There's No Defense

CANTON, N.Y.--The Harvard men's hockey team faced a team with a winning record for the first time in four weeks last night, and it drove seven hours to get there.

Unfortunately for the travelers, Harvard forgot to pack a team defense last night. The squad dropped a miserable 7-3 decision to St. Lawrence.

In an abysmal performance for about 40 minutes at Appleton Arena, the Crimson gift-wrapped countless scoring chances for the host Saints, giving them far too many easy opportunities, resulting in more than enough goals to earn a loss.

"This game is very reminiscent of the Cornell game [a 5-3 Harvard loss]," Harvard coach Ronn Tomassoni said. "We played poorly and we were real sloppy."

Cornell also happened to be the last team with a winning record that Harvard faced.

But the Crimson probably would have lost to teams with bad records with the carelessness it displayed over the first 40 minutes.

It was the simple things Harvard lacked--controlling passes, making passes, picking up the open men on defense, staying with its men. Basic stuff.

"There were a lot of instances with two guys covering one guy a lot," Tomassoni said. "[We played] very poor positional hockey."

In the first period alone, Harvard allowed five odd-man rushes against, including a two-on-none breakaway. Fortunately for the Crimson, freshman goalie Peter Zakowich came up huge in the period, allowing none of those to be converted to goals.

However, he was helpless on the only tally--when Scott Stevens had three open, undefended chances to put the biscuit in.

Zakowich wasn't so fortunate in the second period, where Harvard had as much success stopping St. Lawrence as the Paris government was having with its striking city. Again, blown coverage led to numerous scoring chances, and this time the Saints found the places to put the puck in. The result: a 5-3 Saint lead.

It could have been a lot worse. Although Zakowich was five-holed twice by the Saints with nothing but ice between them and the goalie, he blocked 14 other shots, including a half-dozen from right in front of his crease.

Harvard's defense and its offense left its men free to roam around and goal-hang.

"We played like we were tired, and I think we were a little tired," captain Brad Konik said. "Naturally, it's a long trip up here, but that's no excuse. We came out and played lackadaisical."

Another contributing factor to the loss was injuries. Freshman Michael Bent (concussion Saturday) and Henry Higdon (ankle) were scratched from the line-up. The two lines those two players are members of gave up six of the seven goals last night.

It wasn't necessarily the replacements' fault, as the whole team lacked chemistry outside the first line. The six usual starting defensemen played, but they got caught pinching in or passing the puck to a breaking Saint, resulting in three St. Lawrence goals.

The good news is that this was just one game. Harvard must wake up and regroup this afternoon against a very good Clarkson team.

If the Crimson wants to prove that it belongs among the ECAC's elite, today is the day to show it. Last night's effort certainly didn't leave the 2,700 fans in attendance with that impression.