Grumet-Morris Regroups To Post 40-Save Shutout of Dartmouth on Birthday

For just the second time this season, junior goaltender Dov Grumet-Morris left no doubt about a game’s outcome in the minds of the Harvard-hockey faithful. Thanks to a 40-save performance and some impressive penalty killing, the Crimson shut out Dartmouth and ended its regular season and Senior Night in style with a 4-0 victory.

It marked the second time in two years that Grumet-Morris has turned in a fine, 40-plus save performance on his birthday, but this year was even more important than last, in large part because Grumet-Morris has struggled relative to last year.

His numbers in conference play this season—a 2.14 goals-against average and a .918 save percentage—are respectable, to be sure. But they rank him in the middle of the pack of ECAC netminders, and those numbers are not on par, relative to his league rivals, with the ones he presented last season when he finished a close second to Ken Dryden Award winner David LeNeveu of Cornell in goals-against average and save percentage.

Part of that shortfall is a result of general team defensive struggles; Harvard allows 2.5 goals per game this season, the seventh-best average in the ECAC. Last year the Crimson was No. 2 in the league, allowing just a hair over two goals per game.

But part of the blame belongs to Grumet-Morris. When his team has struggled this season, he has not often been able to pick up his teammates. Tonight, though, was a prime example of how effective Harvard can be when Grumet-Morris is at the top of his game.

“Dov came very strong out of the box,” Crimson coach Mark Mazzoleni said. “That’s the type of goaltending you have to have to win.”

“[Dov] was the difference in the game,” he added.

Grumet-Morris responded to the Big Green’s pressure, which began from the first drop of the puck. He stopped 17 attempts in the first and another 16 in the second.

Particularly challenging was a five-on-three power play that lasted for 1:39 early on in the first. Over that short stretch, Dartmouth peppered Grumet-Morris with six pucks, but he cut down the shots—most from the perimeter or from an angle—and directed his rebounds to the outside where his defensemen were waiting.

“They did a great job of picking up rebounds and mistakes, and that makes my job easier,” Grumet-Morris said. “The defensive core and the penalty-kill unit elevated their play tonight.”

“As a team we did a much better job defensively…our penalty kill was phenomenonal, the guys just had great rotation,” he added.

The Big Green had another 47 seconds of five-on-three power play after Harvard penalties for high sticking and cross-checking were whistled in short order early on in the second. Over the nearly three-and-a-half-minute series when a Crimson sweater was sitting in the box, Dartmouth sent 11 shots on net, none of which found its way past Grumet-Morris.

“I thought [Dartmouth] did a good job of moving the puck, [but] Dov was just very good in goal,” Mazzoleni said.

And that strong play in net and on the penalty kill translated into momentum that the Crimson utilized at the other end of the ice.

“Playing against a five-on-three is really tough,” said senior forward Tim Pettit. “Both times we ended up coming back and capitalizing off that momentum…it just changes everything.”

In much the same way, Harvard hopes to capitalize on Grumet-Morris’s strong performance from Saturday night over the course of the ECAC tournament. It was two years ago at about this time that Grumet-Morris, then only a freshman, solidified his spot as Harvard’s No. 1 netminder with a series of impressive games—many of them extending into overtime—during the ECAC and NCAA tournaments.

This year, the Crimson is counting on Grumet-Morris’s strong play to carry over to the postseason. Harvard’s hopes for reaching the ECAC championship in Albany depend on it.

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