Beanpot Consolation Game Awaits

TROY, N.Y.—It is the Beanpot matchup everybody wanted to see, the No. 10 Harvard men’s hockey team against No. 1 Boston College, and at 5 p.m. today, the two squads will clash on the FleetCenter ice. But in the consolation round?

It is an unexpected twist, but one that in no way lessens the importance of the game for the Crimson (15-6-2, 12-4-1 ECAC). The more wins Harvard can garner against quality teams, the easier it will become for the squad to crack the NCAA tournament with an at-large bid.

It is a situation reflected in the pairwise rankings, a system that predicts tournament selection.

Tonight provides a prime opportunity for Harvard to help its own cause. The Crimson is currently ninth, and BC tied for third.

Harvard has already beaten the Eagles (18-4-5, 12-1-5 Hockey East) once this season, 3-1, when the latter was tops in the country.

In fact, the Crimson has already downed a slew of top-15 teams (then-No. 10 Boston University, then-No. 10 Vermont, then-No. 11 Maine, and then-No. 9 Cornell), but Crimson coach Ted Donato ’91 still deems tonight’s matchup “what may be our biggest game for the rest of the year as far as the NCAA tournament goes.”

In two of the three previous seasons, Harvard has had to depend on winning the 12-team ECAC tournament to make the NCAAs.

This time around, explained captain Noah Welch at the beginning of this year, “I don’t really want to do that.

“That’s a little too much to rely on at the end of the season.”

A win tonight would certainly help the Crimson, though it will not come easily.

Boston College has lost just once in its last 15 games. And that loss? To the Terriers in last Monday’s Beanpot semifinals, just as Harvard fell to underdog Northeastern.

The Eagles are putting up 3.30 goals per game these days, spearheaded by the 39-point and 30-point seasons by junior Patrick Eaves and captain Ryan Shannon, respectively.

“Other than [tonight],” Donato said of the remainder of the regular season. “I don’t think we’ll play somebody, pairwise, that is as important.”

BELLS AND WHISTLES

All in all, Friday’s game at Rensselaer’s Houston Fieldhouse saw 29 penalties and 106 minutes assessed.

Eighty four of those minutes came with just 45 seconds remaining, when three players from each team were dealt minors for unsportsmanlike conduct and roughing, as well a 10-minute game misconducts.

That leaves just 22 other penalty minutes on the scoresheet, of which Harvard served 16 on eight minor penalties.

Entering the game, the Crimson was averaging a nation-low 13.4 minutes.

“I thought we took maybe a few penalties that we don’t normally take,” admitted goaltender Dov Grumet-Morris, who turned away all 11 of Rensselaer’s power-play shots. “And also, we got caught on the road with a little bit of difficulty with the crowd influencing certain officials.”

But while Harvard’s penalty kill units had heretofore struggled, Friday night saw the Crimson quartets stave off every last Engineer rush.

“They did a real good job on the [penalty kill],” said Rensselaer forward Kirk MacDonald, “just getting in the shooting lanes, taking away shots. We moved the puck pretty well, but they’re just real disciplined.

“They made it real tough for us to get some quality shots on the [power play].”

JUST SHOOT ME

The Houston Fieldhouse scoreboard read 3-0 at the end of the Friday’s contest, but oddly enough, the winning team was outshot by a 2-1 margin: the Crimson mustered just 16 shots on goal, while the Engineers managed 32.

Not one Harvard shot on goal was mustered by Dylan Reese, Ryan Maki, Dan Murphy, Jon Pelle, or Steve Mandes—all normally large pieces of the Crimson offense, despite the fact that entering the contest, “putting pucks on net” was deemed a focus by players and coaches alike.

“We were in the box a lot of the night,” Donato said, “so that’s where [the disparity originated].

“I didn’t think, five-on-five, we gave up a lot of great chances,” he added.

And though Harvard took just four, seven, and five shots on goal in the three respective periods, the visiting team made them count, notching a strike in each frame.

“That’s why they’re the No. 10 team in the nation right now,” said Rensselaer’s Kirk MacDonald. “They capitalized on their opportunities, and we didn’t.”

ALONG THE BOARDS

Senior Brendan Bernakevitch, who has garnered an uncharacteristically low three points in the last 11 games, was again held pointless despite leading his team with three shots…Friday’s shutout was Grumet-Morris’ third of the season and eight of his career, leaving him just one shy of the Harvard record…The Crimson went 1-for-2 on the power play after going 1-for-11 in its past two games.

—Staff writer Rebecca A. Seesel can be reached at seesel@fas.harvard.edu.