Spectacular Play Lifts Squad to Win

The stats sheet for Friday night’s game against Quinnipiac will tell you that 17:33 into the second period, freshman Alex Biega scored the game-winning goal, with junior Mike Taylor contributing an assist.

What it doesn’t say, however, is that it was Taylor’s highlight-reel puckhandling that allowed the play to develop, leading to perhaps the most important goal of the season for the Harvard men’s hockey team and a victory over the top-ranked team in the ECAC.

“When you lose some games, mentally you become a little fragile,” Crimson coach Ted Donato ’91 said after the victory, referencing the three-game losing streak Harvard brought into the contest. “A game like tonight can go a long way to boosting the confidence and getting us back heading in the right direction.”

Even before the second period began, Taylor had already begun the process of turning his team around, scoring the Crimson’s first goal—on an assist from Biega—en route to Harvard’s recovery from a 2-0 first-period deficit.

Setting up in the right faceoff circle, Taylor was somehow able to find an angle and bank the puck into the left side of the net to begin the comeback effort.

“Going down 2-0 there, unfortunately for us, has been too often an occurrence,” Donato said, “so it was nice that we battled back.”

It was the game-winning assist, however, that ranked as one of the highlights of the Crimson’s season so far. Taylor took the puck into the Bobcats’ zone along the right boards, maneuvering his way through the Quinnipiac defenders with some deft stick-work until he found an open lane to the right side of the Bobcats’ net.

However, when he eventually released the puck from point-blank range, it wasn’t in the form of a shot on goal, but rather a pass back to Biega in the slot. Biega alertly sent it past Quinnipiac goalie Bud Fisher, who had been left out of position by Taylor’s surprising selflessness.

“I think [Taylor] deked out two guys, I mean, he really did a great job,” Biega said of the play. “I came and I anticipated the rush, and I was calling for the puck, and he just gave me a great pass.”

“The Biega goal was a beautiful play by Mike Taylor,” Donato said in agreement, adding, “I think some of the desperation that we’ve been looking for showed up in the second half of the game.”

The score also marked a step in the right direction for Harvard in that it came with both teams playing at full strength. Even-strength goals had proved hard to come by for the Crimson during the opening stretch of its season, when it had some trouble mounting offensive pressure without an extra man.

“[The Bobcats] are a team that can score goals, and coming in, we’re a team that cannot score goals, and really didn’t have many even-strength goals,” Donato said. “For us to find a way to slow down their scoring and get three on the board for ourselves is a positive sign.”

Even with three goals on the board, however, it was an assist that ranked as perhaps the biggest play of Harvard’s season.

—Staff writer Daniel J. Rubin-Wills can be reached at drubin@fas.harvard.edu.