Men's Hockey Looks To Repeat as ECAC Champions

­Times were different when co-captain Kyle Criscuolo stepped onto the ice for the first time his freshman year. Only a season removed from reaching the ECAC tournament finals, Harvard limped to a 10-19-3 record and only six conference wins in 22 tries during the 2012-2013 campaign. Criscuolo and fellow co-captain Jimmy Vesey had just 31 points between them.

The duo’s first season was designed to start a rebuilding process. The co-captains’ last one, they hope, will be one where they complete the process and contend for a national championship.

Coming off a season where the Crimson took home the Whitelaw Cup and the two put up a total of 106 points, the No. 7/6 Harvard men’s ice hockey team enters the year on the national radar.

“Obviously we want to be in the Frozen Four,” junior forward Tyler Moy said. “We’d like to take it home. I don’t think we’re going to try to sell ourselves short by any means.”

With a roster loaded with juniors and seniors, this may be the year for Harvard to strike while the iron is hot and make a serious run to the Frozen Four in Tampa Bay, Fla. This year’s seniors were responsible for more than 39 percent of the team’s points last year, while current juniors—led by Alexander Kerfoot and Tyler Moy—notched nearly the same amount with 38 percent of the output. Given one more year to mesh, the upperclassmen will be the driving force of this squad.

“A lot of big parts of the team are healthy right now—it’s something that you want to ride out as long as you can,” Moy said. “I think you can look at our team now and say that we have a really good opportunity of making that dream of success come true.”

Last season’s campaign earned the respect of coaches around the conference. The ECAC Coaches’ preseason poll dubbed the Crimson (2-0, 2-0 Ivy) the top team in the conference.

The team placed ninth in the poll to begin last season before winning the conference tournament and earning a berth in the NCAA tournament.

The squad has also been invited to play in mid-season tournaments at Notre Dame and Minnesota in the aftermath of the team’s meteoric rise last season.

“Teams want to prove to the nation and prove to us that they can compete with us,” Moy said. “That’s something that we take pride in. We understand that there’s never going to be an easy night.”

Harvard will rely upon last year’s ECAC-best offense to help them bring back the Whitelaw Cup to Cambridge for the second straight season. If this past weekend’s results are any indicator of the future, there should not be much concern about a drop in production. The Crimson poured it on against the Big Green both at Dartmouth and at the Bright-Landry Center, combining for 12 goals during the home-and-home weekend series.

The power play has been an early strength for the Crimson thus far during the young 2015-2016 season. In nine tries, the team has found twine on five occasions. The Crimson led the conference in power-play conversion rate last year, averaging more than one goal in five tries.

While playing time will be dominated by those with at least two years of collegiate hockey under their belts, a few underclassmen could provide the boost necessary for the team to make the jump from NCAA tournament participants to NCAA champions. Freshman forward Ryan Donato has already notched two goals and two assists. Minnesota native Jacob Olson found the back of the net for the first Harvard goal of the year in Hanover, N.H., which came off a feed from junior Devin Tringale.

But for all of the offensive firepower that Harvard boasts, the Crimson can only put one man in the crease. Who that man would be for the season opener remained unknown before sophomore Merrick Madsen darted out between the pipes on Saturday in Hanover.

While Harvard coach Ted Donato ’91 stressed that a goaltender rotation was not out of the question, he has stuck with the Philadelphia Flyers prospect for the first 120 minutes of the regular season. The Acton, Calif., native hasn’t given Donato a reason to make a change, however, saving 43 of the 45 shots that he has faced thus far in front of a new-look defensive unit.

“We look at defense as the responsibility of all six guys,” Donato said. “But there’s no denying we’re working in guys with little experience, and it will be something that we have to develop as we go through the year.”

With the offensive unit a relatively known quantity, the development of Madsen and the defensive unit may dictate how far into the postseason the Crimson will play this season.

“We embrace the internal expectations,” Donato said. “When it’s all said and done, our job is to try to improve every day, every game. We recognize that we’re going to really have to develop to be the team we want to be.”

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