Nov. 23, 2004

Six different players scored goals and Eric Leroux made 25 saves as the Princeton men's hockey team skated past Yale 6-3 before 1,751 at Baker Rink.

The power-play units were busy in this nine-goal game. Princeton connected on three of six chances while the Elis were two-for-eight.

The Tigers (4-4-1, 4-3 ECACHL) lit the lamp first when sophomore Grant Geoeckner-Zoeller took advantage of a blueline mixup and came in all alone on Peter Cohen (17 saves). The Princeton winger deked left and then tucked the puck on his backhand past Cohen's glove at 9:14.

The Bulldogs (0-9, 0-7), looking for their first victory, dominated play over the last half of the opening frame and peppered the Princeton net. Leroux came up with save after save and then his teammates finally helped him out of the jam by making it 2-0.

Luc Paquin, a Princeton defenseman who had four assists, fired a long shot from the left side that was stopped by the Yale goalie. However, Cohen did not control the rebound off his pads and the puck dangled behind him in the crease. Dustin Sproat was all too happy to find the puck and tap it home at 17:42.

Yale, which outshot the Tigers 28-23, finally was rewarded for its efforts in the offensive end. On the powerplay, defenseman Bill LeClerc took a crossing pass from Brad Mills and fired a high shot from the right circle that zipped past Leroux with a minute left in the first period. It was the first career goal for the Bulldog sophomore. Shawn Mole picked up his third assist of the year on that score.

There were plenty of great chances for both sides in a penalty-filled second period, but the home team cashed in first on one of its opportunities with three minutes left. Paquin's shot from the blueline was blocked by the Yale defense but the puck stayed in range of junior Tiger forward Sebastian Borza, who flipped it low past Cohen's glove to make it 3-1.

Princeton really sucked the momentum in its direction with a late second-period goal to increase the margin to three. Freshman forward Keith Shattenkirk banged in a rebound from 10 feet out for his first career goal with 15 seconds left.

Both second-period goals were the results of well-placed shots that Cohen had little change of stopping.

The Tigers made it 5-1 with another man-advantage goal early in the final period. Mike Moore, a freshman, tallied his first career goal by tossing in a bouncing shot from the blueline that found its way through traffic at 3:48.

Yale rookie blueliner Robert Page added to the first-timer list when his wrist shot at 10:40 found the back of the net to make it 5-2. Joe Zappala fed the puck from the corner and Page got off a low shot that caught Leroux off guard.

Christian Jensen's team-best fourth goal of the year came too late for the visitors, cutting the margin to 6-3. It was the second straight game he hit the net.

Scoring 1st Period P 1-0 Goeckner-Zoeller (Paquin) 9:14 P 2-0 Sproat (Paquin) 17:42 Y 2-1 LeClerc (Mole) 19:00 PP

2nd Period P 3-1 Borza (Paquin, Goeckner-Zoeller) 17:00 PP P 4-1 Shattenkirk (Paquin) 19:45

3rd Period P 5-1 Moore (Stevenson-Moore) 3:48 PP Y 5-2 Page (Zappala, Hristovski) 10:40 PP P 6-2 Stevenson-Moore (Westgarth, Moore) 14:56 PP Y 6-3 Jensen (Jackson) 18:29

report filed by Steve Conn, Yale Sports Publicity Director