Harvard Meets Danis-less Brown

Not even the most veteran member of the Harvard men’s hockey team can remember winning a season opener. That’s because for the past three years, Brown has taken the first game of the season from its travel partner by a collective 10-2 count. This year, though, there is a hole in the Bears’ roster—one the Crimson hopes will be large enough for a few goals to squeak through when the curtain opens on regular season play tonight in Providence, R.I. at 7 p.m.

Last spring Brown graduated starting goaltender and Hobey Baker finalist Yann Danis. The netminder had stymied Harvard during the two season openers in which he played, recording 2-0 and 4-0 shutouts. Over the course of his collegiate career, Danis was almost as impressive, amassing a .930 career save percentage, a 2.20 career goals against average and 43 career wins—13 of them shutouts.

“Obviously, he’s been a nemesis of ours for a couple years now,” said Crimson assistant captain Ryan Lannon. “Since my freshman year, we’ve had difficulties figuring out ways to put pucks by him.”

But with Danis gone, Harvard will now have what figures to be an easier puzzle—new Bears starter Scott Rowan. After three years waiting in the wings and just three contests played, the perennial backup has rather large skates to fill.

Of course, Rowan’s three games are three more than either of Brown’s remaining two netminders—a freshman and a junior—has seen.

And the Crimson hopes to take advantage of this inexperience as quickly as possible.

“Ideally, we’d like to jump on [the Bears goalie] from the start,” Lannon said.

Harvard has already shown the ability to do just that—what was missing from last week’s exhibition tie with the University of Windsor, however, was the ability to finish. Despite outshooting the Lancers 47-8, the Crimson mustered only a pair of goals and went an abysmal 0-for-7 with the man advantage.

“It’s not like we can say, ‘We want to score more,’” said Harvard coach Ted Donato ’91. “There’s a lot more to it than that. But as a team, we want to bear down as much as we can on our opportunities.”

With ever-solid Dov Grumet-Morris between the pipes and a defensive corps rich with returning, experienced skaters, the contest against Brown might be determined by the Crimson’s ability to capitalize on these offensive opportunities.

The return of speedy sophomores Steve Mandes and Kevin Du will surely impact Harvard up front, as has the Crimson’s newfound focus on “bearing down offensively,” according to Lannon.

“It’s something we’ve been focusing on in drills this week,” he said, “putting away the rebounds, having guys crash the net.

“Not doing it recklessly,” he added. “Not doing it where it’s going to hurt you defensively—but at the same time, recognizing a good scoring opportunity and taking advantage of it.”

Against Brown’s stifling defense, this strategy will certainly be tested.

“They’ve been a defensive-minded team in the past,” Lannon said, “and I’d be surprised if that changed.”

But nothing is certain—the Bears have lost three of their regular blueliners from last year, and, as Donato was quick to point out, the Brown squad has no more experience than does the Crimson at this point.

Rather, Harvard is looking to improve upon its own performance last week.

“Hopefully we got all our missed nets and off-the-posts out of the way last weekend, and we’ll be ready to go,” said Donato with a grin.

What remains to be seen in tonight’s contest is, really, who will be ready to go between the Brown pipes. There are always unkowns in the first game of the season.

“One thing I do know, though,” Mandes said. “Danis is gone. Which is great.”

—Staff writer Rebecca A. Seesel can be reached at seesel@fas.harvard.edu.