Crimson Faces Black Bears and Recent History

The third time’s the charm, or so they say. And faced with its third-consecutive NCAA playoff appearance, the Harvard men’s hockey team certainly hopes that is the case when it faces off against Maine tonight at 5 p.m. at the NCAA’s East Regional in Albany, N.Y.

Tonight’s game will also mark the second time in three seasons that the Crimson has matched up against the University of Maine Black Bears, and neither of the previous two encounters went Harvard’s way. In 2002, Harvard faced Maine in Worcester during the opening round of the NCAA regionals. The Crimson lost a tight game in overtime, 4-3. Harvard lost again during the 2002-2003 season at a “neutral site” game in Portland, this time by a 4-2 score. A win tonight would sever that two-game losing streak and push Harvard past the opening round of the NCAAs for the first time in a decade.

But first Harvard must defeat Maine, a team that went 30-7-3 and finished one point behind Boston College during the Hockey East regular season. But while the Eagles were sitting home licking their wounds and trying to figure out how they were shown the playoff door by BU, the Black Bears were skating through the Hockey East tournament, eventually emerging late last Saturday with a 2-1 win over UMass in triple overtime.

“Maine’s team speed and offensive talent poses a threat,” said assistant captain Tyler Kolarik. “They have some terrific goal scorers on their team.”

“Maine has a very, very fast team this year,” said Union coach Nate Leaman. “They have great team speed.

“They are a team that always has pressure on you, whether offensively or defensively,” he continued. “They make you play at a higher pace.”

But to junior netminder Dov Grumet-Morris, Harvard has already been prepared for Maine and talented skaters like Colin Shields and Todd Jackson by facing some of the other offensively talented teams in the ECAC or in Hockey East.

“I think that Maine has good team speed up front but with our games against BC, SLU, and Dartmouth we will be able to handle that style of play,” Grumet-Morris said.

But of late, Maine’s offense has been sputtering. Despite entering tonight’s contest on a seven-game winning streak and boasting one of Hockey East’s best offenses, they have won each of their last five games by a one-goal margin. That scoring drought wasn’t a problem because Maine’s stellar netminder, Jimmy Howard, has been untouchable of late.

“[Jimmy] Howard could be the best goalie in college hockey,” Kolarik said. “He has size, quickness and excellent positioning.”

“Maine has a great goaltender,” Harvard coach Mark Mazzoleni agreed. “His numbers back it up.”

The numbers are what you’d expect from the nation’s top netminder; Howard, who split time with Frank Doyle, recorded a .958 save percentage and a 1.05 goals against average over 18 games. But in the same way that facing the talented forwards from BC, like Ben Eaves and Tony Voce, or Dartmouth’s dynamic duo of Lee Stempniak and Hugh Jessiman has helped prepare Harvard for the Maine’s talented forwards, encountering Brown goalie Yann Danis in the ECAC quartefinals will help the Crimson be prepared to face Howard.

Howard, and the Maine defense which surrounds him, is a significant part of the reason that the Black Bears were seeded atop the East regional bracket and ranked No. 1 overall in the last USCHO.com poll. And as a team that only qualified for NCAAs because of the automatic bid that goes to the winner of the ECAC, Harvard is considered a serious underdog in tonight’s contest.

That is not something that fazes this team, according to its captain, senior Kenny Smith.

“We don’t really think about ourselves as underdogs,” Smith said. “We know many people around the nation aren’t expecting us to do much damage in the tourney but as far as we are concerned, we can beat any team out there. I think there is no better way to start this tournament than to play the number one ranked team in the nation and figure out how good we are.”

Leaman, who has seen Harvard from both sides of the ice, first as a Crimson assistant and currently as the Union head coach, agrees with much of Smith’s assessment.

“Harvard has a great chance in NCAAs,” Leaman said. “They just won the ECAC Championship...and that builds a lot of confidence within the team and within the players.”

“I think Harvard is going to represent the ECAC well,” he continued. “The sky’s the limit for that group.”

That the sky was the limit for Harvard was certainly the feeling at the beginning of the season, when both the media and coaches picked Harvard to finish atop the ECAC.

The national media agreed, slotting the Crimson at No. 6 in the first pre-season poll.

But nothing transpired the way the team or the pundits anticipated.

At least until the season’s final game, a 3-0 shutout of Dartmouth. Since then Harvard has reeled off seven straight wins, tied with Maine for the longest streak in the nation. And that streak has made the team and its coach confident entering Albany.

“All along we’ve had a quiet confidence in ourselves,” Mazzoleni said. “For a long time we’ve been in this mindset of single-elimination because if we lost we were done. I think it’s helped us focus on the game and the task at hand.

“I can say this,” he continued. “Out of the five years I’ve been here, and this is our third year in a row in the NCAA tournament, this team I feel the best about,” Mazzoleni said.

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