according to head coach Mike Schafer.
“There’s a lot of pressure on our program each year to get to Albany and give ourselves a chance to win a title, and none more so than after losing on Friday night. RPI played a great series, and we had to fight every inch of the way. It shows the balance of our league this year,” he said.
The coach was a bit upset with the officiating on Friday night, and it cost him a spot on the bench for Saturday’s do-or-die. He hopes he never has to miss such a crucial game again … though he can now relate to some of Lynah’s faithful a little bit better.
“With that much on the line - I’ve been out before - but from where I was sitting I couldn’t even see the whole ice surface so it was even worse,” he said. “It was just a great feeling to know that our backs were against the wall, but our assistant coaches and our team did a tremendous job and hopefully that doesn’t happen again for a long time.”
Apart from last weekend’s scare, Schafer also reminds his team not to forget Princeton’s 2-1 victory at Lynah early last month.
“That game probably cost us an opportunity at the league championship. We made some mistakes and they capitalized,” he stated simply.
Schafer also remarked on the high standard of hockey that he expects to see this weekend … or more pointedly, the high standards of goaltending that will be necessary in determining a winner.
“For all teams, the goaltending’s such a critical position at this juncture of the season. For all the goaltenders and for anybody on the four teams, just an average game is not going to get it done. You don’t win championships with average goaltending and all of us are going to need it in order to be successful.”
Like Yale and Princeton, Cornell is in a solid enough position in the PairWise Rankings to believe that it has a good shot of making the NCAA Tournament regardless of what goes down at the Times-Union Center. Of course, none of these coaches would really care to leave such matters up to chance. After all, they were hired to coach winners, not crunch numbers.
“You can’t help but wonder. I know where we are in the PairWise - we’re in the top 10 - but you’d have to be a math genius to do all the configurations. It’s difficult this time of year. If (a team is) 15th or 16th in the PairWise, it’s kind of hard to believe that those teams could move up by not playing this weekend, and we could move down, or Princeton could move down or whatever … by playing, it just doesn’t make any sense. I don’t really look at it a whole lot because it changes so much … no one understands it, I just look at our games and I know that if we win, we can move on,” Schafer declared.
The Big Red haven’t made the NCAAs since the spring of 2006, when the seniors were in their first go-round. Schafer allows that the requirements of such an achievement are always on the team’s collective mind, but that the ECAC title comes first.
“The only time we talked about (the NCAA playoffs) is during the course of the year when we made sure that the upperclassmen talked to our team about how important our (non-conference) games are, like at UMass. We knew that was going to be a critical game, as … winning those games, we’d have a comparison. Especially when you only play one team, like this year we only played one Hockey East team, and that was UMass.
“We knew that we had to win that game in order to get favorable comparisons down the road. When we were at North Dakota, how important getting the split was. St. Cloud was a huge win for us, again, because of the comparison. So it’s more about that. Right now everybody’s just so focused on the ECAC, on our championship,” Schafer assessed.
That said, “I really believe that no matter what happens this weekend we’re in. I’m sure that someone will probably tell me mathematically that’s not the case, but having experience in the NCAAs, (it’s just my feeling),” Schafer added.
One of the Big Red’s under-appreciated scoring threats this year has been junior Colin Greening, with 13 goals and 14 assists in 32 games.
“He’s become more than just a power forward,” analyzed his coach. “I think a lot of times you get that label on you, a power-forward, and (people might) that means that you’ve got no vision, or no touch, and that might’ve been true for Colin as a freshman, but I think he’s really refined his game as far as having more vision and being a guy that can get to the net, but also a guy that can make plays. He’s a smart player.
“For a guy that can deliver so many hits, he’s got a tremendous amount of respect for other players in that he’s the kind of guy that can fly into a corner at a hundred miles an hour and pull up and not drill a guy headfirst into the boards. As a freshman he probably would have, but now as I said he’s just much more of a complete hockey player from our standpoint.
“He’s a complete package for a coach,” praised Schafer, who also noted Greening’s 4.0 GPA.
Saints summed: St. Lawrence is a defense-first kind of team, but not in the same manner as Cornell: the Saints backcheck hard and play responsible our-zone-first hockey, but constantly activate their defensemen in the rush as well. Zach Miskovic led a 35-goal D-corps, and sometimes it’s hard to tell where the defensemen stop and the forwards begin. The defense isn’t as tight as Princeton’s or Cornell’s, perhaps, but it is far more dangerous in transition than the Tigers’, Red’s or Bulldogs’.
Concerns: Talented senior forward Casey Parenteau is likely done with a broken leg, and reliable senior blueliner Matt Generous is still an unknown for this weekend. The potential loss of experienced scoring depth and defensive know-how could prove the difference for this NCAA bubble team.
Joe Marsh is a pretty slick character. He is the kind of coach who would have you believe that his team may have the biggest hearts, but the opponents always have the bigger guns. This week was no different on the horn.
“Yale is a very dangerous team. They’ve got great offensive firepower, and their numbers from both sides - defensively and offensively - are great. They don’t seem to have a lot of weaknesses and are an incredibly well-coached team, I think. They’ve got a couple of the most dynamic players. I mean, (Sean) Backman, (Mark) Arcobello, Broc Little.
“They’ve just got a great team, and a team that’s just been getting better and better as the season wore on. It’s a team that certainly has earned their regular-season championship in every way. I think they’re a disciplined team, it’s a team that’s not going to beat themselves.
They have a good young defense,” he continued. “They’re a strong team, but they also move the puck well offensively. I like to think that we have a little bit of that same component, in that we can play different styles, and I know they can. They’re a team that can adjust pretty well to different styles of play, and that’s one of their strengths.”
As for that component he was talking about, the Saints are a team that is driven by its ambitious defense and responsible forwards.
“We keep telling (the forwards), if our D is (jumping into the play), and especially a guy like Misko who will occasionally jump up into the play, our forwards have really got to make sure they regain defensive posture, they’re quick to get back and backcheck hard through the middle and allow our D some puck-support. A lot of that comes as something that we don’t over-orchestrate at all. A player of Miskovic’s caliber, for instance, and his ability, you’re not going to put constraints on him,” said the coach.
Senior co-captain Shawn Fensel hasn’t put up Miskovic’s eye-popping numbers, but “is no doubt the most underrated player I’ve ever coached in my life,” said Marsh.
“This kid is incredibly sound in his ice management. He’s not real tall, and for whatever reason, he’s just so efficient that he doesn’t get noticed. But he’s a tremendous player and he reads situations well, but he’s not necessarily the guy who’s going to step up and jump into the play like a Miskovic is. We’ve never really held back any of those guys.”
On the whole, Marsh seems to have ingrained in his team an appreciation for the little things, which have certainly added up to bigger feats so far for the Saints.
“I try to convince the guys that sometimes on a real good shift, not a lot happens. You didn’t excite the fans, but you possessed the puck, you got it back down low, you gave the next line coming out a chance to be successful,” he said.
“You didn’t turn it over, and no harm, no foul. Sometimes it’s just understanding that, ya know, that was ok, and maybe we can get something going the next time. We’re better in being patient, in thinking that not everything has to be spectacular on every single shift.
“We jump in there, we play pretty aggressively on the forecheck, and the big thing for us as coaches is ice management, defensive management, posturing, re-establishing defensive positioning … but you can’t teach the things that a Miskovic or a DeVergilio can do. Those are God-given, ya know?”
The accumulation of solid, detail-oriented performances finally paid off for SLU as they launched from an 8-9-1 first-half record to a 13-2-3 second half.
“I would credit that a lot to the senior class, the fact that when we were struggling there a little bit, we had some really good games. We lost 1-0 at Harvard. We lost 1-0 at Cornell, a great hockey game. We lost 2-1 here against Princeton … so while those were disappointing and you’d like to have something to show for your effort, I never felt that we were ever too far out of it. And that’s ok for me to feel that way, but I think the kids felt that way,” Marsh stated.
“So we were never too down, and I think as a result too now that it’s flipped around a little bit, that they remember those times and that you better not get too up and caught up with yourself, either. There’s such a fine line between winning and losing, and I think that our guys have been on that line for so long that they have a pretty good understanding of how they have to approach this mentally.
“I don’t think we’re that much of a different team (from the first 18 games) … obviously if you look at the numbers, you’d probably have to say the biggest reason there in the second half has been that Alex Petizian got hot, and now statistically he’s up there with the best in the league.”
Junior netminder Petizian is 11-1-3 in that second-half surge, allowing 28 goals for a straight 2.00 GAA and a .939 save percentage.
The Saints are on the bubble for the NCAAs, tied for 15th - and out of the picture - as of Thursday night. But like most coaches, Marsh isn’t worried about the numbers and the national picture just yet.
“You don’t worry about the World Series until you can win the pennant,” he said. “By winning six more periods, you take any other numbers right out of it. You’re in a position - and no athlete can ask for more than this - you’re in a position to essentially determine your own fate. That’s where it’s nice to be, it’s nice to not leave it up to other things and other circumstances.
“Let’s face it, playoffs is about desperation. It’s the team that can embrace that and look at it rather than pressure, but opportunity and that’s the way I want our guys to approach it.”
Bulldogs summed: As one observer put it, playing Yale is “60 minutes of hell.” The team is both quick and fast; it’s deep, assertive, and very confident - an adjective usually reserved for coach-speak, but it’s practically tangible in the case of the Elis. The power play is rolling now too, scoring on six of its last 28 opportunities, so staying out of the box is a good idea. Yale feeds off its own energy and forechecks ferociously, so a deliberately retarded pace could even the playing field when squaring off against the Blue & White. This is not a team that you want to engage in a run-and-gun format.
Concerns: Junior rearguard Thomas Dignard, the side’s leading defensive scorer (5-12-17) despite playing only 21 games, is done for the year. The loss severely diminishes Yale’s ability to threaten from the back. Coach Keith Allain has had a few weeks to adjust his personnel to compensate for the Dignard’s absence on the blue line, however, so the defensive structure shouldn’t suffer too much. Senior goaltender Alec Richards is enjoying a superb year statistically, but has been known to struggle with consistency over the course of his career.
Coach Allain doesn’t see any luck or good fortune in his team playing for the title this weekend.
“This has been the goal of our hockey team since March 31, when we started our off-ice training. Our players are being rewarded for their hard work,” he said simply. “For me, the exciting part is that we’ve seen progress within our group throughout our three years, and that’s what you hope for. I’m thrilled for our kids, because they put so much time and effort into this, and this is a huge reward.”
This year has also been rewarding to Richards in particular. The veteran ‘keeper was the team’s starter each of his first two years, but after suffering an injury early last season lost the No. 1 job to challenger Billy Blase. The big (6’4”) goaler came back this year with a new resolve, and wasted little time in reclaiming his original role.
“He was out last year mainly due to injury, and when he was healthy (Blase) was playing well. Alec has really matured in the three years that I’ve been with him. I’ve seen tremendous growth in him, as a person and in his mental toughness, and I think competing for the job earlier this year and then ultimately winning it has been very very valuable to him,” reasoned Allain.
One thing that Yale knows for certain: St. Lawrence is no walkover.
“They’re scary,” Allain declared. “We’ve played ‘em twice this year, and both games have gone into overtime, and we haven’t been able to get a win yet. One of the things that maybe you can try to do against a team that’s got an active defense like that is to get to them early, before they can build up any steam or create any space for themselves. But once they get going, we’re going to have to make sure that our backcheckers are coming back as hard as, you know, they’re skating the puck up the ice.
“We’ve gotta make sure we maintain our structure in the offensive zone, because if we’re careless with the puck down there, it’s going to be a race back into our zone, and they’re pretty fast.”
The asset that the coach finds most valuable and innate to this edition of the Bulldog icers is one that will never show up in any scoresheet, video or chart. Allain believes that the cohesion and camaraderie enjoyed by the Elis is as powerful and significant a force as any Hobey Baker candidate or Dryden Award-winner could ever be.
“If you’re not inside the program, you just don’t see it,” he began. “Our guys are extraordinary in that area. I guess I’d like to try to paint a picture of what our group is like: our guys come to work every day and practice hard and they have fun, and then all we want to do is win a hockey game on Friday night, try to win a hockey game on Saturday night, and I don’t think the importance of the game outside matters.
“We’re just competitive people who want to see how well they can do on that given night. We haven’t beaten St. Lawrence this year, so that’s a challenge for us.”
The energy and good cheer has spread beyond the locker room as well, as the entire New Haven area has become caught up in Yale’s historic run.
“Since about Christmas on, it’s been really really tough to get a ticket. We sold out all of our games, and we’ve actually been turning people away with the fire marshal at the door,” Allain explained.
It’s no surprise why; the Bulldogs put on a heck of a show. This ain’t no 60 minutes of neutral-zone trapping; it’s a full hour of who’s-next hockey.
“The past two years, it’s been the Arcobello-Backman show, and Denny Kearney and Broc Little started to emerge in the latter half of last year,” Allain said of his team’s imposing depth. “To be able to put two offensive lines together that, I don’t know what our No. 1 line is on a given night, which is a great thing. Even a guy like Pat Brosnihan, who centers the fourth line - doesn’t get any power-play time, — he’s scoring timely goals for us. I think having balance offensively is a huge weapon.”
Congratulations and good luck to Hobey Baker Top-10 finalists Zane Kalemba of Princeton and David McIntyre of Colgate.
Kalemba has earned the honor in the wake of teammate Lee Jubinville’s equivalent feat last year. The junior was named league Player of the Year, Goaltender of the Year, and First-Team All-League for leading the ECAC in every major statistical category. He set single-season school records for wins (22), goals-against average (1.69) and save percentage (.936), and the GAA and save rate rank fourth and second in the nation, respectively. Worth as much as his numbers is his charity work with Princeton Youth Hockey and the Princeton Disabilities Awareness organizations.
McIntyre game Kalemba a run for his money in the Player of the Year category, leading a one-man show in Hamilton with 21 goals and 43 points on a struggling Raiders squad. The point total was Colgate’s highest in nine years, and “Mac” earned First-Team All-League honors in recognition of his production. He led the Raiders in goals, assists and points, and was no cherry-picker either, posting a +19 - second-best in the ECAC.
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