Hockey secures playoff berth, but in tough eighth seed

Coming off a 4-3 win over Hamilton, Tufts played Bowdoin to a 4-4 tie on Friday and fell 4-1 to Colby during Senior Night on Saturday. The Jumbos, 9-9-6 overall and 5-8-5 in conference play, failed to secure a win over the weekend, but guaranteed their NESCAC playoff berth with the tie against the Bowdoin Polar Bears (9-5-4). The loss to Colby flipped the teams' seeding and Tufts now enters the playoffs as the eighth seed with Colby being the seventh.

Now seeded in eighth, the Jumbos are set to take on the No. 1-seeded Williams Ephs this Saturday in the opening round of the NESCAC playoffs.

The Polar Bears entered the contest against the Jumbos on an eight-game winning streak and looked ready to continue their streak when senior captain Matt Rubinoff broke away and shot past Jumbo junior goaltender Mason Pulde's left shoulder at 3:41 in the first period. However, Tufts struck back halfway through the period. Bowdoin's sophomore goalie Peter Cronin deflected junior Matt Pugh's shot, but first-year Nick Abbene collected the rebound and tied the score. Junior Joseph Lace put the Polar Bears ahead 2-1 with 48 seconds remaining in the first period and Pulde made an excellent one-on-one save with just seconds left in the period to prevent the Jumbos from going down 3-1.

Sophomore Brian Brown, who leads the Jumbos in assists with 12 on the season, notched his sixth goal of the season 4:33 into the second period to tie the game at two apiece. First-year Clay Berger and junior Sean Kavanagh assisted on the play. Neither team could break the tie in the second period, but not for lack of trying. The Polar Bears managed 23 shots on goal in the period to the Jumbos' nine.

The Polar Bears jumped out to their third lead of the game early in the third when sophomore Spencer Antunez's shot ricocheted off the goal-post and past Pulde. Junior Mitch Barrington assisted.

Their lead was short-lived, however, as Tufts' sophomore Dan Kelly went up high to beat Cronin on an assist from sophomore Nick Flanagan just 46 seconds later. Junior Conal Lynch earned the Jumbos their first lead at the six-minute mark off an assist from co-captain Brian Ouellette. The Jumbos couldn't maintain their hold on the game in the final minutes, however, as Rubinoff found sophomore Matthew Melanson in front of the net and forced overtime with a late game-tying goal.

Neither team was able to score in overtime, although Tufts managed seven shots to Bowdoin's three. There were remarkably few penalties throughout the contest and Bowdoin failed to score on any of its three power plays, while Tufts couldn't capitalize on either of its power plays.

"While we made a couple of errors and got behind the eight ball, I thought we really battled back for the game and really competed hard," Coach Pat Norton said. "It was a very well-played, very high-paced game between us and Bowdoin. For us I think it demonstrated what we are capable of."

Naturally the Jumbos were upset with their performance against the lower-ranked Colby Mules. Berger was called for elbowing at the 4:44 mark and then tossed for game misconduct. Despite being short-handed, Ouellette scored on sophomore goalie Emerson Verrier from the mid-slot area just eight seconds later. Flanagan assisted on the play for his ninth of the season.

"Now at this point we always think we are going to score [on penalty kill]," Brown said. "We even scored a penalty kill goal five seconds into our penalty kill against Colby the other night. It was our only goal. I would say that [penalty kill] doesn’t scare us at this point, but that obviously it’s a lot easier to play five on five."

Sophomore goalie Nik Nugnes protected the net well through two periods, stopping 24 shots on goal. The second period turned out to be uneventful, with much back and forth but no scoring.

Just under four minutes into the third period, senior co-captain Stewart Bell was called for interference. The Mules' first-year Nicholas O'Connor tied the game by hitting the far side post against Nugnes a minute and a half into the power play. Juniors Jack Burton and Colin Reilly assisted.

Another ill-timed penalty, this time against junior Patrick Lackey, cost the Jumbos five minutes in the box for cross-checking. Burton hit what would be the game-winner just six seconds later and Tufts found itself down one in the third period while serving the remaining 4:54 of a major penalty. The Jumbos were able to kill the penalty, but two more minors with around five minutes remaining severely crippled the offense. Norton elected to pull Nugnes twice but each time the Mules made the Jumbos pay with a goal. The first went to sophomore Michael Rudolf on Verrier's only assist of the season. Senior Alex Walsh was accredited with the game's final score at 19:22.

"I don’t know if it was because guys were a little bit fatigued from Friday’s game," Norton said. "I didn’t think guys had great jump in our legs all game and I thought that kind of hampered us a little bit. We reverted back in the third period to some poor penalties and those penalties came back to haunt us on the scoreboard. The most disappointing part was the penalties. I felt like we had addressed those situations and had made some strides in terms of trying to improve that and for whatever reason we got ourselves into that situation again."

Although the final score of 4-1 belies how close the game truly was, the Jumbos' collapse in the third period of their final regular season game hardly bodes well for the playoffs. The Jumbos are 4-5-3 against NESCAC opponents since the December break, a slight step up from their pre-break record of 1-3-2. This past weekend's tie and loss marred that record as the team gave up eight scores this weekend—the most of any other set of games this season—though that statistic is somewhat misleading because two of the goals were empty-netters.

"The guys understand that the Colby game was not our best outing, not just because of the penalties," Norton said. "We just didn’t have great jump in our legs and we’ve usually had outstanding jump, especially for our second games. Some of that may be the fact that we were emotionally wound up. It was Senior Night and guys get very excited and amped up. I don’t expect there to be any carry over from Colby to Williams."

"I think as a team we might be sour about that Colby game, but I said something to the guys after the game and I think coach has reiterated the message as well but the way we have to look at it is from here on out, everyone is zero and zero," Brown said. "It’s playoff time. It’s a new season. To quote one of the guys on the team, ‘all you need is a ticket to the dance.’"

Tufts' loss to Colby shined a light on some of the skeletons in the team's closet. Having struggled with playing a full 60 minutes with intensity in every game throughout the season, Tufts gave up four third period goals in a game with real seeding ramifications. Rather than a rematch with No. 2 seed Trinity, who Tufts upset last season in the first round of the NESCAC tournament, Tufts is now matched up against Williams, whom they failed to score against in two meetings this season. The first was a home game on Dec. 4 in which Williams won 2-0. More recently the Ephs hosted the Jumbos on Jan. 29 and defeated the visitors 4-0.

Staying competitive for 60 minutes is paramount to the Jumbos' post-season hopes, but so is staying out of the penalty box. Tufts leads the league in penalty infraction minutes (PIM) at 274 over 18 games. That is 87 minutes more than the second worst offender Trinity and well over league best Williams with 118 PIM. Berger and fellow first-year Jefferson Martin lead the team with 14 penalties each.

"What they’ve done in the past and what we’ve done in the past is irrelevant," Norton said. "The penalties that we’ve taken and the things that we’ve done to try and resolve those issues, we have another opportunity to try and demonstrate that we are taking strides in that direction."

Despite their weaknesses, the Jumbos are as dangerous a team as any in the playoffs. Most of the Jumbos' scoring comes from its younger players. First-year Berger and sophomores Brown and Flanagan combine for 30 of Tufts' 93 assists, and first-year David Lackner leads the team with eight goals. If the first-year and sophomore classes are able to get going against Williams then Tufts' offense should be able to keep up. Williams slightly edged Tufts in season scoring 49 to 43. On defense, Williams reigns supreme, having allowed a NESCAC-best 27 goals to league opponents. Tufts is tied with Bowdoin for sixth place at 42 goals allowed.

Traditionally Tufts' greatest advantage is its goaltending. Pulde's save percentage in the NESCAC is 0.946 and Nugnes' is 0.943, good for second and third best in the conference respectively. All but nullifying that advantage, however, is Williams' senior goalie Noah Klag, whose 0.961 save percentage is the best in the NESCAC.

"The key to beating [Williams] is sticking to our system, not taking any dumb penalties because if you take a penalty they have a pretty good power play, and we need to find a way to score," Brown said. "Basically stay out of the box and find some offense against them."

Tufts' eight seniors, who were honored before the team's final regular season home game against Colby on Saturday, are also expected to contribute their strong leadership capability.

"The one thing I can say about this senior class is, I feel like the leadership from Brian [Ouellette] and [Bell] has been outstanding," Norton said. "They’ve done a great job of trying to help to maneuver the program forward. They’ve been a great help to me in terms of trying to develop the team, and I think guys that maybe haven’t seen as much ice time as they would have liked to see have shown up every day at practice and really battled and showed up and given their best every day. Overall our team is better than we were when we started the season and I believe a lot of that is due to the play of upperclassmen, whether it is in games or practice."

Although Tufts is the dark-horse team, they were in a similar situation last year and knocked off Trinity, the No. 1 ranked team at the time and eventual national champion, in the opening round. The NESCAC quarterfinals game will be played at Williams on Saturday at 4:30 p.m.