Women's Hockey Offense Comes to Life Against Princeton

It was a tale of two teams this weekend at the Bright-Landry Hockey Center, as the Harvard women’s hockey team showed up Saturday afternoon and played a dominant 60 minutes of hockey after being shut out by Quinnipiac the previous evening.

The Crimson (12-8-1, 9-6-1 ECAC) came out strong against Princeton (17-5-1, 10-5-1) with the most goals in a game since Jan. 9, beating the Tigers 4-1.

“I think we played 60 minutes of really great hockey and did what we were looking to do,” head coach Katey Stone said. “We had a great forecheck and took care of the puck. We had very few turnovers and today was a very good day for us.”

Both teams defenses came out of the gate ready to play, allowing neither offense to take a shot on goal in the first four minutes of play. Princeton broke the silence with the first two swats at the back of the net, but it was the Crimson that put together the first successful scoring drive of the afternoon.

Sophomore forward Karly Heffernan scored her fifth goal of the season off of a scramble in front of Princeton goalie Kimberly Newell which led to Heffernan’s shot that found the back of the net.

For its second tally of the night the Crimson was able to push the puck into Tiger territory and senior forward Miye D’Oench took a shot from the left hash in front of the goal. The shot was stopped in front of the net by a line of Princeton defenders, but junior forward Sydney Daniels was able to take advantage of a deflection and with help from classmate Briana Mastel poked the puck to the back of the Tigers’ net.

After being unable to muster much offense the previous day, the two goals early in the game were able to set the tone on the ice.

“[Scoring early] is huge,” D’Oench said. “You play the game slightly differently when you’re up and obviously you always want to have the same sense of urgency but you get to play it a little bit more conservatively and take less chances when you’re up.”

Following the first intermission Princeton immediately responded to its deficit. In a drive off the second faceoff of the period, Tiger forward Morgan Sly was able to get the puck past Harvard goaltender Emerance Maschmeyer with the help of Karlie Lund.

Maschmeyer played another solid game in goal for the Crimson, recording 34 saves off of the 35 shots seen, bringing her save percentage up to .951.

D’Oench responded with her eleventh goal of the season, short handing a pass from senior forward Michelle Picard and taking a shot from the left side of the net which hit the post and then the netting.

“It was sort of a fortuitous bounce,” D’Oench said. “There was a scramble in front of the net and the puck popped out to the point and they shot it and it dribbled out to my stick off to the side…. I one timed it and thought with my luck it was going to hit off the post and go out but this time it went in which was nice.”

D’oench finished the game with a goal and two assists, boosting her already team leading point total to 25.

The third period remained quiet for both teams until the concluding minutes of regulation. With two minutes and 33 seconds left in the game, sophomore forward Haley Mullins was sent to the penalty box for two minutes after being called for checking. This gave Princeton a man up advantage. To put even more pressure on Harvard’s defense, the Tigers then pulled their goalie, making it a 6-on-4 advantage on the ice. Despite playing with two fewer players on the ice, the Crimson was able to stay strong defensively and hold its opponent from scoring.

“The good part of that situation was that [Princeton called] a timeout and we had a regular media timeout so we had some time to go through things on the sideline and I think our kids played that tremendously,” Stone said.

With the net still empty after the power play kill, Daniels took the opportunity to give her team an insurance goal when she scored an empty-net goal with the help of D’Oench with 12 seconds left in the game, sealing the 4-1 victory.

Harvard was able to kill all three of the opposition’s power plays throughout the night, which has been a point of improvement the team had looked to work on coming into Saturday’s contest.

Saturday’s victory was Harvard’s first win against a top ten team since scoring six goals against Clarkson on Jan. 9. With an upcoming schedule that includes a match up against top ranked Boston College, the Crimson will enter February with a win against a ranked opponent under its belt.

“We’ve hit a little bit of a rough patch in the past few weeks and I think the coaches have been going back to doing the little things and I think tonight was a great improvement,” D’Oench said.

—Staff writer Ariel Smolik-Valles can be reached at ariel.smolikvalles@thecrimson.com