M. Hockey Responds Against Princeton, But Gets Swallowed in The Whale

Even though the Harvard men's hockey team picked up a sweep on the road against Princeton and Yale last year, the storied curses of Hobey Baker and Ingalls Rink were just too much to overcome this weekend. The Crimson (9-8-1, 8-4-1 ECAC) emerged from last weekend's trip with a respectable split, downing the Tigers (5-11-3, 4-6-2) 4-3 with a come-from-behind victory Friday night and falling 3-1 to the Bulldogs (8-8-0, 6-6-0) on Saturday. Although Harvard picked up its second consecutive win in the Tigers' barn, it wasn't able to leave entirely unscathed, as freshman winger Tyler Kolarik suffered a knee injury against Princeton that kept him on the bench against the Elis. The Whale--infamous for hosting a rare defeat of Harvard's 1989 NCAA championship squad--snapped the Crimson's three-game winning streak. However, the Elis' task was alleviated somewhat by the absence of Kolarik and classmate Tim Pettit. Without the freshman tandem, the Crimson was effectively denied its dominant second line--one that has combined for 24 goals this season-- and its additional power play unit. "We were out of gas tonight," captain Steve Moore said. "We've had a lot of tough games and guys were banged up. We dug down deep in the second and third, but it was a little too late." Despite the loss, the Crimson still retains a hefty lead in the conference standings with 17 points, with Yale trailing by five points in the second slot.Yale 3, Harvard 1 The Crimson didn't fare as well as it hoped in the on-ice version of The Game, as injuries and visions of the previous night's early game woes came back to haunt Harvard. As an integral part of a four-on-two rush early in the second stanza, Bulldogs center Luke Earl gave Yale its second goal of the night at 6:10. Linemate Evan Wax fed a pass to Earl in the low slot who wristed the puck high on the stick side to put Yale up 2-0. Although Earl's tally was the eventual game-winner, it was Yale's initial goal that set the tone for the night.

Early in the opening frame, Yale

captain Ben Stafford tried to dump the puck in the Harvard zone by rocketing it high off the boards from just outside the blueline. Stafford's shot took a fortuitous bounce off the glass and ricocheted past senior goaltender Oliver Jonas' shoulder at 15:33. "Similar to last night, I thought in the first period we didn't have much of an edge on our game," Harvard Coach Mark Mazzoleni said. "They came out very energized, and got the goal off the lucky bounce. Realistically we were down 1-0 and we deserved to be down 1-0." Despite considerable amounts of puck possession in the first period, Harvard had tremendous difficulties penetrating the Eli defense and storming the net. The Crimson made sporadic attempts throughout the first frame, but was unable to notch its first shot on goal until 13:35 had elapsed. "One of the things we struggled on tonight was our inability to get to their net," Mazzoleni said. "I think that's a direct reflection of Kolarik and Pettit not being in the lineup. They're two guys that consistently do it for us, and when you take them out, we ended up playing more of a perimeter game than I think we needed to." Sophomore center Dominic Moore, who remains a perennial bright spot for the Crimson, nearly knotted the score at one apiece with just over six minutes to play in the first. Freshman winger Kenny Turano set Moore up with a pass all alone in front. Moore made a great move to beat Yale goaltender Dan Lombard and slid the puck behind him alone the mouth of the goal, just shy of the line. "I thought as the game progressed that the biggest difference was that they finished two chances and we didn't. We had our chances," Mazzoleni said. As Lombard continued to blank Harvard, the Elis were able to put up another insurance tally to increase their lead to 3-0. Yale, who held a slight edge in specialty teams, notched a power play goal at 9:18. Winger Joe Dart took a bouncing pass from Bryan Freedman and launched a slapshot past Jonas. A few lucky bounces paid off barely a minute after Yale's goal, as Turano notched his fourth tally of the year off a rebound from Moore. A fracas in the crease distracted Lombard, allowing Moore to get in a few hacks before Turano lit the lamp to make it 3-1. The Crimson upped the tempo in the final frame, desperately trying to penetrate the Elis' defensive core. Harvard put up twice as many shots on Lombard as the Bulldogs did on Jonas, but to no avail. The elder Moore almost brought Harvard within one with 1:20 to play in the game. Moore wrapped around the net and sent a pass out to the slot, but no one was in the slot to bang it home. "They were doing a good job of latching on to people and wearing them down," Moore said. "It was hard to get to the net. We were getting shots but they were doing a good job of keeping us to the outside."

Harvard 4, Princeton 3 Perseverance does pay, and Harvard cashed in big on Friday night.

The Crimson battled back from a two-goal deficit to top Princeton with a 4-3 victory. The loss is the Tigers' seventh consecutive defeat of the season and contributes to their worst losing streak since the 1987-88 season. Dominic Moore was once again the player to watch, as he racked up another three points, including his fourth game-winning goal of the year with less than three minutes to play in the second period. Moore poked the puck away from Tigers defenseman Neil McCann at Princeton's blueline and descended on Tigers' goaltender Dave Stathos, flanked by freshman winger Tyler Kolarik in a two-on-one.

Moore faked a pass to draw Stathos out of position, and wrapped a shot around the Princeton netminder to post his first short-handed tally of the season and the fourth Harvard goal that period. The Tigers tried to rally late in the final frame with a flurry of desperate offense chances, but they couldn't crack Jonas. Chris Corrinet gave Princeton its best chance to knot the game at four with a breakaway at 18:49, but he mishandled the puck at the crease and lost the shot. "They play scrappy, that's their style," Jonas said. "I poke-checked him and I guess he lost the puck in that play." Although the Crimson had great puck possession and controlled most of the play in the opening stanza, fans at the sold-out Hobey Baker Rink witnessed an uncharacteristically out-of-sync Harvard squad. The Crimson suffered early difficulties in making the final pass to seal the deal that fortunately did not plague Harvard later in the game. "We didn't have a really good edge in the first period and we got what we deserved," Mazzoleni said. "After [our second] goal, I thought we started to get some confidence and get a flow going." Princeton lit the scoreboard first at 8:22 in the opening stanza as Tigers forwards George Parros and Chris Owen took advantage of the open ice in a two-man breakaway. With Jonas skating out of the crease to make the play, Parros slid the puck across the slot to Owen to put Princeton up 1-0. The Tigers slightly improved its beleaguered power play unit--only 8.7 percent effective in its last four starts--by adding an insurance tally at 11:36 on the man advantage, its second power-play goal in 18 attempts. Princeton's Dave Schneider battled the puck off the boards and took a hard slapshot from the top of the left circle to cushion the lead at 2-0. "Princeton was a little bit opportunistic," Jonas said. "There was a deflection in there and a nice backdoor pass. Those things can happen, and that they did--two in one game--was out of the norm." The turning point came in the final seconds of the first period, as Princeton was tagged with two penalties within one minute of each other. With winger Tommy Colclough already serving time for slashing, Stathos added another for delay of game. Weakened and frustrated by a Crimson onslaught, Stathos blatantly knocked the net off its moorings at 19:49. "It was a bad first period, and it didn't seem like anything was going to go our way," Kolarik said. "We just told ourselves we weren't going to lose this game because of a bad couple of bounces." Barely into the first minute of play in the second period, assistant captain Chris Bala set up junior assistant captain Peter Capouch at center point to cut Princeton's lead in half, 2-1. Capouch let loose a slapshot on the power play that snuck across the goal's mouth through a screen by captain Steve Moore. Senior winger Harry Schwefel made his presence felt on his home turf at 6:04 in the second. The New Jersey native turned in a great individual effort by snatching a loose puck in the neutral zone. Stathos came way out to challenge Schwefel's attack, but Schwefel lit the lamp to even the score at 2-2. Harvard experienced a near scare at 7:47 when freshman winger Tyler Kolarik went down with an apparent knee injury. If Kolarik had bowed out, it would have been the second knee injury that the Crimson's second line suffered this week, having temporarily lost freshman winger Tim Pettit earlier this week in practice. However, the injury didn't appear to hamper Kolarik. On his first shift back, he took a pass from junior winger Jared Cantanucci in the low slot to put the Crimson up 3-2 at 11:19. It was Harvard's first lead of the night. "I got a knee check and it stiffened up on me," Kolarik said. "Dom [Moore] made a great play behind the net and Jared Cantanucci stepped up, made a nice pass, and played a great game."

Princeton temporarily cancelled the Crimson's lead at 12:39 with a shot from David Del Monte in tight, but the younger Moore's breakaway tally--the fourth short-handed goal allowed by the Tigers in four games--clinched the 4-3 win. The exam break hands a battered Harvard squad a much-needed respite to regroup and recover.

The Crimson next faces off against Cornell and Colgate on Feb. 2 and 3, respectively, at Bright Hockey Center.