Missed Chances Spell Tie at UVM

BURLINGTON, Vt.—Sophomore netminder Kyle Richter has boasted the best save percentage in the nation for weeks. But on Friday night at Gutterson Fieldhouse, he finally met his match in the form of a goaltender with just one career win, as No. 13 Harvard (6-3-2, 5-3-1 ECAC) skated to a 2-2 tie with Vermont (3-6-3, 3-3-2 Hockey East).

In a contest that featured stellar goaltending on both sides but spotty offensive execution, the Crimson attackers were stymied by both Catamounts netminder Mike Spillane and their own failure to finish plays.

“It’s a little bit frustrating,” said Harvard coach Ted Donato ’91. “I’d like us to execute better offensively—we had plenty of opportunities, whether it was 2-on-1’s or breakaways.”

The high point, both for Spillane and for the Crimson offense’s frustration, came in the final 10 minutes of the second period, after Vermont had already gone up 1-0 on a rebound goal by Brayden Irwin.

Forced to play from behind, the Harvard offense attempted to respond, stepping up its pressure in the Catamounts zone. And Spillane, in turn, responded to the challenge, making save after save on Harvard’s shooters.

“He definitely held them in the game,” Richter said of his counterpart’s performance. “He made some huge saves, a couple of breakaway saves, and some sprawling rebound saves, which definitely boosted Vermont.”

In particular, senior center Paul Dufault was left shaking his head after he generated two breakaway opportunities in less than a minute but was denied both times by Spillane.

“[Spillane] made a couple of nice saves,” Donato said of the sequence. “The second one, I thought [Dufault] got held down a little bit.”

Not to be outdone by his Catamounts counterpart, Richter contributed some impressive saves of his own. His personal highlight came in the first period, just after Harvard had successfully killed off a penalty. Perched at the right post, Richter went into a full-extension dive to smother a Vermont attempt from the left side.

“Kyle was solid,” Donato said. “He made some good saves, he gave us a chance to win the game. He played pretty composed in there.”

While Spillane was heroic to the end, the Crimson offense was finally able to solve him 17:46 into the second period thanks to a strong second effort from junior Nick Coskren. Falling to the ice, Coskren swiped with an outstretched stick to send home a loose rebound and tally the equalizer.

Coskren came up big again in the third, giving his team its first lead with his second rebound goal of the night, a score on a 6-on-5 that resulted from a delayed penalty on the Catamounts.

Harvard, however, only held the advantage for a little over two minutes. After both tying the game and taking the lead for his team, Coskren was somewhat responsible for letting it slip away, as it was his cross-checking penalty at 12:47 that forced his team to play down a man.

Vermont responded just 32 seconds into its man advantage, when Colin Vock collected a rebound at the right post and sent it past Richter to knot the score at 2.

“It’s obviously disappointing, especially being up a goal in the third period, to have them score on the power play there,” co-captain Dave MacDonald said.

The Crimson would have its chances to regain the lead, including a 4-1 advantage in shots during the five-minute overtime. But once again, Spillane was untouchable, and a lack of offensive execution limited the amount of quality shots that he saw.

While both teams scored twice, Vermont did so on just 22 shots to Harvard’s season-high 37.

“It’s frustrating, because we can’t expect to win hockey games by scoring one or two goals all the time,” Donato said, adding, “We’d like to score goals, but at least generate quality scoring chances.”

Richter saw some positives in the offensive struggles, as part of the reason his team was unable to finish such a high number of plays was that it generated so many.

“The guys battled hard, and they threw a lot of pucks to the net,” Richter said, adding, “Just missed opportunities to capitalize and get some goals, but…I thought they did a good job.”

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