M. Hockey Wanting in Consistency

TROY, N.Y.—A new year brought the same old story for the Harvard men’s hockey team, as the Crimson struggled for consistency in its first games of 2004.

Friday night seemed to hold the promise of good things to come, as Harvard overcame a 2-0 deficit and scored three goals in the third period to beat Union and former assistant coach Nate Leaman.

But asked after the exciting win over Union what he thought about his team, Harvard coach Mark Mazzoleni hesitated.

“We’ve got to do it tomorrow,” he said. “We’ve had games like this. We’ve got to put a streak together if we’re going to have a chance.”

The Crimson (7-8-2, 5-6-1 ECAC) could not put together any sort of streak, falling the next night to Rensselaer in Troy, N.Y.

RPI 4, Harvard 1

The Crimson struggled on offense and defensive miscues led directly to all four RPI goals, as the Engineers (9-8-2, 4-3-1) controlled the Crimson throughout the game and capitalized on key turnovers deep in the Harvard zone.

The scoring started with RPI taking advantage of a turnover by sophomore defenseman Peter Hafner. The turnover came as Hafner was robbed of the puck behind the Crimson net by Rensselaer’s Cody Wojdyla. Wojdyla came off the boards and fed a pass into the middle of the ice that trickled off of Kirk MacDonald’s stick and onto the blade of Conrad Barnes. Barnes got off a quick shot that Harvard junior goaltender Dov Grumet-Morris could not track down, and the Engineers had a 1-0 lead at 6:16 of the first.

Hafner was again involved in an RPI goal, this time during a power play at the start of the second period. Harvard junior defenseman Ryan Lannon was in the box for hooking at 1:46 of the second period and RPI set up its power play in the Harvard zone. Engineer co-captain Scott Basiuk directed a shot on net that Grumet-Morris easily stopped. He knocked the puck to his right in front of Hafner, but Hafner’s attempted clear went straight into Kevin Croxton, who shot the puck past Grumet-Morris to give the Engineers the two-goal edge.

RPI coach Dan Fridgen was pleased with his team’s effort, in particular the aggressive forecheck that resulted in his team’s first and fourth goals.

“We were just a little sharper…getting pucks to the net,” Fridgen said. “We finally got a couple of scrappy goals which we haven’t done in the last three games.”

The Crimson’s only goal of the night came on a power play in the second period, when Mazzoleni sent his second power-play unit out to start the advantage.

Sophomore forward Dan Murphy’s second goal of the season cut the Engineer lead to 2-1.

The play started when freshman forward Kevin Du, parked on Rensselaer goaltender Nathan Marsters’ doorstep, received a pass from sophomore Charlie Johnson.

“Kevin Du made a nice play to pass it to [senior forward Dennis] Packard and he got it on net and I was lucky enough to be where the rebound was,” Murphy said.

Packard’s point-blank shot from atop the crease was turned aside by Marsters. Amidst traffic, the rebound squirted out to Marsters’ left, directly to Murphy.

“We had good puck movement [on the power play],” Murphy said. “I didn’t really do anything. I was just in front of the net and tapped it in.”

But Murphy’s power-play goal was the only really positive play on the night for the Crimson.

“We got a lot of traffic to the net last night [against Union]; we had that in spurts tonight,” Crimson captain Kenny Smith said. “You can’t have it half the time. You can’t have it a quarter of the time. You’ve got to do it all the time.”

“Last night was a real positive,” he continued. “We came out tonight and we were only able to get it going in spurts and you can’t win a game like that.”

And Harvard’s defensive difficulties continued after Murphy’s goal.

After a great check in the neutral zone by Lannon, Wojdyla poked the puck away from him and across the blue line into the Harvard end.

Lannon had skated up from his spot on right defense to deliver the check on Wojdyla and right wing Tyler Kolarik hadn’t had time to back him up when the puck was poked through. MacDonald and Barnes skated in on a two-on-one and MacDonald wristed a hard shot over Grumet-Morris’ left shoulder that hit the post and went in.

The Engineers added an insurance goal with less than three minutes to play when Tommy Green stripped Harvard senior defenseman Blair Barlow deep in the Crimson end and put a point-blank shot by Grumet-Morris to seal the 4-1 win.

Harvard 3, Union 2

SCHENECTADY, N.Y.—If “defensive miscue” were the watchwords against RPI, “offensive pressure during crunch time” was the dominant principle when the Crimson faced off against former assistant coach Leaman.

Union goaltender Kris Mayotte did everything he could to shut Harvard down, stopping 27 shots in the first two periods as his team clung to a 1-0 lead.

The Dutchmen (7-9-3, 2-5-1 ECAC) got their first goal on a power play near the end of the first period off the stick of Matt Vagvolgyi, and their second goal came on the power play as well.

In the third, Union went up a man when senior forward Tim Pettit was whistled off for holding. With the power play winding down, Olivier Bouchard’s shot at 4:37 from atop the crease went by Grumet-Morris to give Union a 2-0 lead, but it also set the stage for the Crimson’s furious comeback.

For the game’s final minutes, the puck rarely left the Union end as Harvard dominated play, shooting 23 times in that period alone on Mayotte and finally marking the scoreboard at 7:24 on a shot in the high slot from Hafner.

Junior center Tom Cavanagh tied the game on a hard shot from the right face-off circle at 11:47 of the third.

“We found a way to beat [Mayotte] in the third by getting a lot of traffic in front and going to the net hard,” Pettit said.

Pettit’s goal—the game winner—was more indicative of the Crimson’s ability to go hard to the net than any of Harvard’s other tallies. He scored it with 1:01 remaining in regulation by fighting hard for the puck in front of the net.

Sophomore defenseman Tom Walsh fired it in from the point and Mayotte, like he did all game, stopped the initial shot. Harvard’s top line of Pettit, Cavanagh and assistant captain Kolarik all charged the net and got their sticks on the puck, but nothing got by Mayotte until Pettit found the puck amidst the scrum of forwards and defenders in front and fired it in, lifting it over a prone Mayotte.

The three unanswered goals gave Harvard the win and, temporarily, brought it back to .500 for the year. It also seemed to set the Crimson up nicely for its game on Saturday against RPI.

“This could be the ticket for us to really go on a run,” Pettit said.

But it was not.

Harvard will look to get back to its winning ways on Friday night against Cornell.

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