Slumping M. Hockey Lucks Out

The Harvard men’s hockey team did its job this weekend in spite of itself.

Though the Crimson lost to both Yale and Princeton—two teams with less talent and worse records than Harvard—the ECAC has done its best to give Harvard a chance in the tournament playoffs.

Harvard clinched the third seed in the ECAC despite going 2-8-1 in its last 11 games, earning home ice in the first round of the playoffs against eighth-seeded Brown. The Bears will square off against the Crimson this Friday, Saturday, and Sunday (if necessary) at Bright Hockey Center in a best-of-three series.

Entering the weekend, Harvard was in jeopardy of finishing as low as seventh place in the ECAC. Though the Crimson got off to an 8-3-2 start in the conference, Harvard had struggled since the exam break, winning only two games since Jan. 12. Those two victories were at home against the only two teams in the ECAC not to make the playoffs, Vermont and Union.

Consequently, Harvard felt it needed to win at least one, if not both games this weekend to secure a top-five seed and first round home-ice advantage. The task did not seem all that daunting, given Yale’s 8-17-2 overall record and Princeton’s inability to win back-to-back home games in three years. The Tigers also entered the weekend at 9-16-2 overall, hardly intimidating to most opponents.

Instead, Harvard lost to Yale 4-3 and Princeton 3-0, the latter loss giving the Tigers their first series sweep of Harvard in six years. Yet, even though Harvard did not register a win in its third straight road weekend series (0-5-1 in its last six ECAC road games), the Crimson finished with as high a seed as possible.

In other words, even if Harvard had won both games this weekend, Harvard still would have been seeded third.

This occurred because Dartmouth, Colgate, and Brown lost all of their games this weekend. If any of these teams had won even one game on Friday or Saturday, it would have all been seeded above Harvard.

As it happened, the final standings placed Harvard in a three-way tie with Dartmouth and Rensselaer for third place in the ECAC with 23 total points. Brown, Colgate and Princeton finished in a three-way tie for sixth, just one point behind. Harvard is 1-0-1 against Dartmouth and 1-1 against RPI on the season. The Crimson thus received the tiebreaker over the Big Green. And because Harvard has a better record against the top five ECAC teams (the second tiebreaker after head-to-head record), the Crimson propels ahead of Rensselaer.

To put this in different terms, if Harvard had lost just one more game this season, the Crimson would have been seeded eighth.

The good news does not stop with merely receiving home ice for Harvard. If Harvard wins its first-round series, it is guaranteed a spot in the ECAC semi-finals. If the Crimson had finished with any seed under three, it would have been forced to play a “play-in” game in Lake Placid. This is a one-game, do-or-die series where the loser goes home and the winner is forced to play Cornell, by far the best team in the ECAC, in the semis.

With the third seed, Harvard knows it will not have to play Cornell until the finals and also does not have to stress over making the trip to Lake Placid only to come home the same day.

But wait! There’s more! Despite the fact that Harvard enters the postseason as arguably the most vulnerable of the 10 teams in the ECAC playoffs, the Crimson could not have chosen a more favorable opponent than Brown. The Bears had won six games in a row entering this past weekend, riding the hot goaltending of sophomore Yann Danis. However, Brown lost 3-2 to Princeton and 5-3 to Yale, with Danis taking the loss in both.

Danis had not allowed more than two goals in a game in his last nine outings before the weekend, winning ECAC Goalie of the Week Award twice in the past three weeks. Now, however, he appears to have lost his magic. Without Danis, Brown has little chance of advancing.

When Harvard defeated Brown 5-2 in Providence on Dec. 8, 2001, a viewer could have mistook the game for a varsity team playing its JV squad. The line of junior Brett Novak, sophomore Dennis Packard and freshman Rob Flynn dominated the game, each tallying two points as Harvard peppered Brown with 34 shots on goal.

Yet, this is not the same team that played Brown nearly three months ago, and Brown is not the same team that lost to Harvard. Senior Brian Eklund, Brown’s goalie at the time, has since been replaced by Danis.

Harvard’s offense has shut down in the past two months. The Crimson’s eight NHL draftees (the most in the ECAC) and highly touted freshman class have failed to generate goals and have oft committed stupid penalties at inopportune times. Sophomore Will Crothers and freshman Dov Grumet-Morris were two of the best goalies in the conference after thirteen games. They are two of the worst, statistically, since exam break.

Nevertheless, Harvard heads into next weekend’s series as favorites once again. Despite the team’s best efforts, the Crimson has a legitimate shot to advance to Lake Placid and even make a run at an ECAC Championship and an automatic NCAA Tournament birth.

Senior captain Pete Capouch realizes Harvard’s fortunate position.

“The playoffs are kind of like a whole new season,” Capouch said. “Obviously, we would have liked to beat Yale and Princeton to have some momentum going into playoffs. But we just have to regroup and try to play our best hockey of the year. It is always better to be playing at home in the playoffs, and I expect that we’ll be ready to compete hard in the series.”

The Harvard men’s hockey team heads into the playoffs as cold as ice. Only in hockey could that be a good thing.