Men's Hockey Comes Back Against Last-Place RPI to Earn 2-2 Tie

The Harvard men’s hockey team might want to try its hand at an art class, because it’s become quite good at drawing.

The Crimson (4-4-6, 3-3-4 ECAC) tied its fifth game in seven contests Saturday night, rallying in the third period for the second straight evening to earn a 2-2 draw against Rensselaer (3-16-1, 1-7-1) at Houston Field House.

Freshman Colin Blackwell scored an acrobatic game-tying goal in the third to complete a two-score rally for Harvard, which avoided leaving Troy, N.Y. without a point against the conference’s last-place team.

“I think we played well,” junior forward Alex Fallstrom said. “They got two lucky goals which kind of interrupted our momentum. We had to come from behind and do a pretty serious comeback once again, similar to the one in the game against Union.”

Just as it did Friday night against the No. 14 Dutchmen, the Crimson started slowly against the Engineers, who scored two times in just 26 seconds in the sixth minute of the contest.

First, center Zach Schroeder deflected right wing Marty O’Grady’s right-point shot past Harvard freshman goalie Steve Michalek. After the subsequent faceoff, RPI intercepted a Crimson breakout pass attempt at center ice, setting up a door-step goal by right wing C.J. Lee.

“They got kind of a lucky bounce on the first one; it hit off the guy’s shin pad,” Michalek said.  “But those are going to happen and since it was early in the game, they got a bit of a momentum boost from that and they came right at us.”

“[Allowing back-to-back goals] is something we’ve got to work on in the future,” he added. “We’ve been doing that a lot in past games, which can kind of be a killer.”

After RPI’s Mike Bergin was called for holding under two minutes later, senior forward Eric Kroshus cut the Engineer lead in half, giving the Crimson—which owns the top power play in the nation—a man-up goal for the 18th straight game. Blackwell redirected a point shot by sophomore defenseman Danny Ford on net, and Kroshus snagged the rebound and patiently beat Engineer goalie Scott Diebold to the top half of the goal.

The teams remained scoreless for the rest of the period, despite Harvard holding a 12-4 edge in shots. In the second, the Crimson defense did not allow an RPI shot for the first 13 minutes of the period, blocking 10 Engineer attempts while outshooting RPI by a 9-1 margin.

“It was kind of a frustrating game,” Michalek said. “They really didn’t generate much offense at all; we really took it to them. ... I think that says a lot about our defense and how we were really able to shut them down the whole game and limit their chances.”

The Crimson found an equalizer 1:34 into the third, when Blackwell beat Diebold to tie things up.

“[Blackwell] came in on the right side on a three-on-two,” Fallstrom explained. “He kind of fumbled the puck, then recovered it, spun around, and put a backhander under the goalie’s arm. So it was a really nice goal, and it was an important goal for us. Obviously it tied the game and gave us momentum to get back in it and go for the win.”

But the Crimson was unable to pick up the go-ahead score after that, with Rensselaer killing a Harvard man-up chance late in the third. A strong Harvard shift of Blackwell, junior Luke Greiner, and classmate David Valek was unable to find the back of the net in overtime, ending the game in a tie.

“I thought it was a good effort,” Michalek said. “We definitely dominated the whole game; you can tell by the shot totals. We would’ve liked to come out with a win, but I thought we can take a lot of positives out of it and carry momentum from the way we played into the next game.”

Michalek finished with 11 saves, while senior forward Alex Killorn led the Crimson with five shots. Diebold had 25 saves for RPI, which won 31 of 54 faceoffs and snapped a six-game losing streak.

“Even though we didn’t win, I think we took a step in the right direction,” Fallstrom said. “It really showed that this team has a lot of character, and we’re going to be able to win some big games in the future.”

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