M. Hockey Left Red in the Face

HAMILTON, N.Y.—The Harvard men’s hockey team traveled to central New York this weekend with a chance at first place in the ECAC standings.

Unfortunately for the Crimson (9-8-3, 8-5-2 ECAC), it was stuck in first gear the whole time.

Harvard dropped both games, losing to Cornell 6-3 on Friday night before coming up short Saturday against Colgate, 5-3. It was the first ECAC weekend sweep of the Crimson in nearly two years.

And while Harvard Coach Mark Mazzoleni wasn’t about to make excuses for his team’s play, it was hard for him to deny the effects of the Crimson’s recent exam break. The three-week stretch kept Harvard idle while every other league team save for Princeton continued playing.

“We were playing with a very good tempo going into the finals break, but when you sit for 10 days while other teams are playing, it’s tough,” Mazzoleni said. “We don’t have the same energy, execution, focus, rhythm and flow that we did before finals. We were flat-footed.”

Harvard, who only mustered 36 shots on goal over the two games, now finds itself in a three-way tie for second place with Clarkson and Dartmouth. The Crimson sits five points behind league-leading Cornell (15-5-1, 11-2-1) and three ahead of fifth-place Colgate (9-13-1, 7-6-1).

Colgate 5, Harvard 3

Colgate scored back-to-back goals in the second period, snapping a 2-2 tie and lifting the Raiders to a 5-3 win Saturday.

Harvard had trouble putting the puck on net all game long and finished with only 16 shots on goal. The Crimson, in fact, did not force Colgate goaltender David Cann into making a third-period save until only 3:30 remained.

“We know Colgate does a very, very good job of fronting the puck and blocking shots, but we did a very poor job of getting the puck through traffic,” Mazzoleni said. “We have to open up our own shooting lanes.”

Trailing 2-1 in the second period, the Crimson stormed back to tie the game on senior captain Peter Capouch’s blast from the slot, which found its way through traffic and past Cann—last week’s ECAC Goaltender of the Week—at 1:33 of the frame.

However, Colgate—now 6-2-1 over its last nine games—responded with goals from forwards Kyle Doyle and Dmitry Yashin over the next five minutes to take a two-goal advantage it would never relinquish.

After the fourth Raider goal at 13:28 of the second period, Mazzoleni called timeout hoping to change the game’s momentum.

“When things aren’t going [well], you just can’t stay with the status quo,” Mazzoleni said. “You’ve got to try to change things to get a spark. Something as small as a line change can have an effect on it.”

Mazzoleni also tried juggling Harvard’s lines a bit, deploying some new combinations that he might use in tonight’s Beanpot opener.

Unfortunately for the Crimson, though, neither the timeout nor the shuffling was enough to turn the tide.

Doyle’s third goal of the contest, coming at 4:39 of the third period, gave the Raiders a three-goal lead and effectively put the game out of reach.

But as was the case the night before against Cornell, Harvard tallied a late goal to make things interesting. This time it was sophomore winger Tyler Kolarik, who somehow managed to flip the puck through a defenseman’s legs and past Cann with just 1:37 to play.

With the score 5-3, Mazzoleni pulled Harvard goaltender Will Crothers in hopes of getting two quick goals and sending the game to overtime. Colgate, however, was able to keep the Crimson at bay.

“We got what we deserved,” Mazzoleni said . “We came up against a team who I thought put a better effort forward. Their on-puck intensity, want, and desire to get to those loose pucks were definitely the difference.”

Harvard actually struck first on Saturday, courtesy of fifth-year senior defenseman Liam McCarthy’s first career goal.

Crimson wingers Rob Fried and Tom Cavanagh were both strong on the puck as they worked it back to the right point, where McCarthy gathered it and fired a blast through a nice screen by Fried that beat Cann low to his stick side just 2:02 into the game.

“That was nice to see and a nice shot,” Mazzoleni said. “I’m happy for [McCarthy].”

The lead was Harvard’s first and only of the weekend. It didn’t last long.

Less than a minute later, Yashin—brother of star New York Islander center Alexei Yashin—tied the game by putting a rebound past Crothers with 17:11 to play in the period.

Harvard spent plenty of time in its attack zone throughout the first period, but it was Colgate who finally broke the 1-1 tie. Again, the Raider goal game off a rebound, with Doyle beating Crothers with just 48 seconds to play in the first frame.

Doyle’s hat trick was the first registered against the Crimson since Gregg Johnson of Boston University potted a trio on Nov. 20.

Crothers finished the game with 16 saves, while Cann stopped 13.

Cornell 6, Harvard 3

ITHACA, N.Y.—Cornell dominated play right from the start, limiting Harvard to 20 shots on goal and using physical play to win many battles for the puck to earn a 6-3 win.

The victory was Cornell’s fifth straight and avenged its 4-3 loss at Harvard back in November, when the Big Red squandered a late 3-2 lead.

With a sellout crowd of 3,836 packing raucous Lynah Rink , emotions ran high all night long and finally boiled over in the game’s final minutes with a melee at the 18:33 mark. The brawl ended with roughing calls and 10-minute misconducts assessed to every player on the ice, capping a frustrating night for Harvard.

“I thought we got beat by a better hockey team tonight,” Mazzoleni said. “From the opening faceoff they had the on-puck intensity they needed to win. They played their dump-and-chase game to a ‘T.’”

Early in the game, the Big Red jumped out to a 1-0 advantage when junior winger Sam Paolini pounced on a rebound in front of the net and put it home at the 5:26 mark.

Cornell opened up a two-goal lead at 11:43 when junior winger Shane Palahicky skated in from the corner and backhanded a shot past Crimson goaltender Dov Grumet-Morris.

“With the energy that they get from their crowd you want to [start the game] without getting scored on—or at least come out even—and they were up 2-0 on us,” Mazzoleni said. “They know how to handle a lead. They play so well defensively that when they get up on you it’s very hard to play catch-up on them. They didn’t let up at all.”

After the Big Red carried nearly all of the play in the first period, the opening of the second period was more balanced. Neither team was able to maintain the puck in its attack zone through much of the period.

However, the pace of play picked up with about seven minutes left and Cornell extended its lead to 3-0 on a wrister from junior center Matt McRae with 5:36 to play.

Harvard finally got on the board when sophomore winger Dennis Packard redirected a shot from the point by classmate Kenny Smith that went past Big Red goaltender Matt Underhill with 2:42 to go in the period. The goal went into the books as an even-strength tally, although Cornell defenseman Doug Murray was just stepping out of the box as the puck crossed the line.

But as soon as Harvard closed the gap, the Big Red took another three-goal lead on a wrister by Krzyzstof Wieckowski heading into the second intermission.

Cornell maintained momentum as the third period opened, continuing to sustain its possessions in the Crimson zone and making it 5-1 on a rebound by winger Denis Ladouceur just 2:15 into the frame.

Harvard closed the deficit less than two minutes later on a nifty behind-the-net shot by junior center Dominic Moore that bounced off the back of Underhill’s skate and into the cage with 15:52 to go in the game.

The goal seemed to add some spring to the Crimson’s stride, but Harvard wouldn’t draw any closer the rest of the way. In fact, Cornell once again made it a four-goal game with 6:21 to play on Paolini’s second goal of the night.

Later that period, Harvard was assessed a bench minor penalty when Mazzoleni banged a stick on the boards that eventually landed on the ice in front of the Crimson bench. He was attempting to get the attention of referee Tim Kotyra and question the non-call of an apparent charging penalty committed by Paolini on Capouch.

“I wanted to get his attention,” Mazzoleni said after the game. “We’ll take a look at that [on film] and it will probably go into our league office.”

Cornell Coach Mike Schafer said that he understood why Mazzoleni acted as he did.

“He was just trying to get the referee’s attention,” Schafer said. “He wasn’t trying to show up the official at all.”

Crimson winger Tim Pettit scored the final goal of the game with 23 seconds to play, as he put back the rebound of a shot from the point by sophomore defenseman Blair Barlow.

By then, though, the game’s outcome was already decided. Harvard is now 0-3-1 in its last four trips to Lynah.

Grumet-Morris finished the game with 29 saves, while Underhill stopped 17 for the Red.