NOTEBOOK: Special Teams' Play Leads to Ties for Women's Hockey

Halfway through the Harvard women’s hockey team’s matchup with rival Brown, a sense that the game would end scoreless surely crept into the minds of many of the 631 fans who came out to Bright Hockey Center.

The story of the 0-0 final could be read after two periods in the special teams play, as the Crimson (10-7-3, 7-3-3 ECAC) continued with its struggles to score on the power play. Meanwhile, it did not allow a single shot during its penalty kill.

As regulation came to a close, the Crimson drew one penalty and was called for two more on the Bears (11-9-4, 9-3-3) in the final five minutes. A number of great scoring opportunities resulted for both teams from these special teams situations, but neither side could convert.

Against Yale (7-10-5, 4-5-4) the next day, the effectiveness of the penalty kill and the inefficiency of the power play again emerged as crucial themes. Harvard was whistled for eight fouls on the afternoon, including five in a penalty-plagued second period, and endured 3:37 of 5-on-3 in the early going. It finally permitted a score on the eighth and final Bulldogs power play. Meanwhile, the Crimson derived just its lone goal from its five man-advantage opportunities, firing a mere seven shots. That was a far cry from the 15 shots on goal it generated with an extra skater the previous night.

For Harvard, the struggles carried over from its first post-exam contest last Monday against the Big Green. The Crimson, which boasted the number-two power play in the country entering this past week, went 1-for-5 during that game and is now 2-for-17 over its last three games.

Freshman Brittany Martin’s performance in net also helped to stymie Brown and Yale, as she stopped 76 shots over the two contests and boldly responded to her first career home conference starts.

“Your best penalty killer is your goalie,” Browns coach Digit Murphy said. “When we pressured [Martin], she came up big.”

Martin is now 2-0-2 on the season, and lowered her goals-against average to 0.96 while anchoring Harvard’s impressive penalty kill this weekend.

CLOSE BUT NO GOAL

On the heels of its scoreless draw with Brown, the turning points of Harvard’s Saturday clash versus Yale could quickly be identified as the game’s two scores. But the most important plays of the game may have been a trio of Bulldogs goals that were disallowed—two in the opening frame and a final wave-off in overtime, permitting the 1-1 final.

The initial pair of whistles came during a pivotal stretch of 5-on-3 play to end the first period. With goalie Martin facing a relentless Yale onslaught, the referee blew the play dead during a fracas in front of the net, despite Martin failing to control the puck before it eventually squirted over the line. Only seconds later, Jenna Spring’s slapshot from outside flew over Martin’s right shoulder aand into the top shelf of the net, but was disallowed due to an apparent high-sticking.

Another preemptive whistle, with about two minutes remaining in extra time, erased a game-winning goal for the Bulldogs when the official lost sight of the puck.

In a contest in which offense was so scarce, and with Martin playing so well, the almost-scores were difficult for Yale coach Hilary Witt to swallow.

“Disallowed goals is something that is very frustrating because kids work so hard,” Witt said. “Goals aren’t easy to come by and when they don’t go your way, they don’t go your way. The officials have to make their calls.”

“I think they should have been disallowed,” Martin said. “If the whistle blows before the puck goes in, if it’s a high stick, that’s part of the rules. It’s part of the game of hockey.”

AROUND THE ECAC

St. Lawrence has long been the top ECAC team according to the national rankings, but this weekend it finally climbed to the top of the league standings.

The Saints finished the weekend with 22 points after a 3-1 defeat of No. 8 Princeton and a 7-1 romp over Quinnipiac.

No. 9 Clarkson had a chance to keep pace, but an overtime goal by Princeton’s Annie Greenwood broke a scoreless tie and gave the Tigers the victory on the road. Both the Golden Knights and Princeton went 1-1 over the weekend, giving each team 20 points. The two squads stand in a tie for third place, trailing St. Lawrence by two points and one point behind second-place Brown.

The Bears, after tying Harvard Friday night, almost fell on Saturday after going down to Dartmouth 3-0. But they bounced back for a 3-3 tie, keeping them within spitting distance of first.

For the fifth-place Crimson, six league games remain, with three coming against teams in the top three of the standings. The scheduling will not leave them much room for error down the stretch. Princeton will only face one top-three team down the stretch and has a near-guaranteed pair of wins at Union, which is currently winless in the ECAC.

—Staff writer Gabriel M. Velez can be reached at gmvelez@fas.harvard.edu. —Staff writer Jonathan Lehman can be reached at jlehman@fas.harvard.edu.