On Friday night, the men’s ice hockey team (14-13-3, 9-11-2 ECAC) defeated Princeton (12-15-3, 7-12-3) 3-2 in the first round of the ECAC playoffs. The win marks the first time since 2019 that the Bears have qualified for the ECAC Quarterfinals.
From the opening puck drop, it was a physical game. A sign of the intensity to come, the Bears and Tigers got into a shoving match in front of the Brown net not even three minutes into the game.
Nine minutes into the game, Princeton struck first. The Tigers caught Brown off guard after quickly playing the puck across the ice from their own defensive zone. Princeton’s Jayden Sisan crept into Brown’s defensive zone and fired a shot past screened Brown goalie Lawton Zacher ’27 to claim the 1-0 lead.
Not even four minutes later, the Bears came back swinging. Exploiting a Tiger penalty, the Bears levied four shots on goal within two minutes. But in the end, the team could not convert and the teams entered the second period at 1-0.
Just 41 seconds into the second period, Ryan St. Louis ’26 heroically intercepted a pass at the top of Brown’s defensive end. He raced to the other end of the ice and smoothly slotted the puck past the Princeton goalie. This marked St. Louis’s 10th goal of the season.
“It’s a resilient group; we’ve seen it all year,” Head Coach Brendan Whittet ’94 noted. “We didn’t get rattled down 1-0, and I thought we got progressively better as the game went on.”
Marked physicality continued to play a prominent role in the game as both sides laid their bodies on the line for a shot at the quarterfinals. The rough playstyle was on full display when Brendan Clark ’25 laid a tough hit on a Tiger, prompting the referees to threaten a five-minute major penalty. It ultimately resulted in a two-minute boarding penalty after review.
The boarding call on Clark summed up a second period that was headlined by penalties. In one period, at least one team had a man-up advantage for 10 minutes.
Princeton had two more power plays in a row after Clark’s boarding call, but Brown’s defense held strong. Bruno put everything on the line to prevent Princeton from scoring and Zacher made five clutch saves throughout their man-down play to keep the score at 1-1. The game remained tied for the rest of the second period.
“I’m proud of the guys for the way they responded,” Whittet commented about the team’s early game struggles. “Our goal is to win the ECAC Championship; that was the first step.”
In the final period, the Bears put their desire to make the quarterfinals on full display. They competed with the same physicality of the second, but without the penalties.
With under 14 minutes left to play, the lefty Tyler Kopff ’27 finally broke the tie. Speeding past a defender on the right alley and cutting back across the face of the net, Kopff scored to put the Bears up 2-1.
Playing from behind, Princeton fought to get back into the game. But Brown’s defense held strong, led by Zacher’s incredible 20 saves.
With under two minutes left, Princeton pulled their goalie in a last-ditch effort to even the score. St. Louis made the Tigers pay when he stole the puck and skated it into the empty Tigers’ net in the final minute of the game to make the score 3-1.
Max Scott ’27 “makes hockey a lot easier and Brendan Clark creates room for everyone else on the ice,” St. Louis said when asked about what allowed him to be so effective on Friday night. “I really like the way our line and team have been playing as of late, and we just need to carry that into next weekend.”
Princeton netted one last goal with three seconds left, but it was too late and the buzzer sounded with a score of 3-2, clinching the victory for Bruno.
“It was a great game and a great atmosphere,” Whittet said in a message to Brown Athletics. “That’s why you want to play at home in the playoffs. It gives you a little bit of an edge.”
Brown hopes to carry this momentum into the ECAC Quarterfinals against No. 1 Quinnipiac (22-10-2, 16-5-1) this Friday. They will face the Bobcats in a best-of-three series.
“I don’t care who we play. We’re going to win,” Whittet said. “It’s been an incredible team to be a part of and to coach. They’re good guys and good players who play the game the right way.”
