NOTEBOOK: Freshman Goalkeeper Impresses In Return

To earn its first victory in over two months, the Harvard men’s hockey team had to do it the hard way.

Rather than relying on pretty goals and offensive firepower, the Crimson worked from the defense up and kept a level head in a close, back-and-forth game.

Despite being outshot, 30-25, for the game, Harvard held on for the win behind the impressive performance of freshman goaltender Matt Hoyle.

After being benched in favor of junior backup John Riley in last Sunday’s game at Dartmouth, Hoyle made the most of his latest chance in net.

The rookie made 29 saves on the night, allowing just one goal on a well-executed power play from the Union offense.

“The one time they did beat [Hoyle], he really had no chance,” Crimson coach Ted Donato ’91 said. “The kid made a great shot, and he didn’t miss it by much.”

Goaltending as been a bit of a question mark for Harvard throughout the season, as the inexperienced tandem of Hoyle and Riley has tried to fill the skates of Kyle Richter, the top goalie in the ECAC last season.

Richter is taking a year-long leave of absence from the College.

Hoyle’s confidence and comfort level on the ice will be crucial to Harvard as it moves into an important stretch of league games that will decide home-ice advantage for the conference playoffs.

“He looked comfortable, and I thought we gave him a chance early to not be under the gun like he’s been in the last few games,” Donato said. “As he settled into the game, I thought he looked like it was going to take a very good scoring opportunity to get something by him.”

But Hoyle couldn’t have done it without some help from the Crimson defensive corps.

“I thought overall our defense did a good job of eliminating the real quality scoring chances,” Donato said. “I thought [Union] generated some good shots, but I thought we did a pretty good job of not allowing second or third shots from tough areas.”

BOXED IN

Harvard players found themselves in the penalty box for all sorts of reasons on Friday night.

Late in the second period, just 20 seconds after the Crimson started a power play, junior defenseman Alex Biega was sprawled across the ice in front of a Dutchman skater. Although it appeared that Biega had simply tripped, the referees called an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty for diving.

And on one of the more interesting plays of the night, sophomore Pier-Olivier Michaud was called for holding in the third period after wrapping both arms around a streaking Union player in an attempt to slow him down.

However, despite the wide range of penalties called, the Crimson’s penalty kill had a strong showing, limiting the Dutchmen to just one goal on six chances.

“I think it’s always the case when we kill off some penalties—we kind of take [the] momentum of the game,” Biega said. “Our special teams have been tremendous in the past two games and hopefully we can keep that going.”

SPARK PLUG

Harvard’s offensive breakout—the team has put up eight goals in its last two games—is long overdue. Prior to this week, the Crimson mustered just nine goals in its previous six contests.

The team’s newfound offensive energy stems from the outstanding play of junior forward Doug Rogers, who has come alive over the past week.

Rogers had a hand in two of the Harvard goals on Friday, scoring the first and notching an assist on the second.

That performance comes on the heels of Rogers’ four-point showing at Dartmouth last Sunday, where he tallied a hat trick and tacked on an assist in the 5-5 tie. Rogers is now second on the team with 13 points, trailing only Biega.

“I thought some of the key characters that we need…going forward stepped up for us and did a good job,” Donato said. “Whether you’re talking about Doug Rogers or Jimmy Fraser or Matt Hoyle, I thought we had a lot of guys who played well tonight.”

—Staff writer Kate Leist can be reached at kleist@fas.harvard.edu.