Men's Hockey Looks To Stay Unbeaten on the Road

The Harvard men’s ice hockey team has been strong out of the gates this year, winning three of its first four games and tying its other contest against archrival No. 10/8 Yale last Friday. The Crimson has also compiled a 13-goal differential in the team’s 245 minutes of action this season.

But all of that pales in comparison to the track record of the Crimson’s next opponent.

Harvard’s (3-0-1, 3-0-1 ECAC) second big test of the year will come in Hamden, Conn. as the team travels to take on No. 4/3 Quinnipiac, who has won all eight of its games so far this year.

Scoring an average just over of four goals per game, the squad also took down now-No. 9/9 St. Cloud State in the early portion of its schedule by a combined six goals.

“Quinnipiac’s a good team,” said Harvard coach Ted Donato `91. “They’re very well coached. They’re excellent on special teams, year in, year out. They beat a very talented St. Cloud team. They just keep stacking up wins.”

Each team boasts a forward who was selected to the ECAC Preseason All-League team. Junior forward Sam Anas was the youngest forward to notch this honor. The Washington, D.C. native is one of just three players in the conference who have notched a league-high 10 points at this early point in the season.

But not all attention can be drawn to Anas in stopping the Quinnipiac (8-0-0, 2-0-0) attack.

One of the other two skaters who has notched double-digit points is fellow Quinnipiac forward, senior Travis St. Denis, who also leads the conference in goals with seven through eight games.

Anas will line up against another Preseason All-League team member in co-captain forward Jimmy Vesey. The Charlestown native has averaged a goal and an assist per game through the first four games of the year and consistently demands the focus of the opposing defense.

But just as St. Denis draws attention away from Anas, so too does co-captain forward Kyle Criscuolo take some of the pressure from Vesey.

After totalling 48 points last season, the New Jersey native has not lost a step, finding the back of the net on three occasions and dishing out assists twice.

“They’re one of the most successful teams over the last handful of years,” Donato said. “So it’s a good challenge for us. It’s a great building; it should be a great environment, I’m sure our guys will be very focused on practice knowing we’re going to have to be our best this weekend.”

While Harvard’s first-line rivals the best lines in the entire conference, the depth of the team has also been one of the key drivers for the offense in the Crimson’s first four games.

The strong play of the team’s third-line has especially povided a welcomed boost. Junior forwards Tyler Moy and Luke Esposito have notched three and two goals, respectively. Moy also registered an assist in last Saturday’s game to set up freshman Ryan Donato for his second goal of his rookie season.

“Moy has been outstanding,” Donato said. “He’s been strong on the puck, he’s made big plays, he’s enabled us to maintain possessions down low. He just looks like he’s a mix of confidence and strength and talent that really is coming together.”

A big question going into the game for Harvard will be who skates out to the crease to start the game .

After sophomore Merrick Madsen saved 43 of 45 shots the first weekend of the year, Lackey got the call for the Yale and Brown games, in which the rookie saved 54 of 58 shots.

But whoever the goaltender is to start the game, Harvard will look for a good performance in net to get them past a competive, high intensity Quinnipiac offense.

“We just need a good week of practice,” Criscuolo said. “They’re similar to us, they have a lot of good forwards up front, get pucks to the net….We just need to have our legs when we go there and know it’s going to be a battle.”

The Crimson will end its weekend road trip in Princeton, N.J., where the team takes on a one-win Tigers (1-3-0, 0-2-0) squad.

Princeton sits in the cellar of the conference alongside Brown, having been defeated on the road against Colgate and Cornell last Friday and Saturday.

The Tigers have only had five goal-scorers on the year, dwarfed by the Crimson’s nine.

Three of Princeton’s forwards–junior Ben Foster, sophomore Eric Robinson, and freshman Max Veronneau–have each found the back of the net twice on the season. Additionally, none of the goal-scorers for the Tigers have tallied a single assist through four games this year.

—Staff writer Kurt Bullard can be reached at kurt.bullard@thecrimson.com.