Icemen Change Their Lines

Change was in the air Saturday night at Bright Hockey Center.

Specifically, Harvard's lines underwent a considerable makeover.

The first line of captain Brad Konik and seniors Kirk Nielsen and Tommy Holmes, which had been the heart of the team's scoring effort for much of the season, was broken up--Nielsen moved to the third line and freshman forward Rob Millar took his place.

Konik, Holmes and Nielsen are the team's leading scorers, but Harvard coach Ronn Tomassoni thought it was time for a change.

"We're in a little bit of a tailspin, so I thought we just had to do something different," he said. "I thought [center Craig] MacDonald and Nielsen, with MacDonald being left shot, and Nielsen on the right side, would be effective offensively. But I wanted to keep Holmes and Konik together as a penalty killing unit, and Millar's got some pretty good offensive skills."

Lingering injuries may also have contributed to Tomassoni's changes.

"With me coming back not 100 percent yet, and Tommy Holmes in the same situation, and both of us have had quite a bit of time off now, coach [Tomassoni] has got to watch and keep track of that," Konik said. "You've got to keep guys who are healthy and fresh out there."

However, the line-up changes failed to produce immediate offensive results.

Colgate's defense, and lingering injuries to key players, conspired against Tomassoni and Harvard. The Crimson eked out only 17 shots on goal, all but one of which was stopped by Colgate netminder Dan Brenzavich.

The other half of the strategy worked, however. After allowing Cornell to score four power play goals Friday night, Harvard held Colgate to just one power play goal over eight power plays.

"We had watched their power play quite a bit," Konik said. "We had a pretty good idea of the things they like to do. Because of that, we were able to focus on setting up and stopping them."

McLaughlin Returns

It was nice to see senior defenseman Peter McLaughlin return to the ice this weekend. The weekend series was McLaughlin's first since a Feb. 4 car crash sidelined him. McLaughlin was up to his old tricks on the penalty killing unit, burying opponents against the boards and obstructing live pucks to kill the clock. He also blocked two strong shots by Colgate forwards.

Notes

Tomassoni is still searching for his 100th win as Harvard's head coach. Going into the weekend, he had 98 wins...Saturday's game was the seventh loss for the Crimson in games decided by one goal. The team's one-goal record is 2-7-0...The Crimson is currently 10-13-2 overall. The team will need to win all four of its remaining games to post a .500 regular season record...The loss to Colgate was Harvard's fifth consecutive loss. The last time the team lost five or more consecutive games was in the 1983-84 season, when it lost seven in a row.