NOTEBOOK: Eagles Score Five In Feisty Contest Against Men's Hockey

As the Harvard men’s hockey team skated through warm-ups on the other side of the river to face its Jesuit city rival, hockey legend Bobby Orr was signing his book in Harvard Square.

“That’s going to be a real test for [the Crimson],” Orr said of its contest against No. 7 Boston College.

It’s fair to say that Number Four was being diplomatic. Harvard faced an uphill battle in its first home game versus the Eagles since 2009, and the road team wasted no time showing why Tuesday night in Allston.

Boston College set the tone less than five minutes into the first frame with a goal from Austin Cangelosi and did not look back, outshooting the Crimson, 17-3, in the first period before adding two more goals in each of the next frames for a 5-1 rout.

The nation’s top scorer shined brightest for the nation’s top offense. Fourteen minutes into the second, Johnny Gaudreau split the Crimson defense off a blueline-to-blueline stretch pass to beat junior goalie Steve Michalek 1-on-0 with some shifty stick work for the junior left-winger’s first of two goals on the night.

“That number 13 can make you pay in a hurry,” Harvard coach Ted Donato ’91 said of Gaudreau.

Gaudreau leads all D-I players with 1.83 points. Boston College upped its nation-leading goals per game average to 4.50 in the win.

HELLO GOODBYE

Donato and the Crimson entered Tuesday night with more options than they’ve had in more than a year. Harvard welcomed back its top defensive pair last weekend with the return of Patrick McNally and Max Everson from their year away from school, and top-line freshman center Alexander Kerfoot was back in the lineup Tuesday after going down with a shoulder injury two weeks ago.

But Harvard’s full bench would not last long. Just over 10 minutes into the first period, a sharp elbow to the head from BC captain Patrick Brown sent Everson to the ice. The sophomore defender was slow to get up, and was only able to skate off the rink with the help of his teammates.

Everson watched from the stands for the third period with a goose egg on his forehead. But he was optimistic about his condition after the contest.

“Anything with the head, [the trainers] are always very careful and will take you out just in case,” Everson said.

Everson said that he does not know whether he has a concussion, but he has never suffered one before. After sitting out the season’s first seven games, he feels more than ready to get back in a Harvard sweater.

GOALTENDING AND FRUSTRATIONS

After an all-BC first period, the Crimson controlled the flow for good portions of the game and outshot the visitors, 32-17, over the final two frames. But goaltender Brian Billett stood tall in the crease, buffering the Eagles’ lightning-strike offense with 34 saves.

“It’s hard to say this, but I thought that our goaltender was the difference in the game,” BC coach Jerry York said. “You can talk 5-1, but Billett had a major, major factor in the outcome of the game tonight.”

With a win in the teams’ 120th meeting, Boston College extended its streak versus Harvard to nine games. York is 23-5-2 in his share of the series.

Harvard’s frustrations on offense came to a head late in the third. Less than two minutes after sophomore Brayden Jaw was sent to the box for what appeared to be a retaliatory elbow to the head, six-foot-three freshman defender Kevin Guiltinan delivered a forceful blindside hit on the five-foot-eight Gaudreau.

Alternate  BC captain Bill Arnold came to his linemate’s defense and wrestled with Guiltinan along the Harvard backboards, and the pair received game misconducts in addition to major and minor penalties.

The chippiness continued through the end of the game.The Eagles violently tripped Kerfoot at the blueline with just over three minutes left, and BC defensemen Michael Matheson and Ian McCoshen drew the ire of Harvard sophomore Jimmy Vesey, who led all Crimson skaters with six shots.

Donato has praised his players throughout the year for their “compete level.”

Tuesday night he said that the squad got “caught watching” BC’s offensive fireworks, but he expressed optimism about where the Crimson is at.

“It’s still a work in progress,” Donato said. “We got a lot of young guys, but I really like the group. And we’ll show much improvement as we come together as a team and move forward.”

—Staff writer Michael D. Ledecky can be reached at michael.ledecky@thecrimson.com. Follow him on Twiter @mdledecky.