ON HOCKEY: Crimson Surge Transforms 'All-Time Low' Into Miracle

“I think I hit an all-time low in my hockey career in the first period,” said junior all-American defenseman Noah Welch after Friday night’s thrilling come-from-behind win over Yale. “The last couple of games, stuff hasn’t been going too well for me. My confidence was down.”

“It’s just all mental,” he added. “I know I got the talent. It’s just not coming together

That “all-time low” followed a four-goal first-period outburst from the Elis at the Yale Whale on Friday night. Welch was speaking, at least in part, about the Yalies’ fourth goal, a power-play tally on which Yale’s Jeff Hristovski sliced through the Crimson’s defensive zone, blowing by two defenders before he faked sophomore goaltender John Daigneau and beat him stick-side.

Welch was one of the Crimson defenders Hristovski slipped past, but his words could just as easily be applied to the first person plural—we, the team, the Harvard Crimson. Welch may have felt like he had reached a personal all-time low, but he had plenty of company below sea level—all of the members of this year’s Crimson share some responsibility for the team’s struggles against both expectations and its opponents.

After suffering back-to-back losses to Brown and Boston College and holding only a 2-4 record in the year 2004, the tide of Harvard’s fortune had appeared to reach its ebb after the first period at the Whale. This was not a new situation for the Harvard men’s hockey team; on a number of occasions this season, the team has found itself on the bitter side of a box score, the result of mental lapses and third-period collapses. But this rainy Friday in New Haven was not such an occasion.

“A real test of someone’s character is when they’re under a tremendous amount of adversity,” Harvard coach Mark Mazzoleni said. “A lesser team would have folded.”

Harvard, obviously, did not fold. Instead, the Crimson mounted a furious comeback, sparked by a beautiful individual effort by captain Kenny Smith and spurred on by the play of the Crimson’s ‘big’ guns—Welch, assistant captain Tyler Kolarik, and senior forward Tim Pettit.

A large part of Harvard’s newly explosive offense was the effort, and risk, of the team to “pinch” its defensemen along the offensive boards. Employing a “two-three” forecheck, the Crimson hoped to sustain increased offensive pressure on Yale and to fire a number of shots on netminder Josh Gartner.

Both of those tactics succeeded. After a game in which it only sent 20 shots towards BC goalie Matti Kaltiainen, the Crimson unleashed 57 shots on Gartner.

“It was important to get a lot of shots [on Gartner],” Kolarik said. “It seemed around the 40-shot mark, he kinda cracked.”

Gartner cracked in that he allowed six goals, three of which came off the sticks of Kolarik, Pettit and Welch in just a minute and one second, from 12:36 to 13:37. But Kolarik’s emphasis on the 40-shot barrier aside, it wasn’t the quantity of shots that foiled Gartner. It was their quality.

And that quality is largely attributable to the renewed aggressive effort of the Crimson’s blue-liners. By pinching defensemen far into the zone, Harvard was able to sustain strong pressure in the Yale end. Defensemen Smith and Welch both had key goals on plays where they attacked the net rather than staying atop the point to backstop the offense.

“[Pinching our defensemen] was something that we did on [the 2001-2002 ECAC Playoff] run that we did very well,” Kolarik said. “[Tonight] we simplified our game plan and the guys responded.”

They responded with a vital win, the most vital of the season. After any number of games this season—wins over Union and nationally-ranked BU and UMass come to mind, as does a close 3-2 loss to Boston College at the Heights—I’ve thought the Crimson made a Statement with their play. Friday night’s win, and its statement, however, trumps them all. It was against a close rival. It was in a hostile environment, and followed two difficult losses to top teams. And it was after a first period where the team hit rock-bottom.

That the Crimson was able to respond to that tremendous adversity, as Mazzoleni described it, and leave the Whale with a ‘W’ does speak volumes about the team’s character.

Welch had said that “It’s just all mental, I know I got the talent, it’s just not coming together.” And while that might have been true after losses to BC and to Brown, or after a terrible 20 minutes at Yale, it appears as though things are finally starting to come together for both Welch and the Crimson.

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