Did Somebody Say McDonald?: Stars Reemerge For Harvard

LAKE PLACID, N.Y.—The 21 men who skated off the ice at the 1980 Olympic Arena in Lake Placid Saturday night would not have recognized the team that skated off Hobey Baker Rink two weeks prior. That’s how radical a transformation the Harvard men’s hockey team has undergone over the past four games.

Two weeks ago to the day, I wrote a story recounting the Crimson’s road trip to Yale and Princeton. The two tough road losses capped a brutal 2-8-1 skid and left the Crimson looking dead in the water.

“The last three or four weeks before the playoffs, we were struggling, there’s no two ways about it,” junior forward Dominic Moore said.

Harvard Coach Mark Mazzoleni highlighted the team’s response to those difficult losses as the light at the end of the tunnel. Since that weekend nadir, the team has won four straight games, sweeping like fire through the ECAC tournament en route to the conference title and a berth in the NCAA Championship.

The Crimson is a transformed team.

“Our team has just made tremendous strides,” freshman goaltender Dov Grumet-Morris said.

That’s an understatement. The Crimson resurrection is the result of a renewed commitment to defense, consistent play from Grumet-Morris and the emergence of Harvard’s offensive weapons in crunch time.

The first piece of the puzzle has been the Crimson’s revived defense, which was apparent upon first glimpse of Saturday night’s championship game summary sheet. Cornell—the Cleary Cup winners with the top record in the ECAC and a team ranked No. 8 in the nation heading into the weekend—was held to a mere 29 shots over almost five full periods.

Harvard’s defensemen, anchored by captain Peter Capouch, were on top of their game all weekend. The Crimson blueliners effectively countered the Big Red’s attempts to skate the puck into the zone by sagging back, then turning on the pressure, forcing Cornell to dump the puck into the Harvard zone. The defense then did an excellent job of outhustling Cornell’s forwards to the puck, negating the many attempts Cornell made to set up in the Harvard end.

Another element of Harvard’s defense that has sparked the Crimson’s transformation is the strong and steady play of Grumet-Morris. Despite allowing three goals against Cornell, Grumet-Morris was rock solid throughout the tournament, posting a 1.75 goals-against average in that span.

Grumet-Morris was clutch when it counted, keeping the Crimson in position to win the last three overtime tournament games despite the wear that a 90-plus minute game can have on a goalie.

The final piece of the puzzle for the Crimson has been the emergence of Harvard’s most skilled players in the clutch. Moore, junior Brett Nowak, sophomores Tyler Kolarik and Tim Pettit, and freshman Tom Cavanagh have made a sputtering Crimson offense potent again.

Kolarik, the tournament MVP, had an assist to complement his championship-winning goal. Moore was the tournament’s leading goal scorer with four net-ringers. Pettit had two goals and an assist in the championship and was named to the All-Tournament team. Nowak rang up two goals over the weekend and Cavanagh had Friday night’s game-winner.

Two playoff stats are most indicative of the Crimson’s burgeoning offense.

First, Harvard notched the first goal in three of its four playoff victories. Markng the scoreboard first has been a key part of Harvard’s winning streak.

The other telling trend has been Harvard’s success in faceoffs, a credit to the team’s top three centers—Nowak, Moore and Cavanagh. Against Clarkson, Cavanagh won 21 of 28 draws, and the Crimson held nearly a two-to-one edge in faceoffs won.

On Saturday against Cornell, Harvard won 14 more faceoffs than the Big Red. Moore had a plus-11 in that category and came up especially big as the game wore on.

Effective defense, solid goaltending and the impact of its fast-moving forwards have given the Crimson the momentum and confidence it lacked all season. And that confidence will be an important part of the puzzle this weekend and—perhaps—beyond.