NEXT STOP: ALBANY

PROVIDENCE, R.I.—Now can we make the comparison?

For over a month, since the Harvard men’s hockey team regained its pulse with a five-goal third period at Yale, players and coaches have successfully weaved their way through the questions.

“Think you guys can do it again?”

“Notice any similarities between this and two years ago?”

“Does it feel the same in the locker room?”

The answer has been the same each time: “Sure, it helps the confidence, but this is a different team.”

Different team? Definitely. Different circumstances? Debatable.

The Crimson is Albany-bound after bouncing the defensive-minded Brown Bears and expert puckstopper Yann Danis from the ECAC playoffs in a 4-2, 3-2 overtime quarterfinal sweep at Meehan Auditorium this weekend. Harvard has won seven of its last nine and five straight heading into Friday’s ECAC semifinal against Dartmouth.

The Big Green is 14-9-9 after a three-game series win over Rensselaer but winless (0-6-2) in its last eight against the Crimson.

This makes four straight ECAC semifinal berths for the current seniors. The last class to do that didn’t stop until they won a fairly important piece of hardware in St. Paul—the 1989 NCAA Championship.

But that, of course, isn’t the piece of Harvard hockey lore these guys have been hearing about for weeks. They’re being asked if they can duplicate the magical 2002 ECAC championship, won on three overtime thrillers, including the two longest games in school history.

That year, the Crimson stumbled to an 11-14-4 regular season and swept Brown in the playoffs (Game 2 in double-overtime) to reach the semis.

This year, the Crimson stumbled to a 12-14-3 regular season and swept Brown in the playoffs (Game 2 in overtime) to reach the semis.

It’s getting harder and harder to resist the comparison.

“Well, this one went one overtime, and the other one went two overtimes,” pointed out junior goaltender Dov Grumet-Morris.

Right. But isn’t that being a little nitpicky?

“Yeah, that is being nitpicky,” Grumet-Morris said. “The feeling in the locker room is something we’ve experienced before.”

Thank you. Parallel drawn.

HARVARD 3, BROWN 2 (OT)

No one, of course, expected this to be easy. And it certainly wasn’t.

Then again, you just knew. At least those on the Harvard side did.

When native son Tom Cavanagh, of nearby Warwick, capped Saturday night’s 3-2, series-clincher 7:35 into overtime, the celebration had an air of inevitability, rather than spontaneity.

“I think everyone sensed we were going to win that game,” said senior assistant captain Tyler Kolarik, who did his part by scoring the tying goal early in the third. “I bet myself that Tommy was going to score, and I was right.”

Cavanagh, his name already etched in postseason lore after his overtime winner in the 2002 semis (two years ago today), was superb all weekend, demonstrating the playmaking genes inherited from his three-time all-American father Joe ’71.

He and linemates Tim Pettit and Charlie Johnson finished the series with eight points.

“They killed us,” Brown coach Roger Grillo said.

Cavanagh had two assists in the Game 1 victory—both visionary passes—on Friday night, then vanquished his home-state Bears with a five-hole rebound of Dylan Reese’s point shot. Naturally, this was his team’s first overtime victory since the 2002 ECAC final against Cornell (two years ago tomorrow).

But the interesting thing about Cavanagh’s goal—and Kolarik’s correct prediction—is that neither should’ve come to pass.

Pettit—the senior winger who had scored the Crimson’s first goal in this, his school-record setting 132nd career game—beat Danis under the crossbar 1:40 into overtime. Understandably, his teammates began to celebrate while the Brown players sulked. Danis put his head down.

Only the goal light didn’t go on. And referee Scott Hansen didn’t signal. So everyone kept playing until Hansen blew the whistle to confer with his linesmen.

During the sidebar, Crimson coach Mark Mazzoleni held his arms out as if appealing to some greater force. Assistant coach Gene Reilly did the same. But Hansen, whom Mazzoleni has called the best official in the ECAC, stuck with the call. No goal. Heartbreak for Harvard.

Video replays were inconclusive, but Crimson players confirmed afterward that the puck went in. So did one Brown player.

“I thought it was in,” Kolarik said.

Nevertheless, the score remained 2-2.

“It was just one of those things,” Cavanagh said. “They call it a no-goal and you just have to move on.”

Six minutes later, Cavanagh ensured his team would move on to Upstate New York.

Victory, however, was very uncertain midway through the second period. The Bears led 2-0 on —get ready for this—Shane Mudryk’s first two goals of the season. But less than 30 seconds after Mudryk’s second goal—before the rink announcer finished reading the assist—the Crimson halved the lead. Johnson threw a 30-footer on net that Pettit flipped into the air and (barely) over the line.

“That really changed the momentum,” Mazzoleni said.

Harvard controlled most of the play for the remainder of the night, outshooting the Bears 31-19 over the final two periods and overtime. Brown (15-11-5) had a one-goal lead entering the third, but—again, just as it happened two years ago—the Crimson knotted it early in the third.

You could’ve guessed the goal-scorer (Kolarik) since it is March and, well, he hadn’t scored a goal in the game yet. So there he was in the slot, hammering away at a gorgeous feed from Noah Welch for his 21st career ECAC tournament point in 16 games and second goal in as many nights.

Kolarik’s goal came on the power play. For the series, the Crimson was 3-8 with the extra man. Brown was 1-11. “Special teams won the series,” Kolarik said.

Harvard (16-14-3) has won five straight for the first time since March 1994, when it last advanced to the Frozen Four, and has lost only one of its last nine overall. The series win also gave Mazzoleni his 300th career coaching victory. “That just means I’m getting old,” Mazzoleni said with a laugh. “But this will be a good memory, to win like that.”

HARVARD 4, BROWN 2

Since the ECAC began three-game series in the 1980s, roughly 90 percent of teams winning Game 1 advance. So Friday’s game was very important. Harvard won it, 4-2, by scoring more goals against Danis in the second and third periods (two apiece) than it had over two regular season games (one).

“Even the greatest goalies have holes,” Kolarik said. “The kid’s human, just like Patrick Roy is human.”

The Crimson found those holes with four scoring plays that featured pure, precise passing.

Welch had the first, only 24 seconds into the second, on a cross-ice transition pass from Cavanagh. Brent Robinson tied it midway through the period, but the Crimson moved ahead to stay at 15:24, when Kolarik squeezed a sharp-angle goal past Danis for a 2-1 lead. Both sides agreed that was the biggest goal of the game.

Said Kolarik: “I figured, ‘Why not?’...I just fired it. I didn’t think he was ready.”

Said Danis: “That one, I should’ve had.”

Harvard went up 3-1 about four minutes into the third on a vintage Cavanagh play. He used his speed to turn a center-ice 3-on-2 into a 2-on-1 by the time he worked into the left circle. From there, he fed longtime linemate Pettit, who hammered his ninth of the year into an empty top-shelf.

“It was one of those things where we read off each other,” Cavanagh said. “Timmy always goes to the net hard.”

The Crimson finished the scoring on a tic-tac-toe power-play goal from Kolarik to Reese to Brendan Bernakevitch with eight minutes left. Harvard finished 2-4 on the power play in Game 1—only the third time this season it has scored twice on the power play.

“We have so many weapons,” Welch said. “We’re finally using them all.”

Those words remind you a little of 2002, don’t they?

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