Men's Hockey Falls to No. 12 Cornell, 3-2

Returning home after a nationally-televised rout, the Harvard men’s hockey team walked into a hostile, sold-out Bright-Landry Hockey Center on Saturday night looking for its first conference win in two months. It left with one of its most frustrating losses of the season.

The Crimson (5-9-3, 2-7-3 ECAC) played some of its best minutes of the year Friday, dominating the offensive zone for long stretches of the third period in front of a Big Red-heavy crowd. But the hosts could not overcome their earlier mistakes as No. 12 Cornell (9-4-3, 5-3-2 ECAC) skated to a 3-2 win.

“You can’t just walk away from this one,” freshman Sean Malone said. “Those are points that we need right now. I thought that there were a lot of things that we did well but you have to do this consistently, every game. I thought maybe for 10 minutes there we didn’t and it cost us the game.”

A short-hander and two last-minute strikes off Harvard turnovers gave the visitors all the goals they needed. After goals from Malone and freshman forward Devin Tringale erased a two-goal deficit, senior center Dustin Mowrey provided the game winner with 20 seconds left in the middle frame.

Cornell’s first two goals came in the first period off a shorthanded breakaway from junior Madison Dias on Harvard’s first power play and, 13 minutes later, a strike from sophomore forward Christian Hilbrich with four seconds left on the clock.

Senior goaltender Andy Iles did the rest for the Big Red in the third, making 11 saves in the final frame and killing off two Crimson power plays in the final 10 minutes of regulation.

Harvard entered Friday looking for its first conference win since a 5-3 win at Princeton on Nov. 15. Crimson coach Ted Donato ’91 opted to start goaltender Steve Michalek after the junior came off the bench to replace senior starter Raphael Girard in the Crimson’s 5-1 loss to Yale in the Rivalry On Ice game at Madison Square Garden on Saturday. Michalek was a solid presence between the pipes for Harvard on Friday, stopping 25 of 28 shots and yielding no easy goals, but the Crimson left points on the table.

“I think we are frustrated. We beat ourselves,” Donato said. “Both times [Cornell scored in the last minute of the period] we had full possession of the puck and basically turned it over and first goal we get beat on a bad change and gave up a breakaway. We didn’t make them work for their opportunities.”

In its first game of 2014, Cornell showed little rust in the opening minutes, holding Harvard to zero shots on goal through the first nine and a half minutes and keeping any Crimson opportunities to the outside. On offense, junior defender Joakim Ryan set up Cornell’s first two goals with blueline-to-blueline passes. With Hilbrich in the box early in the first period, Ryan intercepted an attempted dump-in from Harvard junior defender Patrick McNally and advanced the puck to Dias, who broke away to beat Michalek over his right shoulder 6:22 into the opening frame.

Ryan struck again in the final seconds of the period, stripping sophomore forward Jimmy Vesey of the puck in the neutral zone and then lofting a pass to Hilbrich. Hilbrich skated around Harvard junior defenseman Max Everson in the slot before beating Michalek right-side to put the visitors up, 2-0.

Malone helped Harvard respond with goals five minutes apart in the second period. The freshman center muscled a shot past Iles while drawing a hooking penalty at 10:17 and then, five minutes later, won a battle on the Cornell back boards to find Tringale isolated against the Big Red goaltender for a shorthanded strike.

The puck seemed to be sliding in Harvard’s favor, but Cornell capitalized on one more costly Crimson turnover as time expired in the second. Hilbrich stripped the puck from McNally behind the Harvard goalline and advanced it on to junior forward Brian Ferlin, who cycled the puck to Dustin Mowrey in the right face-off circle for a one-timer with 19.7 seconds left in the frame. The goal proved decisive.

Harvard had multiple chances to tie in the third but were unable to convert. Vesey rang a shot off the pipe 33 seconds into the period, and Iles came up with a stop two minutes later on a point-blank shot from sophomore forward Brayden Jaw under the right faceoff circle.

The Crimson commanded the Cornell zone for the final ten minutes of regulation, and freshman Harvard center Alex Kerfoot and Jaw drew minor penalties at 11:32 and 15:40, respectively. Despite looks from Vesey, Esposito, and Criscuolo, Iles carried the visitors through the man advantages and the final minutes of regulation.

Midway through its conference season, Harvard finds itself in a familiar position, tied for the fewest number of wins in the ECAC. While the Crimson showed glimpses of its potential on Friday, the team and its coach are not prepared to accept moral victories.

“The team has high expectations top to bottom. I think that we are not going to settle for, ‘Hey we have a lot of young guys and it was a close game’,” Donato said. “We expect better for ourselves, and I think we will get there very quickly.”

—Staff writer Michael D. Ledecky can be reached at mdledecky@gmail.com.