Harvard Comeback Effort Ends in Tie with Big Green

At 6:22 in the second period, the No. 18 Dartmouth men’s hockey team (10-7-2, 7-4-2 ECAC) scored a short-handed goal to put itself up, 3-1, against visiting Harvard (4-11-4, 4-6-4) Sunday at Thompson Arena.

At that moment, it would have been easy for the Crimson to lose hope. It would have been easy to slide back into the team’s recent habit of staying down when down. Instead, Harvard took a step in another direction.

Though it was playing against a ranked opponent, the Crimson retaliated by scoring three unanswered goals to take a 4-3 lead early in the third period. The game eventually ended in a 5-5 tie.

“When we were down 3-1 in the second period, it was easy to give up and say we weren’t going to win, but we really fought back and kept going and tied it up and even got the lead,” sophomore forward Mike Biega said. “It was unfortunate that they tied it up at the end, but we were happy with the result overall.”

Junior forward Doug Rogers led the team’s comeback by scoring the first of Harvard’s three unanswered tallies at 18:41 in the second with a 5-on-3 advantage. After moving the puck around with Biega, freshman forward Eric Kroshus fed the puck across the goal. Rogers was waiting on the left post and easily beat the out-of-position Big Green goaltender.

Rogers notched a hat trick and an assist to lead the Crimson’s effort in Sunday night’s tie.

“[The hat trick] was a tribute to my players for making that possible,” Rogers said.

Rogers scored again at 4:48 in the third period—less than 50 seconds after freshman forward Daniel Moriarty scored the game-tying goal—to give Harvard its first lead of the game at 4-3. Both goals were scored on power plays.

“[The goals] were really important especially since we’ve been switching around our power plays a lot,” Biega said. “They weren’t going as well as we hoped [they] would lately and [Sunday] night our power plays blew up and we did really well. We have to be able to capitalize on the special teams and the penalty kills.”

Though the Crimson has struggled on the power play in recent games, the team scored four out of its five goals on the night with man advantages. Additionally, Harvard’s defensive unit effectively shut down Dartmouth’s special teams, killing five of the Big Green’s six power-play opportunities.

“In NCAA hockey, special teams are very important,” Rogers said. “You need to score goals on the power play to be a successful team. It’s the same for penalty kills. NCAA hockey is special teams itself and I think it’s good that we finally started scoring goals on the power play.”

After the Big Green responded to the Crimson’s offensive explosion with a goal of its own, freshman forward Ryan Grimshaw tallied his first collegiate goal at 15:04 in the third period, giving Harvard the lead again. The rookie received the puck from junior defenseman Chad Morin before slipping it into the back of the net.

Though the Crimson had a 15-10 advantage in shots in the third period, the defense and junior goaltender John Riley were unable to stop Dartmouth’s last-ditch efforts to score. Big Green sophomore forward Evan Stephens tallied his second goal of the game with just over three minutes to play, sending the contest into overtime.

“I think our team was a lot happier after [Sunday] night because we’ve been struggling lately, but I think the team played much better [Sunday] night,” Biega said. “Overall, the team was a lot happier, so it’s a step in the right direction.”

Harvard will play its first game of the new semester Friday night against Union at Bright Hockey Center.

“In practice, we’re really trying to work on and build off what we did against Dartmouth,” Rogers said. “We moved the puck well against Dartmouth. We’ve been practicing with a certain confidence and edge. We just need to keep that going forward.”

—Staff writer Lucy D. Chen can be reached at lucychen@fas.harvard.edu.