Killorn Scores Game Winners for Men's Hockey

Playing in front of a sold out Bright Hockey Center crowd and a far larger national television audience Friday night, the Harvard men’s hockey team needed somebody to finally step up.

Facing Ivy rival Yale, the team was badly in need of a win, having not gotten one since Dec. 10.

So it turned to its best scorer and assistant captain.

And Alex Killorn rose to the challenge.

The senior scored his second goal of the night with 1:19 left in the game, giving the Crimson a dramatic 4-3 victory.

“All year, we’ve been trying to put a full game together, and [Friday night] it seemed like everything just came together,” Killorn said. “That last goal at the end was exciting [after] being in so many close games throughout the year, so we were pretty happy with that.”

The following evening, in front of another sellout home crowd, Killorn did it again.

This time, the forward scored a bit earlier—with eight minutes remaining in the final period—but the goal nonetheless proved to be a game-winner in Harvard’s 3-1 victory.

“We said we had to find a way to win that type of game,” Crimson coach Ted Donato ’91 said. “Fortunately we had some guys step up and make some big plays.”

The two late tiebreaking goals were especially important for a Harvard team that had gone to overtime in eight of its previous 11 contests and had already set a program record with eight draws on the year.

“You know what’s on the line when it’s a tie game,” Killorn said. “And I think you dial in a little bit more, knowing that if you score the next goal, especially with the time remaining, it could be a game-winner.”

That was just what Killorn did this weekend when his flair for the dramatic helped a resurgent Crimson squad reach fourth place in the ECAC standings, a position within striking distance of the teams directly above it.

And the senior’s tallies were not just timely; they were also impressive.

In his game-winner against Yale—just three minutes after the Bulldogs had tied the game themselves—Killorn took a long cross-ice pass from junior forward Marshall Everson and got loose on a breakaway. His first shot was blocked by Yale goalie Jeff Malcolm, but Killorn followed through with his backhand and put back his own rebound in traffic, finishing with an ebullient fist pump before he was mobbed by his teammates.

“Earlier in the period, I had like the exact same play, a two-on-one,” Killorn said. “I ended up shooting it high, and I didn’t want to do that again.... There was a lot going on. I got the shot off and it just ended up going through his legs.”

“[It was a] big goal,” Donato added. “We needed to find a way to put us over the top in a game.”

The score came a period after Killorn tied the game at 2-2. Fifty-five seconds into the second, the forward took a pass from junior defenseman Danny Biega, flew up the left side of the rink from the blue line, skated around the net, and beat Malcolm inside the right post for a forehanded wraparound score.

One day later, Killorn was back at it against the Bears.

In four-on-four play, the senior moved into the slot and fired the puck off the left post past Brown goaltender Mike Clemente to put the Crimson up, 2-1, 12:18 into the final period.

“I was trailing [senior forward Eric] Kroshus,” Killorn said. “He dropped it back to me, I kind of did a fake shot, went around the D, and luckily I took a shot and it hit the post and went in.”

The three goals on the weekend gave Killorn a team-high 14 on the season, tied for third best in the ECAC. The Tampa Bay Lightning draftee also leads the squad with 26 points—fourth in the conference—and is second with 12 assists.

“Alex has been a good player for us for the past three years, but this year he’s turned it up to a whole new level,” senior forward Daniel Moriarty said. “He’s one of the best players in the league, if not in the country.... We hope he’s going to continue to score down the stretch for us.”

For his part, Killorn is just planning on doing whatever he can to help the team maintain its newfound winning touch.

“It’s frustrating to be in so many tight games,” Killorn said. “But we also look at it optimistically, in the sense that a lot of those ties have been on the road. [Now] we’ve got a stretch at home where I feel like we could turn some of those ties into wins.”

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