Resilient Crimson Finds Equalizer Twice Against Big Green

Despite outshooting Dartmouth, 37-26, on Friday night, the Harvard men’s hockey team left Hanover, N.H., with a 3-3 tie.

Senior forward Alex Killorn and junior forward Alex Fallstrom each registered six shots, while junior defenseman Danny Biega tallied two assists in the draw.

“We thought we outplayed them the whole game,” sophomore Dan Ford said. “We were disappointed with the result, but we were overall happy with the way that we played. We thought we played well and were deserving of a better result.”

In the 196th matchup between the two squads, the Crimson (3-3-2, 2-3-2 ECAC) jumped out to an early lead in the sixth minute of action when freshman forward Mike Seward netted his first career goal. The rookie blasted a wrist shot into the back of the net from in front of the Big Green goal while on a rush. On the day, Seward also recorded a game-high nine faceoff wins.

Dartmouth (4-4-1, 3-3-1) responded by scoring midway through the first period. Big Green freshman Tyler Sikura intercepted a pass before firing a slap shot over the pads of Harvard goalie Steve Michalek.

Early in the second, Dartmouth scored on a high wrist shot fired off the stick of sophomore Eric Robinson to take a 2-1 lead.

On its first power-play opportunity later in the same frame, Harvard would post a response of its own. With 12 minutes to play in the second period, Dartmouth freshman Jesse Beamish was called for a hooking penalty. Thirty seconds later, Fallstrom delivered the puck to the back of the Big Green net.

Just prior to the score, Dartmouth senior goaltender James Mello blocked Killorn’s shot, but the Harvard forward handled the deflection and found Fallstrom waiting across the ice. Mello could not stop Fallstrom’s shot—the team’s fourth attempt of the power play—tying the game at two.

“The power play came up huge for us in the second period,” Ford said. “Dartmouth went up, 2-1 and 3-2, and our power play answered back in both cases. They’ve scored a lot of big goals all year, and they continued [Friday].”

The home team regained its lead four minutes later on a breakaway goal by Big Green senior Doug Jones. Jones had the one-on-one opportunity with Michalek after a Crimson defenseman, skating backwards, tripped over a referee, losing control of the puck. The senior finished the play by squeezing a backhand attempt past Michalek.

But once again, Harvard rallied on its next man-advantage. Following a Dartmouth elbowing penalty, Crimson junior Luke Greiner knotted the game at three. Greiner redirected a shot originally fired by freshman defenseman Colin Blackwell from just inside the blue line. The equalizer was one of Harvard’s 15 second-period shots.

After the back-and-forth four-goal second period, the third frame was much calmer. The Crimson would get off fewer than half as many shots in the third period as the team took in the second, and the Big Green would record even fewer than Harvard. Mello and Michalek took over, keeping the game knotted at three.

“Both teams had a couple chances, but overall, the game tightened up a little bit,” Ford said. “Both teams were playing more conservative, and both goalies made a couple of big saves to keep the score tied at three.”

Overtime gave the more-than-4000 fans in attendance another defensive display. Both teams combined for only seven shots in five minutes of action, and once again, neither could score.

In the game, Dartmouth was slapped with four penalty calls, while Harvard only committed one infraction.

As the buzzer sounded to finish off the tie, each team earned a point in the standings. The draw, Dartmouth’s first and Harvard’s second, kept the Big Green one point ahead of the Crimson in the ECAC standings early in the year.