M. Hockey Defeats ECAC Doormats

Coming off a 3-0 loss to crosstown rival Boston University, the Harvard men’s hockey men’s team came home to the Bright Hockey Center to lick its wounds and enjoy some Thanksgiving leftovers against ECAC table scraps Union and RPI.

The Crimson (7-3-0, 7-2-0 ECAC) endured 33 penalties for 106 minutes —including three game misconducts—in its eventual 7-4 victory over the Union Dutchmen on Friday night.

Coming off that physically and emotionally charged game against Union, Harvard changed styles and embarked on a quick skating transition game that sealed a 3-1 win against RPI. The result of the different game plan was the same—a Crimson victory—even if the games themselves were markedly different.

Harvard 3, RPI 1

Harvard took over first place in the ECAC with the victory over RPI, moving two points ahead of Yale for the conference lead. Despite a strong transition attack in the game that resulted in numerous odd-man rushes, the Engineers (6-8-1, 1-4-1) fell prey to the Crimson’s potent offensive pressure.

Harvard opened up the scoring midway through the first period on a textbook play from sophomore defenseman Noah Welch to junior forward Tyler Kolarik. Sophomore center Tom Cavanagh skated into the Engineer end and passed the puck back to Welch at the blue line. Welch found Kolarik sitting on RPI goalie Nathan Marsters’ doorstep, and fired a cross-ice pass down to him. Kolarik redirected the puck into the net before Marsters had time to slide across the crease.

The Crimson added another goal—not half as pretty but still as effective—at the 18:00 mark of the first when winger Rob Flynn found the puck despite traffic in front of the net and poked it home for his first point of the season.

RPI increased the pressure on Harvard in the second period, aided by numerous Crimson infractions. Harvard was penalized for too many men on the ice on one occasion, as well as two penalties 11 seconds apart later in the second.

Those two penalties resulted in the RPI goal, as the Engineers took advantage of Harvard’s reduced numbers on the ensuing 5-on-3 power play. With the Crimson playing a triangle defense, the Engineers kept the puck in the Harvard zone for almost a minute and a half before forward Kevin Croxton directed a cross ice blue-line pass that captain Danny Eberly one-timed past Harvard goaltender Dov Grumet-Morris.

With the score 2-1, RPI continued the pressure on Harvard, keeping the game a back-and-forth affair in the second and third periods.

“I thought when it was 2-1, we had three or four real good opportunities to tie the game up,” RPI coach Dan Fridgen said. “You get a bounce here or there, and it’s a tie ball game.”

A tie was not to be for RPI, however, as Crimson center Brett Nowak capped off a five-point weekend with a goal to put Harvard out of reach at 17:24 of the third.

“They played very well defensively,” said Harvard coach Mark Mazzoleni. “We didn’t have as many quality scoring chances as we are used to. We were able to put them away in the last two minutes, so I was very pleased with that.”

Nowak’s goal came almost immediately after an odd-man rush for the Engineers was halted by a clutch save from Grumet-Morris, who stopped 20 of the 21 shots he faced.

Grumet-Morris turned the RPI break around, and forward Tim Pettit took the pick up ice and entered the Engineer end on the left side. He stopped and dropped a pass back to the trailing Nowak. In front of Nowak, sophomore winger Andrew Lederman got entangled with an RPI defender and Nowak was cleared for a shot that found its way past Marsters and that iced the game for Harvard.

“It’s the sign of a good team that can absorb an offensive chance and turn it around and score a goal right away,” Grumet-Morris said.

Harvard 7, Union 4

Harvard’s offense returned convincingly from a 3-0 loss to BU on Tuesday night, and the Crimson continued its streak of winning convincingly after a loss.

“It’s definitely important to bounce back and not get in the groove of losing,” Nowak said.

Nowak, Harvard’s second leading scorer, was instrumental in helping the Crimson to avoid that groove, scoring two goals and adding one assist in the 7-4 triumph over the Dutchman (5-5-3, 2-2-1).

The Crimson opened its scoring binge halfway through the first period when winger Rob Fried, following a Ryan Lannon blue-line slap shot, managed to poke home the loose puck in front of Union goaltender Kris Mayotte.

Many of the Crimson’s other six goals would follow a similar pattern, with shots from the point poked home off of rebounds or loose pucks in the crease.

One of the goals that was the exception to the rebound rule was the Crimson’s final score.

Nowak and Union’s Jason Kean got into a confrontation at the Dutchmen blue line, a tussle that ended with Nowak standing atop Kean and keeping him pinned down to the ice. No penalty was whistled on the play, much to Union’s frustration, and the puck trickled back towards the two players. Nowak scooped it up, skating in from the blue line on a breakaway before wristing a shot by Mayotte.

The Dutchmen were resilient in consistently cutting down Harvard’s early leads but eventually dropped their third straight to the Crimson.

“I thought our team battled back,” Union coach Kevin Sneddon ’92 said. “It just seemed like every time we made progress, they answered, which is the sign of a good hockey team. I certainly didn’t feel like it was a 7-4 game.”

After appearing on the ropes for the first period, the Dutchmen found their rhythm in the second, notching a power play goal at 2:41 of the middle frame. Center Glenn Sanders won the draw deep in the Harvard zone back to winger Brian Kerr, who blasted a quick shot that passed through Grumet-Morris’s legs.

Those kind of goals, coming off of a screen or off a faceoff, is something Harvard coach Mark Mazzoleni described as his team’s “Achilles’ Heel”.

“I don’t think [Grumet-Morris] could have stopped three of the goals,” Mazzoleni said. “We’ve got to do a better job on face-off situations and in front of our net, because you can’t stop what you can’t see, and I think he never saw three of their goals.”

Union narrowed the deficit to 5-3 by scoring three times in the second period but the game was effectively put out of reach by a pair of Harvard goals early in the third, including the controversial non-call on Nowak that led to the breakaway goal.

For his part, Sneddon was impressed by the Crimson’s play, calling Harvard one of the best teams he has seen this season—in any league.

“We have to tip our hats to Harvard,” Sneddon said. “It’s not that we played that poorly, it’s that they played that well.”

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

M. HOCKEY 3, RPI 1

at Bright Hockey Center

RPI (6-8-1, 1-4-1 ECAC) 0 1 0 — 1

Harvard (7-3-0, 7-2-0 ECAC) 2 0 1 — 3

First Period: H, Kolarik (Welch, Cavanagh), 9:12. H, Flynn (Nowak), 18:00 (DP). Second Period: R, Eberly (Croxton), 10:16 (PPG 5x3). Third Period: H, Nowak (Pettit, Lederman), 17:24. Shots: H 11-20-10 41, R 6-6-9 21. Power play: H 0-6, R 1-6. Goalies: H Grumet-Morris (22-21), R Marsters (41-38). Attendance: 1,915.

M. HOCKEY 7, Union 4

at Bright Hockey Center

Union (5-5-3, 2-2-1 ECAC) 0 3 1 — 4

Harvard (6-3-0, 6-2-0 ECAC) 2 3 2 — 7

First Period: H, Fried (Lannon, Packard), 9:55. H, Kolarik (Welch, Cavanagh), 15:47 (DP). Second Period: U, Kerr (Sanders), 2:41(PPG). H, Nowak (Moore, Smith), 7:19 (PPG). H, Lannon (Fried, Packard), 9:31. U, Kerr (Sanders, Seel), 16:36. H, Bernakevitch, (Murphy, Smith), 18:00 (GWG). U, Webb (Campbell, Dagenais), 19:05 (PPG). Third Period: H, Pettit (Nowak, Kolarik), 4:32 (PPG). H, Nowak (Pettit), 7:17 (4x4). U, Byrne (Webb), 12:31 (4x4). Shots: U 6-7-15 28, H 18-16-12 46. Power play: U 2-6, H 1-5. Goalies: U Mayotte (46-39), H Grumet-Morris (28-24). Attendance: 1,627.