M. Hockey Comes Up Empty in Season Opener

PROVIDENCE, R.I.—The Harvard men’s hockey team expected to build on last season’s postseason success in its season opener, but instead it built on its regular-season failures.

Brown stifled Harvard’s supposedly potent offense all night and shut out the Crimson 4-0 at Meehan Auditorium. The loss was Harvard’s worst season opening defeat since the 1989-90 season.

The win was sweet revenge for the Bears, who saw their season end in a double overtime loss to the Crimson in last year’s ECAC opening round.

“We had a bitter end to our season, and that carried over in our guys’ minds this past summer and motivated them to work that much harder for tonight,” said Brown coach Roger Grillo.

All-American goaltender Yann Danis once again made the tough saves look easy for the Bears in stopping all 30 shots he faced. With the shutout Danis tied the Brown school record for career shutouts despite having less than one full season of experience.

Danis was helped by a stingy Brown defense that forced Harvard to take low-percentage shots and denied second-chance opportunities.

“We obviously have one of the best defenses in the country,” Danis said. “They did a good job tonight clearing the puck after saves. Most of Harvard’s shots were from the outside, and we didn’t give up too many good chances.”

Harvard actually opened the game strong, keeping Brown penned in its own zone while controlling play for the first five minutes.

The turning point came at 7:46 of the first, when Harvard senior forward Aaron Kim was whistled off for obstruction. The Crimson was forced back on the defensive, and Brown capitalized on the power play when forward Les Hagget poked home a loose rebound in the crease to give the Bears the 1-0 lead. Harvard would never regain the momentum it had in the game’s first few minutes.

“For us to get that powerplay goal early really gave us some confidence,” Grillo said. “After we scored the first goal, we started playing the kind of hockey we need to play. Before that they were taking it to us pretty good.”

Brown added a second goal four minutes later when defenseman Paul Esdale skated unimpeded to the middle of the ice and fired a wrist shot past the glove of Harvard goaltender Dov Grumet-Morris. Esdale’s goal was the product of one of many defensive miscues by the Crimson, which often left Bear skaters unmarked near the net.

“We were running around in our zone like we had our heads cut off,” said Harvard coach Mark Mazzoleni. “They had two goals that came because of blown coverages by our wings on the points. Those guys just walked in uncontested and buried it.”

Bears defenseman Scott Ford gave Brown a 3-0 lead midway through the second period with a shot that bounced off Grumet-Morris’ pads and into the net. That goal all but decided the outcome, as Harvard had little hope of scoring on Danis three times in a period and a half. The two teams skated out the remainder of the game with little incident, other than the fourth Brown goal. Danis stopped what few quality scoring chances the Crimson had.

Harvard looks to regroup this weekend as it hosts Dartmouth and Vermont in its first full weekend of hockey. Both games are at Bright Hockey Center.

—Staff writer Elijah M. Alper can be reached at alper@fas.harvard.edu.