Pretty in Rink: Hockeys Heat Up: M. Hockey

Coming off its disappointing season opener when it was blanked by All-American goaltender Yann Danis and the Brown Bears, the Harvard men’s hockey team will look to score its first points—in both goals and wins—this weekend against Dartmouth (1-1-0) and Vermont (2-2-2).

In the wake of the 4-0 loss to Brown, the Crimson (0-1-0, 0-1-0 ECAC) left Meehan Auditorium vowing to improve its work ethic and make changes to spark better play.

“We’re going to shuffle the lines,” Coach Mark Mazzoleni said. “Put the cards in the deck and lay them out again.”

Mazzoleni declined to specify the exact changes he would make in the lines, but Harvard has much to improve on at both ends of the ice at Bright Hockey Center tonight.

On offense, the Crimson will try to be more aggressive in following the puck to the net.

Against an excellent goaltender such as Danis, Harvard tried to set up careful screens before taking shots from the point.The result was far from successful, with most of those shots ending up either off-target or knocked down by the defense, and Danis (30 saves) turning aside the other rest.

Harvard’s best chances came on point-blank shots off deep penetration into the Brown zone.

“We’re going to try to get the puck to the net and have people crashing,” captain Dominic Moore said. “We were shut out last weekend and we are going to see that that doesn’t happen again.”

The offense alone was not to blame for last weekend’s loss to Brown. Harvard’s defense, in addition to failing time and again to keep the puck in the zone on offense, often looked out of sync in front of its own goal.

“I thought in our zone we ran around like we had our heads cut off at times,” Mazzoleni said. “Two of their goals were just blown coverages by our wings. On their points, they walked in uncontested and buried them.”

Part of the trouble on defense came as a result of loose rebounds, something goaltender Dov Grumet-Morris practiced a great deal on in the offseason.

“For my part, I’m hoping to do a stronger job of controlling my rebounds and controlling the tempo of the game,” Grumet-Morris said.

Controlling the game tempo is also a critical factor for the Crimson this weekend against Vermont and Darmouth.

“Vermont loves to play a ‘run-n-gun’ game,” Mazzoleni said. “They’re a chancy team. It’s going to be key against them to play our game, use our size and strength against them.”

Last season, the Crimson split its season series with Vermont, losing 5-1 in Burlington but winning 6-0 at Bright. Harvard defeated Dartmouth 5-2 at home and tied 3-3 in Hanover last season.

Still, this is a new season and Vermont in particular has looked impressive at times. Under the Catamounts’ belt so far is a 1-1 tie of perennial powerhouse BU.

Moore was quick to dismiss too much focus on Harvard’s opponents, saying the path to success lay with the Crimson itself.

“We didn’t feel we competed as hard as we needed to win in the ECAC,” Moore said. “Our intensity level has got to go up.”

This weekend’s games comrpise Harvard’s only home series before Thanksgiving. After this weekend, the Crimson’s next two trips will be spent in the tough confines of upstate New York, playing St. Lawrence, Clarkson, Cornell and Colgate.

The difficulty of the upcoming road trips makes success this weekend essential to avoid falling into an early-season deficit in the ECAC standings.

“Two wins—that’s the overall objective for the weekend,” Grumet-Morris said.

—Staff writer Timothy M. McDonald can be reached at tmcdonal@fas.harvard.edu.