Johnson Shines In Return For M. Hockey

Last week, Harvard men’s hockey coach Mark Mazzoleni said he didn’t want to rush sophomore forward Charlie Johnson back from his separated shoulder.

Mazzoleni expected Johnson would receive ice time against Vermont and Dartmouth but wasn’t sure how much. Johnson said he simply wanted “to get [his] feet wet again.” He did much more than that.

Johnson took regular shifts on the fourth line Friday before scoring two goals on a newly-formed second line with Tom Cavanagh and Tim Pettit in Saturday’s 4-0 shutout of Dartmouth.

Johnson tied a career high for goals in a game, set Dec. 13 against Massachusetts. After scoring four goals last season, he’s tied for second on the team this year with nine.

“I was excited right from the get-go to play with Timmy and Cavy,” said Johnson, who had missed five games because of the injury. “All three of us like to create a lot of offense out there.”

Pettit assisted on both of Johnson’s goals. Cavanagh had the primary assist on his first goal, at 6:26 of the first. After Johnson made an acrobatic spin to keep the puck in the zone, Cavanagh dug it out of the corner and zipped a backhanded pass to Johnson. Backchecking winger Jarrett Sampson whacked Johnson’s stick as he one-timed it, creating a knuckle-puck that eluded goaltender Dan Yacey to the far side.

Johnson’s second goal, which gave Harvard a 3-0 lead midway through the second, came on a rebound of Tom Walsh’s point shot after a clean faceoff win by Pettit. The line finished the night at plus-6—not bad for three players who had never skated together before the weekend.

“I thought it worked out really well,” said Pettit, who enjoyed his second four-point weekend of the season. “Charlie’s a playmaker, and Tommy and I have played together for a long time, so we know each other’s tendencies.”

The Johnson-Cavanagh-Pettit line was one of three new combinations Mazzoleni used Saturday. He thought it “worked well,” but stopped short of saying he’d use it during this weekend’s first round ECAC playoff series against Vermont.

Mazzoleni also moved senior winger Rob Fried from his place on the top line with Dennis Packard and Brendan Bernakevitch to an all-senior fourth-line with Blair Barlow and Kenny Turano for Senior Night. Freshman winger Ryan Maki took Fried’s place and scored his second goal in as many nights.

“I liked all our line combinations tonight,” Mazzoleni said Saturday. “I thought they all played very well.”

EMERGING YOUTH

It took Maki 26 games to score his first collegiate goal. He didn’t have to wait nearly as long for his second.

Maki scored for the first time in a Crimson sweater at 1:18 of the third period Friday night, then added career goal No. 2 late in the second period on Saturday.

The 6’2, 195-pound Maki has five points this season, but more importantly seems to have found his niche as a power forward with hands. You might call him a slightly smaller version of Packard, the 6’5, 215-pound senior who has gradually developed into one of the ECAC’s best defensive forwards.

“He’s playing very, very well,” Mazzoleni said of Maki. “He’s a big kid who can move….When you look at his development over the year, he might not have a lot of points, but he’s getting scoring opportunities.”

Another freshman had a career “first” on Saturday. Defenseman Dylan Reese had an assist on fellow freshman Kevin Du’s second-period goal for career point No. 1.

Steve Mandes scored his second career goal Friday, meaning every player in the four-member class recorded a point during the weekend.

Du, who leads the team’s freshmen with eight points, is the only member of his class to play all 29 games this season.

BLUE LINE GROUP

Harvard’s defensemen often pinched in the offensive zone this weekend, putting 10 shots on goal Friday and five more Saturday. They finished the weekend with eight points combined.

That offensive presence from the blue line was a big reason the Crimson scored eight goals over the two games, tying a season-high for goals in a weekend series set at Dartmouth and Vermont in early November.

Mazzoleni has long stressed to his defensemen the importance of getting involved offensively. The reason for that, ironically enough, is the defensive style of play seen throughout the ECAC.

“The way teams are coached today, it’s hard to create a numerical advantage, whether it’s a two-on-one, three-on-two, or four-on-three,” Mazzoleni said. “The only way you can create that advantage is to creep your weakside D up.”

Mazzoleni took note of captain Kenny Smith’s play against Vermont. Smith tied a career-high with three assists, two of which came when his perimeter shots were followed up by a forward in front.

“Offensively, Kenny Smith had an outstanding night,” Mazzoleni said. “That was one of the better games he’s had here.”

Smith is playing arguably his best hockey of the year. He had a minus-9 rating as recently as the Beanpot consolation game, but is plus-8 over his last five, including plus-3 in both games this weekend.

Smith seems to have returned to the strong two-way play that characterized his junior season, when his plus-23 rating was the third highest on the team, behind Noah Welch (plus-30) and Tim Pettit (plus-25).

TURNABOUT

What was Harvard’s Achilles heel on Friday night against Vermont—the team’s propensity to take penalties and its inability to stop the opposing team’s power play—was the prime reason that the Crimson skated off the Bright ice on Saturday with a 4-0 victory.

Against the Catamounts, the Crimson were called for 11 penalties, including three for hitting after the whistle, two for unsportsmanlike conduct and another pair for roughing. And on three of the six power plays that ensued, Vermont found the back of the net.

Saturday, on Senior Night for the Crimson, the team took fewer total penalties and managed to kill off all of the resulting power plays. Dartmouth had a man-advantage eight times during the game, including two extensive five-on-three opportunities, and came up empty every time. And the difference between the nights was not due to the relative strengths of Vermont’s PP versus Dartmouth’s, it was due to the Crimson’s play in the penalty kill and between the pipes, according to Mazzoleni.

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

Indeed, Grumet-Morris made a significant impact; he stopped only 20 of 25 shots on Friday but stopped all 40 he faced on Saturday. And fully half of those shots came with Dartmouth on the power play.

But more important than the number of attempts was the quality of the shots that the Big Green was allowed—nearly all of its came from the perimeter, even when Harvard was down two men on the penalty kill—that was truly different than the Vermont game. And the credit for that belongs to a penalty-kill unit that, despite playing without its top blue-liner Welch, shutdown one of the ECAC’s best power play units and its second-best offense.

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

—Staff writer Jon Paul Morosi can be reached at morosi@fas.harvard.edu.