Grumet-Morris Asserts Control Over Crimson Crease in Victory Over Yale

The competition for playing time in Harvard’s net was considered open during training camp and the first five regular-season games.

Dov Grumet-Morris may have closed it Saturday night.

The junior from Evanston, Ill., stopped 25 of 26 shots in a 4-1 win over Yale—the best statistical performance between the pipes for the Crimson this season.

“He was excellent,” Harvard coach Mark Mazzoleni said. “He gave us the kind of goaltending we needed.”

Mazzoleni stopped short of naming Grumet-Morris over sophomore John Daigneau as the starter for the team’s next game, a Nov. 25 home date with No. 10 Boston University. But he did acknowledge that Grumet-Morris made a “strong statement” against Yale.

Mazzoleni rates players each game on a 1-5 scale, with “3” being average, “4” above average and “5” excellent. He thought Grumet-Morris was a 4 or 5 on Saturday, which is where he will have to stay throughout the season if Harvard is to improve upon the 0-7-1 record it had last year against NCAA tournament qualifiers.

“If you want to win in college hockey, your goaltending better be above average,” Mazzoleni said. “You better operate in the 4-5 range. If you don’t, you’re not going to compete in the upper echelon.”

In three starts this season, Grumet-Morris is 1-1-1 with a 1.63 goals-against average and .933 save percentage.

“We needed a big game in the nets,” said Grumet-Morris, Harvard’s starter for much of the last two seasons. “I was just focusing on making the saves as easy as possible.”

Daigneau has played two games, going 1-1-0 with a 3.51 GAA and .837 save percentage.

Walsh’s perfect pinch-hit performance

For the first time this season, Harvard’s defensive corps consisted entirely of NHL draft picks Saturday night. Not surprisingly, that corresponded with the Crimson’s fewest goals allowed this season.

Arguably the most notable performance among the rearguards was turned in by sophomore Tom Walsh, who had been a healthy scratch in two straight games.

Mazzoleni called it Walsh’s “best game.” He was very capable with the puck, nearly scoring on a first-period rush down the right side, and supplied stingy play in his own zone, most notably a glass-rattling check on Robert Burns late in the second stanza.

“Walsh played excellent,” Mazzoleni said. “He was poised. He made plays. We got Tommy here to make plays. Tommy’s a good athlete, a very, very good athlete. He’s a very good baseball player.”

“Pressure should not faze Tommy,” he added. “He needs to play relaxed and poised, and that’s what he did tonight.”

Another key element to Walsh’s game was the fact that he didn’t take a penalty, which was representative of a Harvard team that used an aggressive forecheck but maintained its discipline. The Crimson was whistled for only three penalties, before three more were called following third-period fisticuffs with the outcome no longer in doubt.

The man Walsh replaced in the lineup, senior David McCulloch, took two penalties Friday night against Princeton, has a team-leading 12 penalty minutes on the season, and is the fifth-most penalized player in Crimson history. Walsh, meanwhile, has taken one penalty for two minutes in three games this season.

“We’ve taken some unnecessary penalties, and that’s a reason certain people haven’t been in the lineup,” Mazzoleni said. “If you’re always going to your penalty kill, you’re going to come up on the short end.

“I love David McCulloch.... Dave knows [the situation], and Dave will respond, believe me. We need him in our lineup. He adds a presence to our team that we need in there.”

Power outage

Harvard’s power play was the ECAC’s best and 10th in the nation last season (37 of 156, 23.7 percent). But after the graduation of two key players from the first unit—Dominic Moore ’03 and Brett Nowak ’03—the Crimson has struggled with consistency on the man advantage.

Through five games, Harvard has converted two of 16 power plays (12.5 percent)—eighth in the ECAC and tied for 44th nationally—including a combined one of seven against Princeton and Yale.

Mazzoleni said the biggest problem so far has been a tendency to keep the puck on the right side of the ice, where sophomore Charlie Johnson and junior Tom Cavanagh play, as opposed to having a balance between those two and seniors Tim Pettit and Tyler Kolarik on the left.

“We’ve actually worked on that, trying to get the puck to the other side and working on the other side,” Mazzoleni said. “But we’re stagnant, for whatever reason.”

By cheating toward Pettit’s side and denying him passing and shooting lanes, opposing penalty kills have not made Harvard’s job any easier. Every Crimson opponent is well aware that Pettit’s cannon from the top of the left circle helped him tally 17 goals (seven on the power play) last year.

“If you have a power play that’s predictable, you’re going to get stoned,” Mazzoleni said. “Right now, we’re getting stoned.”

Johnson has both of Harvard’s power play goals, including the first goal of the game against Princeton. He’s the only sophomore on the first unit.

“We need to get used to each other, and where we’re going to be, so we can be a little more spontaneous, a little more unpredictable,” Johnson said.

Giving the home folks a show

The Bright Hockey Center student following was typically fickle this weekend. There were six students in Section 11 for the national anthem Friday night, but by the end of the game Saturday, two sections were packed with students, all on their feet.

Go figure.

At least the Saturday crowd saw a victory—the Crimson’s first home win this season in three tries.

“We had a good crowd at home tonight, and we wanted to show our fans what we can do,” senior Dennis Packard said after the Yale win. “We haven’t exactly played well at home this year, so this was a big win for us.”

—Staff writer Jon Paul Morosi can be reached at morosi@fas.harvard.edu.