Depite Sweep, M. Hockey Earns Home Ice in Playoffs

On a tough weekend road trip to Yale and Princeton, the Harvard men’s hockey team stumbled mightily, dropping two games that could have solidified the Crimson’s position in the ECAC playoffs.

Still, by virtue of Dartmouth’s two losses this weekend, Harvard only lost ground in the league standings to Clarkson, which claimed the second playoff seed. The Crimson (11-14-4, 10-9-3 ECAC) finished in a tie for third with the Big Green, but by virtue of the head-to-head tiebreaker, the Crimson claimed the third playoff seed in the conference.

Harvard will face Brown on its home ice at Bright Hockey Center in a best-of-three series starting Friday.

“The hockey gods were with us and we still finished third even though we didn’t do anything to help ourselves ,” junior forward Dominic Moore said. “Hopefully, we can turn it on in the playoffs.”

Yale 4, Harvard 3

Yale (10-17-2, 9-11-2) came from behind to beat Harvard on Friday night, largely on the strength of forward Chris Higgins.

Higgins gathered an assist at 1:18 of the first period when Yale’s Vin Hellenmeyer redirected Higgins’ shot into the net for the first Bulldog goal.

Then, with Yale trailing 3-2 in the third period, Higgins fired a backhander past Harvard goalie Dov Grumet-Morris to tied the score at three with two and a half minutes left to play. Higgins would notch the game-winner as well, scoring a minute later on a quick shot that eluded Grumet-Morris.

It was Yale’s third lead of the game. With the Bulldogs ahead 1-0 after one period, Harvard sophomore Dennis Packard evened up the game less than a minute into the second period on a hard wrist shot from the right circle.

Yale’s Joe Callahan struck back to put the Elis up 2-1, an advantage they hoped to take into the third period. Junior forward Brett Nowak had other ideas, however, tallying the game-tying goal with three seconds left in the second period.

Nowak’s exciting last-second goal set the stage for the decisive final period.

Harvard pulled ahead of Yale with four minutes gone by, as sophomore forward Tim Pettit took advantage of Yale’s failure to clear the puck and potted a point-blank shot behind Yale goalie Dan Lombard.

Pettit’s goal set the score at 3-2 in Harvard’s favor, but that simply set the stage for Higgin’s heroics.

Princeton 3, Harvard 0

On Saturday night, old Crimson nemesis Dave Stathos stopped 36 shots for Princeton, shutting down the Crimson for first career shutout in his last-ever home game. The senior goalkeeper was the key element in the Tigers’ victory 2-1 over Harvard earlier this year, doing the same thing then that he did Saturday—stonewalling the Crimson.

The victory for Princeton (11-16-2, 10-10-2) moved the Tigers into sixth place and set up a first-round playoff matchup with RPI.

Senior forward David Del Monte recorded the first Princeton goal. Del Monte took advantage of a failed clear on Harvard’s power-play defense, gathering up a rebound right in front of Grumet-Morris and knocking it home at 3:49 of the second frame.

In the second period, junior winger Trevor Beaney took advantage of a Harvard line change to blast a slap shot past Grumet-Morris, making the score 2-0.

The Tigers would add one more tally on an unassisted goal by Ryan Kraliz in the third period.

Princeton Coach Len Quesnelle knew what the key to the game was for the Tigers.

“We were outshot and he made some big saves for us,” Quesnelle said. “It was a well-deserved shutout for Stathos.”

Stathos’ shutout was the first Princeton blanking of Harvard since 1952.

The Road Ahead

Harvard takes a tremendous losing streak into the playoffs. The Crimson is 2-8-1 since the start of February, having fallen from its perch atop the ECAC and out of the national rankings.

Harvard was ultimately lucky that it did not have enough time left in the season to lose home ice, as it has been a far better team at home this year, winning seven of its 11 games at the Bright Hockey Center.

Harvard has played Brown twice this year, losing 4-2 in the season opener at Bright and then taking an early December rematch 5-2. The Crimson and the Bears will start their series Friday night at Bright Hockey Center.

“We have to forget about it,” captain Peter Capouch said of the team’s losing streak. “What’s done is done, and we just have to focus on the playoffs.”

“We’re going to have our hands full [with Brown], and we’re going to have to play our best hockey of the year.”