Men's Hockey Blanked by Cornell, Season Over

The Harvard men’s hockey team (9-21-3) battled through difficult first and second periods before finally falling, 3-0, to No. 9 Cornell (19-8-4) at Lynah Rink in the second game of its ECAC quarterfinal series on Saturday night.

The loss effectively ended the Crimson’s ECAC run, as well as its season. And for the first time in the 100-year history of the Harvard-Cornell hockey rivalry, the Crimson dropped four games to the Big Red during a single season.

“We went into the game knowing what they were going to bring,” captain Alex Biega said. “They’re a very gifted team, strong size-wise, and they’re difficult to play. Unfortunately, we couldn’t find the offensive flair we’ve had in years past and in recent games. It was obviously a great disappointment to the team to end the way it did, but that’s really the way the game goes sometimes.”

After a back-and-forth opening period, the Big Red got on the board at 12:05 of the second when senior Blake Gallagher scored a power play goal to put Cornell up, 1-0.

Though Harvard came close to tallying the equalizer several times, Gallagher’s lone second-period goal would stand as the game-winner.

“We really tried to prevent them from generating any offense…but slowly over time, the more chances we give them on the power play, it’s obviously one of those things where you have to limit them from power-play opportunities,” Biega said.

The Crimson headed into Saturday night’s matchup coming off of a 5-1 defeat the night before and—from the looks of the first period—seemed to be unable to neither shake off loss nor the frenzied atmosphere at Lynah generated by Cornell’s 4,267 fans.

Harvard only managed to put three shots on goal in that frame and was quickly denied each time by Big Red netminder Ben Scrivens, who recorded his fifth shutout of the season and 17th of his career.

“[Scrivens] is a candidate for the Hobey Baker, and he’s unbelievable,” Biega said. “Part of his success is that his team plays such a defensive game, and they don’t give up much at all. Against a defense like that, we need to have one of our best nights.”

The Crimson received its only power play opportunity of the night when Big Red junior forward Patrick Kennedy was whistled early in the second for hooking. But despite shots on goal from junior forward Pier-Olivier Michaud and freshman forward Marshall Everson, Scrivens kept the score tied at 0-0 before Gallagher put Cornell up just a few minutes later.

But Harvard was lucky to escape the second period just one goal down—it was outshot by the Big Red, 17-7, in the frame—thanks to strong play from junior goaltender Kyle Richter, who stopped 29 shots on the night.

“[Richter] really came out of his shell and carried the team on his back,” Biega said. “Unfortunately the result wasn’t there, but he made some very key saves that prevented them from scoring several times.”

Cornell added an insurance goal late in the third. With just over five minutes left in regulation, captain Colin Greening swooped behind and around the net before passing the puck to sophomore Sean Collins, who fired it into the top of the cage. Though the goal was reviewed, officials upheld the call on the ice to give the Big Red a 2-0 lead.

With the minutes on the clock ticking away, the Crimson kicked it into high gear. But Michaud was called for tripping at 17:30 to give Cornell the man advantage for majority of the balance of the game. Facing elimination as well as the end of the season, Harvard coach Ted Donato ’91 decided to pull Richter with just over a minute remaining in regulation.

But in the end, it was the Big Red that tallied the third and final goal of the night when Greening notched an empty-netter.

The win sends Cornell into the ECAC semifinals in Albany, N.Y., where it will meet Brown, and Harvard back home to Cambridge, where it will have to face the reality of how its season has played out.

“We’re all pretty disappointed in the season we had,” senior forward Doug Rogers said. “We had a losing record and didn’t achieve some of the goals we set out in the beginning of the year. We played well against Princeton and played hard against Cornell, and in the end that’s really all you can control.”

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