SENIOR MOMENT: Princeton University men’s hockey player Noah de la Durantaye celebrates after scoring a goal against Brown last Friday night. Despite senior defenseman and team captain de la Durantaye’s heroics, Princeton fell 3-2 in overtime to the Bears. On Saturday as the program hosted Yale and held its annual Senior Night celebration in its last regular season game at Hobey Baker Rink, de la Durantaye scored on his last shot in the building, converting in a shootout to help the Tigers secure an extra point after tying Yale 2-2 through regulation and overtime. The Tigers, now 10-14-3 overall and 5-12-3 ECAC Hockey, play at St. Lawrence on February 28 and at Clarkson on March 1 to wrap up regular season action. (Photo by Shelley Szwast/Princeton Athletics)

By Bill Alden

While it has been a rocky ride at times for Noah de la Durantaye and his fellow seniors on the Princeton University men’s hockey team, there was a sense of appreciation for the experience as they played in their final games at Hobey Baker Rink last weekend.

“It is emotional for sure, I got a little sentimental thinking about it this week,” said senior defenseman and team captain de la Durantaye whose class brought a 41-69-8 career record into the weekend and endured a head coaching change along the way.

“I think the biggest thing for me is just gratitude for the opportunity and the experience. I am just trying to soak it all in the few last times at Hobey. Not everybody gets a chance to come to Princeton and play hockey. I am super thankful for the people that have helped me get here and given me the opportunity. I just want to go out there and perform and make them proud.”

The team’s senior group, which also includes goalie Ethan Pearson and forwards Alex Konovalov and Jack Cronin in addition to de la Durantaye, have bonded through the ups and downs.

“We are a super close group of guys, as a small class it is kind of hard to not be so tight,” said de la Durantaye. “It has just been fantastic and I want all of us to really enjoy that moment and really soak it in together.”

Being a team captain this winter has been a fantastic opportunity for de la Durantaye.

“It is really an honor and you have to take it as such, it is definitely not a right,” said de la Durantaye, a 6’1, 205-pound native of Montreal, Quebec. “The responsibility is a great thing to have, I love being in the position. I am honored that my teammates chose me to represent the team as one of the captains. The two other guys, Brendan Gorman and David Jacobs, have been unbelievable partners in that. We have all worked really hard together to bond. I couldn’t ask for a better group of guys to lead and to have those two guys lead with me is just phenomenal.”

As Princeton hosted Brown last Friday night to start their final regular season home weekend, de La Durantaye gave the Tigers a 2-1 lead in a power play goal early in the third period.

“Dave [Jacobs] makes a good play, draws a guy down on the wall and I saw an opportunity to get into a shooting lane,” said de la Durantaye. “I noticed that d-man was pushing out on me so I tried to hold it and change the lane, took a shot and it went in. It is definitely something that we work on. I am happy it went in; I have got both my parents and my brother here. It is really fun to have them around and to see that. It was just a great all-around play. I finished it and helped the team.”

Unfortunately Princeton didn’t finish the deal as it fell 3-2 in overtime to the Bears. A day later as the program hosted Yale and held its annual Senior Night celebration in its last regular season game at Hobey Baker Rink, de la Durantaye scored on his last shot in the building, converting in a shootout to help the Tigers secure an extra point after tying Yale 2-2 through regulation and overtime.

While the Tigers didn’t pile up a lot of goals over the weekend, the focus was to keep shooting no matter what.

“It is one of those things where if you keep at it, you are going to get one,” said de la Durantaye, who now has four goals and five assists this season and 53 points in his career on 13 goals and 40 assists. “You might not get all of the bounces but you will probably get some. It is the law of large numbers — you just have to keep putting in on them and go from there.”

Princeton head coach Ben Syer likes the way his senior group has kept at it over their Tiger careers.

“I think they have meant a lot,” said Syer. “Noah being a captain. Pearson has logged a lot of minutes here for us. Kovy had had a real nice year. It is really unfortunate that Cronin hasn’t been able to play. It has been a great group to be able to have.”

In the game against Brown, the Tigers got off to a nice start as they outshot the Bears 8-4 in the first period as the foes skated to a scoreless draw.

“I thought it was a fairly even first period for the most part,” said Syer. “I like the fact that we got more shots on net but we were inconsistent in terms of our presence around the net. I thought we had a chances to be able to get more pucks down to the net.”

Syer acknowledged that some defensive lapses hurt the Tigers down the stretch.

“We limited their number of shots but on the second goal that we gave up, we didn’t cover the guy in the slot,” said Syer. “There are things that we work on right now. We need to be better in that regard.”

Syer was hoping that squandering the lead against Brown would light a fire under the Tigers.

“I hope it stings right now,” said Syer. “You can’t allow little things like on the second goal. On the first goal, we turned the puck over coming on a break out. You have got to manage the puck and be better than that.”

With the Tigers, now 10-14-3 overall and 5-12-3 ECAC Hockey, playing at St. Lawrence on February 28 and at Clarkson on March 1 before starting action in the league playoffs, de la Durantaye believes that Princeton will do its best to play better when it counts the most.

“In my experience here, it is all about collecting experiences,” said de la Durantaye. “My dad always says you either win or you learn. That is one thing I have tried to take with me as we go. I try to bestow that on some of the younger guys who haven’t played as many games and don’t have the experiences. It is not fun, we want to win every game. Our team has an unbelievable compete level and desire to win.”