It didn’t exactly end the way it wanted, but it was still a memorable postseason run for Brown University’s men’s hockey squad.
After finishing eighth in the 2018-19 ECAC Hockey League standings, Brown proceeded to sweep both defending champion Princeton and second-seeded Quinnipiac out of the conference tournament. Although their quest for the Whitelaw Cup ended with a semifinal loss to Cornell in Lake Placid, the Bears (15-14-5 overall) nonetheless served notice that they intend to be back in the near future.
“It was great to see,” said Brown head coach and former player Brendan Whittet (East Providence, R.I.). “Our program and team are very driven to succeed and are process-oriented, and we understood how we needed to play.”
“It was definitely a great experience,” said senior defenseman Max Gottlieb in late March from California, after he had signed a professional tryout agreement with the AHL’s Ontario Reign.
The seeds of Brown’s recent postseason success actually were planted in the second half of the campaign following the turn of the calendar, when it started off by winning the Three Rivers Classic in Pittsburgh and went 8-4-2 through the end of February.
“It would have been easy to get discouraged,” said Whittet after the Bears’ 1-6-1 overall start to their season. “We started playing toward our identity, playing together and playing hard, and the wins started coming.”
Brown stumbled just a tad down the stretch, losing the last two games of the regular season to Quinnipiac and Princeton, but still secured the final home-ice slot for the first round of the ECAC Hockey tournament with an 8-9-5 league mark.
“There were a lot of ups and downs,” said Gottlieb. “Entering the last weekend, we were swept at home, and we knew we had to do better.”
Getting to play one round of the playoffs at Meehan Auditorium on Brown’s campus in Providence was a definite boon, a reward of sorts for the second-half turnaround.
“Home ice was something we haven’t done, and we were excited to have that experience,” admitted Gottlieb.
Never mind that the Bears were set to face the Princeton Tigers, who had suffered a down year after winning last season’s ECAC Hockey playoff crown but still boasted high-scoring All-America forwards Ryan Kuffner and Max Veronneau, both of whom have since moved on to the NHL. If anything, it was the home team that set the tone in a two-game sweep, even if it took almost three games to do so.
“We came out with energy and got the job done,” said Gottlieb.
The Bears won, 3-0, the first night thanks to 21 saves by Gavin Nieto and a goal from Gottlieb, and then dispatched the visitors, 6-5, in triple overtime the next night, after the Tigers staged a furious rally late in the third period with their season on the line
“The three-overtime game was a really hard experience at the time,” recalled Gottlieb. “We had the lead, and it was a shock (to lose it), but our guys were good about staying positive.”
Those optimistic vibes were repaid early in the third extra session, as Alex Brink connected 3:30 into that period to eliminate Princeton and send Brown on to the second round.
“We remained positive and found a way to get the job done,” said Whittet. “Princeton got three extra-attacker goals, but our guys didn’t come out shell-shocked in the first overtime.”
Indeed, the Bears outshot the Tigers, 28-13, in the additional periods, including 8-1 in the third OT, and 54-40 overall on the night.
“It took a bit longer than it should have,” quipped Whittet. “You’re not anticipating a three-overtime game when you’re up 5-2, but it will go down in our history not just as Brown’s longest game, but one of its best.
“Our guys will always remember it, and specifically, that they came out on top.”
Gottlieb added that the experience of the Princeton series also served the Bears well when they headed to Hamden, Conn., and a date with favored Quinnipiac.
“It took some years off our lives, that overtime game,” chuckled Gottlieb, “but it made us more battle-tested, and we knew if we got through, we could take down a top seed on the road.”
Brown did just that, sweeping the nationally fifth-ranked Bobcats out of the ECAC tournament with 2-1 and 4-3 victories at Frank Perrotti Jr. Arena. It marked the first time in 20 years that Quinnipiac did not win at least one playoff series.
“We weren’t overly concerned with who or where we played,” said Whittet. “We felt we were one of the best teams in the league and in the East, as long as we played the right way, and we did. It wasn’t a fluke.”
The Bears controlled much of the offensive tempo in the first game, launching 40 shots on net, as Quinnipiac senior defenseman and captain Chase Priskie, a Hobey Baker Award finalist, was sidelined for the first two games of the best-of-three series due to a suspension. After falling behind, the Bears tied the contest on a goal by Brent Beaudoin (Londonderry, N.H.) with 21.5 seconds remaining in regulation, before Jack Gessert won it in the first three minutes of overtime.
The Bears still had to stage a sizable playoff rally of their own in the rematch, and overcame a 2-0 deficit after 40 minutes with four consecutive third-period goals. The first one came off Gottlieb’s stick, before Tommy Marchin scored twice and Beaudoin once to oust Quinnipiac and punch Brown’s first ticket to Lake Placid since 2013, when the Bears fell to Union in the ECAC Hockey title tilt.
“We won the first game, and the second was another late comeback,” said Gottlieb, who finished his career with 10 goals and 60 points in 118 NCAA appearances. “We felt we always had a chance to claw back, and we believed in our systems and believed in each other.”
Prior to departing for upstate New York, Gottlieb recalled how the Bears’ success this spring had affected the program on and off the ice, with a number of Brown alumni from past playing days stopping by to visit with the coaches and wish the team well.
“The whole Brown hockey community was behind us,” said Gottlieb of the solidarity among the players and the program as a whole.
The Bears also reached rarified air in the conference, joining elite competition in Clarkson, Cornell and Harvard as the last-standing ECAC Hockey teams, in the place where almost 40 years earlier a bunch of American college kids made sports history in upsetting the Soviets.
“We were one of four schools left, and two games away from the big dance,” said Gottlieb. “To have that opportunity is not often, and it was a challenge, something we hadn’t done before.”
The Class of 2013 was the last Brown squad to make it that far in the conference tournament, and a banner celebrating that accomplishment now hangs in the rafters at Meehan. A newer one honoring the Class of 2019 and their teammates will join its predecessor in the future.
Gottlieb added it was “definitely cool” to be on the same stage with three ECAC bluebloods who had combined for 27 Whitelaw Cups, and to have the opportunity to compete for the league’s automatic bid to the NCAA tournament, a berth the Bears last earned in 1993 when Dartmouth head coach Bob Gaudet (Saugus, Mass.) was at Brown’s helm.
With the season on the line — again — it wasn’t meant to be for the upstart eighth seed, as Cornell scored three times in the first period, twice on power plays, en route to a 6-0 blanking of Brown. Clarkson then eliminated Harvard, 5-2, in the late semifinal, before outlasting Cornell, 3-2, in overtime to win the championship.
“With Cornell, we got in trouble with penalties,” said Gottlieb, with the resultant special-teams play disrupting the flow of the game even though the Bears ultimately outshot the Big Red. “It was tough.”
“Sometime you have to get knocked down to get back up and (later) win a championship,” said Whittet. “We weren’t overwhelmed, but we didn’t start well and didn’t recover. We had the puck a lot, but we got a major penalty and our first-line right wing (Chris Berger) was out (of the game) in the first two minutes. It wasn’t a great way to start, but we’ll learn from it.
“We’ve got a really good team coming back, and some good recruits, and our goal is to win a championship,” added Whittet. “We will do everything to work toward that goal.”
Despite the fact Brown didn’t get to enjoy a storybook ending to its playoff run, as Ivy League rival Princeton did the year before, Gottlieb pointed out that the players returning to Providence next season now know what it takes to get to the next level.
“It was something to teach the younger guys,” he said. “They got a taste of that winning culture, of pride in our school, to get to Lake Placid.”
He’ll also get to reflect on a storied sprint for his graduating class.
“It was such a great run. I wouldn’t trade it for anything,” he said.
“It’s a really good group,” said Whittet of his seniors. “They experienced some lows and went out on a high, and they can leave here with the program in a much better spot than when they were freshmen. It’s a tribute to their leadership, ability and growth as a group, to get Brown hockey back on the right track and progress forward.”
Now the goal is to sustain this spring’s success in the seasons to come, and to build upon it.
“As an alumnus, I played here and had success,” added Whittet, who was a junior defenseman on Brown’s most recent NCAA tournament team. “Now, to lead Brown, a place I love dearly, I’ve spent a lot of time and energy to make it succeed. We were able to walk out of our last game and gave our all to alma mater, and can hold our heads high. A lot of alums have a lot of pride in Brown and in Brown hockey, and we’ll do everything to make them proud.
“I feel good about Brown hockey and the direction it’s going, and I look forward to next year and what the future holds.”
