Sproat, Tigers look to snap losing streak
By: Justin Feil
There will be a ring of familiarity when Dustin Sproat and the Princeton University men’s ice hockey team plays at Massachusetts 7 p.m. Wednesday.
On the Massachusetts bench will be Len Quesnelle, the former Tigers coach who was let go after a 5-24-2 season last season. Quesnelle, now as an assistant to another former Tigers head coach, Don Cahoon, had Sproat for all 31 games last year. Sproat, who was Princeton’s second-leading goal scorer last season, and the Tigers will be trying to top the last two Princeton coaches.
"It’ll be nice," said Sproat, a junior forward. "We’ve all been sort of looking towards it."
Sort of. Actually, the Tigers have been mostly worried about just winning more games this season. They’re off to a promising start at 4-9-1, but have lost their last five games including being swept by Merrimack on Dec. 10 and 11. Massachusetts also returns from a long layoff, but enters the game with an 8-10-1 record with Quesnelle as an assistant.
"He’s kind of coaching on a better team," Sproat said. "They play in a better division, so we have something we want to set out to prove."
Last year, Massachusetts won in overtime. Both teams are improved this season, Sproat said, but the difference is the Tigers are hard to recognize from last year’s team with new PU coach Guy Gadowsky’s changes.
"It’s weird how different it can be with the same players," Sproat said. "We have the same lineup. We play a lot more different style. We’re out to score goals. It’s run and gun. It’s a lot more exciting to watch. We tend to let in a few more goals. With Coach Quesnelle, we tried to limit the opposition’s chances. Here, we want to create our own chances.
"As an offensive player, it’s kind of rejuvenating where you get the chance to create some offense instead of trapping teams into making mistakes. We’re playing a lot of good teams. They don’t make mistakes a lot."
Last season, Princeton allowed 3.9 goals per game while scoring 2.0 goals per contest. This year, the Tigers are allowing 4.1 goals per game, but have increased their own scoring to 3.2 goals per game.
"I think we’ve made steps every weekend," said Sproat, who is tied for the team lead in scoring with a team-high 10 goals to go with 10 assists. "Our record doesn’t show it, but we’ve put ourselves in a good position going into January and February."
Princeton will play every game in January at the friendly confines of Baker Rink. The game at Massachusetts will be their 10th on the road this season, but despite the odds, Sproat likes the progress from the Tigers.
"Our transition play has gotten better," he said. "Defense to offense, the passes to get to offense, that’s something we’ve worked on since we’ve started. And also our backchecking to create turnovers. Except for last weekend, we’ve played a little (more solid) game. Other than last weekend, we’re building."
The Tigers seemed to be a team building even in the past couple of seasons under Quesnelle. Sproat and his class as well as the seniors were part of a pair of years in which the Tigers used plenty of underclassmen, including a number of freshmen.
"We have been building the last couple years," Sproat said. "Guys that have been playing for a couple years have been getting older. That’s contributing to some of our success."
The style change is also helping. Offensive players like Sproat are thrilled that there is increased chance of scoring, and the defense can’t feel as much pressure with a more potent offense.
"We’re all excited for it after a couple losing seasons," Sproat said, adding, "It’s a different feeling now if we get down a couple goals, we don’t feel we can’t come back. We can score two goals in a period, no problem. That feeling got lost. We sank a bit (last year) once we got scored on. If we got down, 3-1, we weren’t feeling like we could come back. That’s different now."
Gadowsky has stressed several of the same points over and over to the Tigers team that is adjusting to the new style.
"We don’t focus on other teams’ games," Sproat said. "We focus on the things we set out as points of emphasis in the beginning of season. One is outworking the other team. Another is backchecking. That’s part of creating more shots than the other team. We want to work on being more disciplined so we have more power plays than penalty kills."
The Tigers hope to continue to shore up their defense while becoming more dangerous on offense. The hope is that when they return to Eastern College Athletic Conference play Jan. 7 against Clarkson, they’ll do so as a team that is confident in being a playoff contender. Princeton is 4-6 in the ECAC.
"The league is a lot stronger," Sproat said. "We’ve gotten a couple of bad road trips out of the way. Now we get to face them at home.
"It’s not hard to get home ice advantage. The way it works, four teams get byes. That’s one of our goals to get home-ice advantage."
Wednesday won’t be a conference game, but it’s the first step in starting to regain the early season momentum the Tigers had.
"It’s big for us, we’ve lost five in a row," Sproat said. "We need to start to put some wins up to boost our own confidence. It’s not a division game, but they’re a good team. They’re definitely a team we can beat."
With a familiar coach standing in the way of helping the Tigers gather the much needed momentum to return to league play on a high note.

