Harvard Ties Brown in Donato's Debut

PROVIDENCE, R.I.—Yann Danis was gone. The Hobey Baker finalist and netminder extraordinaire for the Brown men’s hockey team had graduated last spring. If there was ever a chance for Harvard to snap out of its recent season-opener funk against the Bears—losses in three straight years—Friday night would have been it.

And the Crimson (0-0-1, 0-0-1 ECAC) capitalized—sort of.

The night ended in a 2-2 draw, though Harvard struck with two quick tallies just 2:13 and 12:23 into the first period. The latter goal came on a miscue by Brown’s goaltender, Scott Rowan, who lost the puck behind his own net to Rob Flynn. The Crimson senior immediately dumped it forward to a wide-open Dan Murphy for the score.

With the two speedy strikes, Harvard captured the early momentum.

“I think we jumped out good,” said Harvard coach Ted Donato ’91. “We came out of the gate skating, and then we just found our way to the box too often.”

Twelve times too often, to be exact.

With the NCAA penalty crackdown—an attempt to alleviate the excessively clutch-and-grab game that college hockey is rapidly becoming—both teams had to expect an active whistle.

As the game drew to a close with 19 penalties shared between the two squads, though, it was clear that Brown (0-0-1, 0-0-1 ECAC) had gained the edge with its man advantages.

“They started to wrack up a few power plays towards the end of the first [period],” said Crimson goaltender Dov Grumet-Morris, “and also in the second. The game has a flow to it—we have a little bit of momentum, they have some momentum—and maybe in their barn, they picked up some momentum going into that second and third period.”

Indeed, the Bears generated two unanswered goals, both tallies mirroring those of Harvard earlier in the game.

While the Crimson’s first strike came on a two-man advantage just 2:13 in, when assistant captain Tom Cavanagh redirected a quick pass from just outside the crease, Brown’s first score also came on a 5-on-3—the Bears’ third of the night.

Freshman Paul Baier blazed a slapshot from just above the left circle, sailing the puck right over the glove of a screened Grumet-Morris.

“The kid made a very, very good play,” the goalie admitted.

Brown’s second tally, though—the one that tied the game at 10:17 into the third frame—was less impressive. If Murphy’s goal had been a gift, then so was this.

Brown sophomore Sean Dersch skated the puck behind the net and wrapped around to shoot. The puck bounced off the post, off the back of Grumet-Morris’ left skate, and into the goal.

“He got a lucky bounce,” Grumet-Morris said, “but it’s part of the game. We got a good bounce on our second goal, so it evens out.”

Though the waning minutes saw a somewhat revitalized Harvard squad, the team never again found the back of the net. The Bears’ Rowan ended his start—the third of his career and just his fourth overall appearance—with 22 saves.

“I think we kind of helped him on,” Crimson captain Noah Welch said after the game. “I don’t know how many big saves he made, but I don’t think he really made any. He’s obviously a good goalie, but I think we would have been more successful if we’d gotten certain pucks through.”

For his part, though, Grumet-Morris mustered several crucial saves. He turned away Brian Ihnacak’s penalty shot in the first period with a painless pad save, and he sprawled on the ice to smother several shots. He ended the night with 25 saves.

The netminder was backed by solid defense for much of the night, including a penalty kill that went 10-for-11 and staved off more than three minutes of 5-on-3 Brown play. But all of that translated into few offensive breakthroughs.

“I thought our penalty kill was awesome tonight,” Welch said. “But our power play—we could have won the game many times, and we didn’t get it done.”

With the plethora of penalties now called in collegiate games, special teams is likely to play the deciding role in contests to come.

On Friday night, eight different Crimson players served time in the penalty box, including three different trips for Welch.

“I don’t think we were able to dictate the flow of the game like we were early in the game because of special teams,” Donato said of his team’s flurry of first- and second-period trips to the box. “We weren’t able to roll our lines and use all our bodies to our advantage. Our depth, I think, is a strength, and unfortunately, we were stuck using our penalty kills most of the night.”

With all the whistles, the coach said, “We end up in a special teams game, and anything can happen in that type of game.”

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