Men's Hockey Comes Away With Three Points on the Weekend

With the regular season winding down and postseason play looming on the horizon, the Harvard men’s hockey team (9-12-4, 5-9-4 ECAC) seems to have finally found its groove.

Traveling to New York for the weekend, the Crimson picked up three crucial points, defeating Clarkson (17-13-2, 10-8-0), 1-0, and tying St. Lawrence (11-15-4, 5-9-4), 2-2.

“I think the weekend went well,” freshman defenseman Victor Newell said. “The team is starting to get on a roll now at the right time. These points are big for the team.”

HARVARD 2, ST. LAWRENCE 2

With less than 80 seconds to play against St. Lawrence, Harvard looked poised to complete the weekend road sweep and gain momentum heading into the playoffs. But a power play goal by Saint forward Matt Carey—set up by brother Greg Carey—with 1:19 remaining in the contest knotted up the game and ended the Crimson’s hopes of extending its winning streak to four.

Harvard held the lead for the entire third period before the younger Carey’s equalizer. With less than a minute left in the second frame, sophomore forward Brian Hart broke a 1-1 tie with his fourth goal of the season, propelling the Crimson to a 2-1 advantage.

Newell opened the game’s scoring with a 5-on-3 power play goal with 8:08 remaining in the second period. Sophomore Jimmy Vesey continued his hot streak, contributing an assist on the opening score to extend his point total to a team-high 22.

St. Lawrence fought blow-for-blow with the Crimson, responding to each of Harvard’s scores. Less than seven minutes after Newell’s goal on the man advantage, Greg Carey took advantage of a holding penalty against the Crimson, managing to sneak the puck past sophomore goaltender Steve Michalek to knot the game at one apiece.

Despite giving up two goals, Michalek stopped 41 Saint shots on the night.

“He was huge,” McNally said. “We wouldn’t have won on Friday and tied on Saturday without him.”

HARVARD 1, CLARKSON 0 (OT)

Sixty minutes was not enough to separate Harvard and No. 21 Clarkson on Friday evening, as both goaltenders held clean sheets at the end of regulation.

But with 14 seconds remaining in overtime, Vesey finally put the scoreboard to use, netting the game-winner on a two-on-one break to give Harvard its third consecutive victory, 1-0.

Hart started the attack when he gained possession of the puck at his own blue line. He quickly fired a pass up the ice to freshman forward Sean Malone, who created the two-on-one advantage.

After drawing in the Golden Knight defenseman, Malone sent a pass to Vesey from the top of the right circle. The Crimson’s leading scorer then beat Clarkson goaltender Steve Perry stick-side, sending the Harvard bench into a frenzy.

“If you give [the puck] to a kid like Jimmy, he’s going to score that goal every time,” McNally said. “It’s nice to get an overtime win, which we really haven’t had this year.”

Prior to the goal, the Golden Knights had stifled the Harvard offense for most of the night, holding the team to just 17 shots. But Clarkson could not get any of its 31 attempts past Michalek. The goalkeeper had also stopped 31 Golden Knight shots in the teams’ first matchup earlier this season.

Michalek enabled Harvard to force overtime with a clutch performance in the final minutes of regulation. With 4:47 left in the third period, senior defenseman Danny Fick was whistled for making contact with an opponent’s head and issued a game misconduct, negating a Crimson power play and giving Clarkson a man advantage for the final 2:47 of the frame. But four saves from the Crimson goaltender led to the fifth successful kill of the night for the nation’s third-best penalty-killing unit.

Harvard’s three-game winning streak was its first such regular season run since the team won its last three contests in 2011. The victory also marks the Crimson’s fifth consecutive defeat of the Golden Knights at Cheel Arena.

Following the successful weekend, the squad looks to continue its hot streak and prepare for the upcoming postseason.

“We need to start getting points and moving up in the standings so that we can get home ice for the first round of the playoffs,” McNally said. “So every game we have to come out and get one or hopefully two points.”

—Staff writer Kurt T. Bullard can be reached at kurtbullard@college.harvard.edu.

—Staff writer Jake T. Meagher can be reached at jmeagher@college.harvard.edu.