M. Hockey's Ivy Title Hopes Disappear on Roadtrip

Somehow, it all turned out all right. Despite mustering just a tie against Vermont and an overtime loss to Dartmouth, the No. 11 Harvard men’s hockey team, traveling for its final two regular-season games, managed to secure second place in the ECAC.

Now, after 12 contests in 30 days, the Crimson (18-8-3, 15-5-2 ECAC) can finally look forward to 12 straight days of rest.

“I think we’re all going to go to Bermuda for the first week,” joked Harvard coach Ted Donato ’91, who deemed his team’s league finish, second only to Cornell, the No. 2 squad in the country, “quite an accomplishment.”

It was thanks in large part to No. 13 Colgate, really, which entered the weekend a point behind Harvard in the ECAC standings but managed only a tie and a loss itself.

This luck somewhat eased the sting of a heartbreaking Friday overtime loss in the Big Green’s Thompson Arena, and it made Saturday’s skin-of-the-teeth tie to the Catamounts (19-11-4, 13-6-3) crucial.

“Sometimes the effort’s there, and you don’t come out on top,” said Crimson captain Noah Welch after the 2-2 knot with Vermont, “but you can’t really be disappointed.”

“I’m really proud of the team right now, [and] how we responded tonight,” he added. “[The 2-1 loss to the Big Green], I’m still a little sore about that, but we still finished second, which is great, and we’ve got the bye, which is huge, too.”

HARVARD 2, VERMONT 2

BURLINGTON, Vt.—Harvard had never held a lead against Dartmouth the night before, so the Crimson wasted little time Saturday, notching a power-play goal just 4:26 into the first period.

Welch, who handled the puck on the left side of the ice, dished it to the right circle and a waiting Charlie Johnson, whose quick shot beat Catamount goaltender Joe Fallon glove-side.

It was a quick strike, and vital after 58:46 of scoreless Harvard play the previous night, but it wouldn’t prove decisive.

Vermont struck with the man advantage just over 10 minutes later, when assistant captain Scott Mifsud—the Catamounts’ Hobey Baker candidate—tipped a blast from the point top-shelf on goaltender Dov Grumet-Morris, the Crimson’s own Hobey Baker hopeful.

With 43 points to his name entering the game, Mifsud was nothing of a secret to Harvard, but the Crimson remained unable to stymie the senior winger all the same.

Mifsud notched his second power-play goal of the night 1:05 into the final frame, canceling out a second-period Brendan Bernakevitch tally and leveling the game to 2-2 for good.

“The kid Mifsud was all over our scouting report,” Welch said. “He had 10 power-play goals coming into tonight, and he got two more, which is kind of disappointing.”

With the tie, Vermont locked up a fourth-place ECAC finish, which includes a bye week and home ice until the league tournament moves to Albany for the semifinals and finals.

The stalemate, the result of two man-advantage tallies apiece, gave both teams all they absolutely needed: a single point to secure league position.

Coming down the stretch, though, the Catamounts had a pair of golden opportunities to take the contest altogether, as both Mifsud and linemate Jeff Corey saw good looks. Corey managed to break in on Grumet-Morris on the left side, taking a shot from just outside the crease and the right post with one second left.

The Gutterson cheering proved premature, though, as Grumet-Morris pushed Corey’s attempt past the post with his right pad, and the puck trickled harmlessly away as the buzzer sounded, signaling the extra frame.

It was the second overtime in two days on the heels of a trying month, but Welch brushed off questions of fatigue.

“When you’re playing, it’s only an extra five minutes, to be honest with you,” he said. “It’s only a couple shifts. You’re so loose. You’re doing all right.”

Harvard saw its last good chance with 90 seconds remaining, when Bernakevitch brought it up the ice and assistant captain Tom Cavanagh had a chance in the slot, but a diving Jaime Sifers managed to smother the puck with his body.

And for the most part, both teams were content to dump and chase, each taking home that critical point at the final buzzer.

“I thought we carried the play for most of the game, and unfortunately, we took some penalties and gave them some momentum, and ultimately, they got two power play goals,” Donato said. “But I was happy with the way we played. With the two pressure-cookers that we were in the last two nights, I think will be to our advantage coming down the stretch and the playoffs and tournament games.”

DARTMOUTH 2, HARVARD 1 (OT)

HANOVER, N.H.—Donato wasn’t kidding when he referred to both road venues as “pressure-cookers.” The Big Green’s Thompson Arena was full to the last seat Friday, as Dartmouth tried to overtake the Catamounts for that coveted fourth place in the ECAC standings.

And in the end, it all came down to the final five minutes of regulation—until then, it was just unrelenting Dartmouth defense and brilliant saves by Grumet-Morris.

The netminder faced several odd-man rushes in the second frame, each the result of an uncharacteristic mistake by his defensive corps.

Grumet-Morris stared them all down, though, even Nick Johnson’s breakaway with under a minute remaining.

Dartmouth’s rookie forward stripped the puck from Ryan Lannon in the neutral zone and carried it, uncontested, towards Grumet-Morris before shooting the puck wide.

“Dov is a great, great goaltender,” said Big Green coach Bob Gaudet, “and we’ve had the toughest time scoring at all on him. He just makes things look easy.”

And so 16:27 into the final frame, when Mike Ouellette finally put the home team on the board, the 4,325 fans stuffed into seats and loitering throughout the concourse had reason to celebrate.

“They got some opportunities off the faceoff in our zone,” explained Grumet-Morris. “[They] put the puck on the net, maybe a lucky bounce for them, and they got it to [Ouellette], who was hanging out on the [right] side. He put it in, and he did a good job.”

Just three and a half minutes remained, and Dartmouth seemed in no danger of folding.

Harvard took a time out at 18:43 and returned to the ice with an extra skater, while Grumet-Morris watched from the bench. Cavanagh won the draw, and Bernakevitch took a crack at it, but the puck couldn’t clear traffic.

Sophomore forward Ryan Maki, though, pushed the puck high past Dartmouth netminder Dan Yacey and silenced the crowd.

Nobody had forgotten the two teams’ last meeting, some three weeks ago, when the Crimson broke a 1-1 tie with 58 seconds remaining on the clock and took the 2-1 victory.

“We had a set play [after the timeout],” Donato said. “I’m not going to lie and say it was exactly like that, but the end result was what we were trying to get.”

And so regulation play ended with the Crimson in control, and a stunned Dartmouth squad had to fend off a growing Harvard attack in overtime.

Ultimately, though, the Big Green tallied the sudden-death strike, with 31.2 seconds remaining in overtime.

Again it was Ouellette. Again the junior was planted in front of the right post. And again he shot a puck last touched by captain Lee Stempniak. The second goal was not off a rebound, however, but a pretty centering pass from the left wall that Ouellette lifted top-shelf.

“Ouellette made a heck of a play on the goal,” Donato admitted. “We had pretty good coverage, and there’s not much you can do.”

Dartmouth had capitalized on one chance, while the Crimson had not on several—including a quick cross-crease pass from Mike Taylor that Charlie Johnson couldn’t quite flip past Yacey—causing Donato to say, “As a coach, I knew that we could play very well and not win, and I think that’s what happened. I thought we played very well, but so did they, and they were able to make a play at the end. We had our chances, but I give Dartmouth all the credit.”

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