Moore Tallies Five Points In Colgate Victory

He does not lead the Crimson in points, nor did he a year ago. But if anyone needed a reminder why captain Dominic Moore is the man opposing teams set their defense around, he provided it this weekend.

Exhibit A: a hat trick, a five-point performance and passing his brother Steve ’01 on Harvard’s all-time scoring list against Colgate on Friday.

Moore’s hat trick was evenly distributed, with power play goals in the first and second periods and a short-handed goal in the third.

In the first, the Crimson was a man up and trying to set up in the Colgate zone. Junior forward Tim Pettit sent the puck around the boards to senior forward Brett Nowak. Nowak, covered tightly by the Red Raiders, didn’t even stop the puck, just lightly redirected it to Moore, who blasted a quick slapshot that Colgate goaltender Steve Silverthorn couldn’t corral.

Moore added another power play goal in the middle frame, aided again by the skillful passing of Pettit and Nowak. Harvard passed the puck around the perimeter of the Colgate end until Nowak directed a cross-ice pass towards Pettit at the blue line. Pettit stopped the puck and without hesitation fired it across the ice again, this time near the top of the crease where Moore knocked home the short-range shot.

Easily the smoothest of Moore’s three goals came when the Crimson was on the penalty kill. Moore gained control of the puck and rushed into the Raiders’ end with junior forward Dennis Packard alongside. The Colgate defender stepped up and cut off Moore, who passed to Packard. Despite having an open shot at the net, Packard dropped a pass to Moore, securing the hat trick for his captain.

“That was a really nice play by Dennis, tremendously unselfish too,” Moore said. “He had a clear shot there himself, and he dished it back to me.

“We’ll take [the hat trick]. You look forward to that, and when it happens, it’s nice. That’s a good night.”

The hat trick was the second of Moore’s career and, coupled with his two first period assists, gave him a career-best five-point evening. Moore’s goal in the first pulled him ahead of his brother Steve and into sole possession of 18th place on the Crimson’s all-time scoring list.

Asked after the game what Steve or older brother Mark ’00 would say about his accomplishment, Moore replied:

“[They’d say] congratulations. I feel very fortunate to have brothers that have taught me what I know. They’d be nothing but proud of me, as I am of them.”

Exhibit B came against Cornell on Saturday night. And while it was a good deal less obvious than his five-point affair against Colgate, it was no less impressive.

While he was held without a goal by the Big Red defense, that is the extent to which Cornell held Moore in check. He was the greatest threat to the Big Red all night, skating hard and fast through the zone with the puck, leading odd-man rushes at Cornell goaltender Dave LeNeveu and digging relentlessly along the boards against the Big Red’s huge captains, Doug Murray and Stephen Baby.

Against Cornell, the Crimson marked the board for the first time in the middle of the second period thanks to a reversal of the pairing that set up Moore’s third goal the previous night. This time Moore passed the puck to Packard who took the shot, wristing it from the top of the circle past LeNeveu.

Moore assisted again on the Crimson’s second goal of the game at 14:45 of the second frame. Playing a man up, Moore found Pettit standing all alone at the right faceoff circle, and Pettit blasted the puck by LeNeveu.

“I don’t think anyone has better vision than Dom on the ice,” Pettit said after the game, which is high praise coming from the ECAC’s leading assist man.

“I think Dominic Moore’s a very special player,” said Harvard coach Mark Mazzoleni. “He plays to win.”

And despite the fact that he was unable to lead his team to a win over the Big Red, Moore never hesitated to attack Cornell’s feared defense in the game’s waning moments.

“Sometimes Dominic can even put too much on his own shoulder and try to do too much,” Mazzoleni said. “But I’d rather have players like that—you want kids who want the puck at the crucial moment.”

This weekend, at least, seven points—a hat trick and two pair of assists—was not too much weight for Moore’s shoulders to bear.

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