The Yale Bulldogs scored three goals in a 44-second span of the third period to seal their 6-1 victory over the Princeton Tigers before a sold-out Ingalls Rink crowd of 3,486.
“We just came apart at the seams in the early part of the third period,” Tiger head coach Len Quesnelle said.
The Bulldogs’ third-period blitzkrieg began when Denis Nam notched his second goal of the night, firing a backhander from between the circles past Princeton netminder Dave Stathos at the 4:43 mark. Twenty-four seconds later, Mike Klema recorded his first career goal. It was only another twenty ticks of the clock before Chris Higgins backhanded one past Stathos, leading Princeton (2-6-0) to call a time-out and replace Stathos with Nate Nomeland.
But Yale’s domination was not limited to those 44 seconds — the entire night belonged to the Elis.
“We knew we could out-skate them,” Yale head coach Tim Taylor said. “The challenge for us is to create space for our skaters, and we focused on that during practice this week. We wanted to be able to find room to get open, and I was very pleased with our effort in doing that tonight.”
Taylor’s squad opened the scoring at 9:06 in the first period, converting on their second power-play opportunity of the evening. Spencer Rodgers got his first goal of the season, netting a rebound from eight feet out.
Yale (2-4-1) carried the one-goal advantage into the first intermission, and 6:36 into the second, Jason Noe gave the home team a 2-0 lead. Noe took a Nam feed and fired a hard wrister past Stathos for his first goal of the year. Yale extended its lead to 3-0 when Nam found the net for the first time this season at 17:45 in the second, backhanding a shot past the Tiger netminder, who was unable to make a stick save.
Following Yale’s three-goal barrage in the early part of the third, Princeton finally got on the scoreboard when George Parros lodged a shot from just outside the crease past Dan Lombard at 9:51.
Lombard — who tallied 26 saves in the contest — brought the crowd to its feet on several occasions with spectacular glovework.
“Lombard had a great game,” Taylor said. “Its too bad we couldn’t get the shutout for him. I know this game meant a lot to him. He was disappointed after Tuesday night [when Yale fell to Princeton 2-1 in overtime].”
