Harvard Heads to Clarkson for ECAC Round One

As the Harvard men’s hockey team prepares for its first-round ECAC playoff series with Clarkson this weekend, it finds itself surging at just the right time.

After starting the year 4-18-1, the Crimson has won five of its last six contests, including a sweep of the Golden Knights and St. Lawrence last weekend.

The streak pushed Harvard (7-14-1, 9-19-1 ECAC) past the Saints and into tenth place in the ECAC standings. That set up a matchup at seventh-seeded Clarkson (9-12-1, 15-17-2), which has gone in the opposite direction recently, losing four of its past six games. The series begins tonight at 7 p.m. at Cheel Arena, and will be followed by contests at 7 p.m. tomorrow night and 4 p.m. Sunday, if necessary.

“Probably a month ago, we really made a decision as a team and as a group not to dwell on what our record was at the time, but really concentrate on …playing our best hockey coming into the playoffs,” Crimson coach Ted Donato ’91 said. “That’s where we’re headed, and now we have to do it consistently.”

The teams split the season series this season, with the Golden Knights prevailing 3-1 in Potsdam on November 13 and the Crimson winning by the same score last Friday evening in Cambridge. Sophomore forwards Marshall Everson and Alex Fallstrom and junior forward Alex Killorn all scored for Harvard in that contest.

“We have to stick with what we’ve been doing,” senior forward Matt McCollem said. “We’ve definitely been taking steps in the right direction, and we’re on a pretty good streak now.”

But the Crimson knows it cannot focus on prior results as it prepares for its best-of-three series.

“I don’t think beating them last weekend is going to have any say over what our attitude is going to be [this weekend],” McCollem said.

To emerge victorious, Harvard will need to contain a Clarkson offense that ranked seventh in the ECAC with a 2.74 goals per game average.

Senior forward Brian DeFazio led the Golden Knights with 13 scores and 24 points during the regular season. Junior Jake Morley had seven goals and a team-high 15 assists, while forwards Nick Tremblay and Allan McPherson were tied for the team lead with 21 points.

Trying to stop that offense between the pipes will likely be senior Ryan Carroll, who is 5-0 in his last five starts.

“I think establishing a good forecheck, and getting shots on net, are a few key things we need to do,” McCollem said.

The Clarkson offense had a lot of trouble scoring on man-up opportunities during the regular season, as the squad’s 12.2 percent power-play percentage ranked dead last in the conference. But that may not be a problem for the Golden Knights, as the Crimson defense faced an NCAA-low 111 power-plays during the regular season.

While Clarkson was not successful playing man-up during the year, the team was used to playing man-down. The Golden Knights’ 615 penalty minutes in 2011 were significantly more than any other team in the conference.

In net for Clarkson will be junior Paul Karpowich, who led the ECAC in saves by a wide margin during the regular season, but finished just tenth in the conference with a .910 save percentage.

Attacking Karpowich will be a Harvard offense that has averaged 3.29 goals per game in its last seven contests. Junior forward Alex Killorn led the squad with 13 scores during the regular season. Sophomore defenseman Danny Biega–named to the All-Ivy League First Team yesterday–paced the team with 25 points on 15 assists and ten goals. Senior brother Michael Biega finished with eight scores and 13 assists.

The Crimson offense has been extremely balanced of late, with eight different players scoring the team’s nine goals last weekend. The squad’s 23 scores over its past seven contests equaled its total number of goals from its first 17 games.

“We have really come together as a team,” Fallstrom said. “We’ve been facing a lot of adversity, and it’s really made us stronger. And we really found a game plan now, and we have our power-play going, and our penalty kill is really strong, so we’re really starting to put the pieces together.”

In addition to a birth in the ECAC Quarterfinals, a major milestone is at stake for the Crimson as well this weekend. With a series victory, Harvard will reach 1,300 hundred wins in program history.

The Crimson has won three of its last four ECAC first-round series, including a sweep at Princeton last year. The Golden Knights hold a 50-46-11 all-time record against Harvard in a rivalry that dates back to 1935, and the teams are tied in the playoffs at 9-9-1.

But for now, the Crimson isn’t paying any attention to history.

“All we’re thinking about is playing [tonight], and we’ll take it from there,” McCollem said. “We’re going to come in prepared and do what it takes to win.”

—Staff writer Scott A. Sherman can be reached at ssherman13@college.harvard.edu.