NOTEBOOK: Women's Hockey Peppers, Beats Accomplished Goalie

Two North American powerhouses took to the ice this weekend for a big-time exhibition series at the Bright Hockey Center. Sixth-ranked Harvard hosted McGill—currently the No. 2 team in Canada—for the two-game tuneup to the regular season.

The matchup boasted enough star power to draw Jim Shatford, a regional scout for Team Canada women’s hockey, to the press box.

“From a scouting standpoint, it’s always nice to evaluate the Canadians and the Americans when they play together,” Shatford said. “We have a mixture of Olympic-caliber players in this contest...which always makes for interesting, competitive hockey.”

In fact, a total of three players with Olympic experience made an appearance this weekend at Bright: senior defenseman Caitlin Cahow and junior forward Sarah Vaillancourt of the Crimson, and Canadian goalie Charline Labonte on the McGill side.

For Harvard, Quebec native Vaillancourt registered a pair of three-point games against the Montreal-based Martlets, while native Nova Scotian Jenny Brine added an assist on Friday and a goal on Saturday. Labonte shined for McGill, as the accomplished netminder made things difficult for the Crimson with a 36-save performance on Friday and a 30-save outing on Saturday.

“Anytime that you can play against a tremendous goaltender like this one who makes it so hard to score goals and makes you stay so focused,” said Crimson coach Katey Stone, “that can only help you.”

MIXING IT UP

It certainly didn’t look like the Harvard of old on the ice this weekend, as the lines reflected an effort to mix experienced veterans with talented newcomers.

Twenty-three different players logged ice time during the two-game series, which gave Stone an opportunity to tinker with the lineup.

Fortunately for the Crimson, all lines seemed to gel relatively well this weekend. Given that most teams outside of the Ivy League are already in the midst of their regular-seasons schedules, finding the right line combinations is always a bit of an expedited process for Harvard.

“We haven’t had half the practices that this team has had and half the practices that other teams that are not Ivy League schools have had,” Vaillancourt noted. “But I think we are in pretty good shape.”

The top line of Vaillancourt, sophomore transfer Anna McDonald, and freshman Liza Ryabkina provided the heftiest offensive output, as five of Harvard’s eight total scores involved some combination of the three.

“Offensively, the great thing about them is that all three are dangerous, you can’t just worry about one,” Stone said.

THE THIRD CAGE

It’s a new year for the Crimson, which means a renewed battle for the starting spot in net.

For most of last season, then-sophomore Brittany Martin and then-freshman Christina Kessler split time in goal and posted equally impressive numbers. However, Martin earned the starting job for the postseason, capping off the year with a 67-save effort in a quadruple-overtime loss to Wisconsin in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.

In this weekend’s exhibition, Kessler and Martin were given the Friday and Saturday night starts, respectively, to simulate real-game situations. McGill snuck one goal by Kessler in her 14-save appearance while the Martlets managed to get two past Martin in the junior’s 15-save night.

But the story of the weekend might be the efforts of the squad’s third netminder. Freshman Kylie Stephens took over in net during the third period of both games and allowed just two goals while racking up 13 saves.

“I’ll tell you what—Kylie Stephens is competing for that spot as well because she did a heck of a job for us,” Stone said.

—Staff writer Rebecca A. Compton can be reached at compton@fas.harvard.edu.