M. Hockey Blows Out Tigers

PRINCETON, N.J.—The final buzzer just couldn’t come quickly enough for the Princeton men’s hockey team on Friday night at Baker Rink.

Trailing by six with less than five seconds to play, the Tigers lost a faceoff in their own zone, then allowed Harvard freshman Dave Watters to squeeze off a nonchalant buzzer-beating slapshot that slipped past backup netminder Jeff Mansfield as time expired, capping the No. 11 Crimson’s 7-0 victory and a humiliating evening for the home side.

The offensive outpouring on the heels of its 19-day exam layoff was a welcome change for Harvard (11-5-2, 8-4-1 ECAC), which managed a total of just one goal against Northern Michigan and Colgate upon returning from similar extended gaps in its schedule earlier this season.

“We’ve had problems this year in games after breaks,” said junior defenseman Peter Hafner, who notched the second of Harvard’s goals 16:39 into the first period. “We wanted to get off to a fast start in the first period and establish how we wanted the game to be played.”

Following up on an opening shift in which the Crimson manhandled the Tigers (6-13-1, 4-9-0) inside their own zone, Harvard’s second line forced a turnover just beyond the Princeton crease. Sophomore Ryan Maki corralled the loose puck, then dished to Steve Mandes, who tucked his backhand effort inside the right post a mere 37 seconds in, giving the Crimson a 1-0 lead.

“That line was great for us tonight,” Harvard coach Ted Donato ’91 said. “[Mandes] has been a very good player for us. A lot of things he does don’t show up on the score sheet. I was happy for him, and his whole line played great.”

As the opening frame drew to a close, the sophomore trio struck again, this time off the stick of pivot Kevin Du, whose play—like that of his linemates—has been infused with a new sense of urgency since Donato benched him against Colgate on Jan. 7 and placed Mandes and Maki on separate shifts.

With the Crimson forwards applying heavy pressure as Princeton attempted to clear the puck into neutral ice, Mandes forced Tigers starting netminder B. J. Slapsky to lunge to his right with a well-struck wrist shot. Maki, parked at the right post, gathered the rebound, then arced towards the faceoff circle. As the defense gravitated towards the puck, Du quietly slipped in behind at the far post, where Maki found him for a can’t-miss tap-in at 18:25, extending the Harvard lead to three.

While neither the margin separating the two teams nor the ease with which the Crimson had pulled away were unexpected, the potency of Harvard’s even-strength offense—an admitted team focus as the playoffs draw near—was surprising to say the least, even against Princeton’s less-than-stellar defense.

In its 8-6 win over the Tigers on Nov. 13, the Crimson netted half its tallies on the power play, and, entering Friday night, Harvard had scored 19 of its 44 goals this season with a man advantage. This time around, though, six of the Crimson’s seven goals were notched with the Tigers at full strength—captain Noah Welch’s at 6:49 in the second period was the lone exception—and each was recorded by a different shooter.

That additional offensive production did not, however, hail from the usual sources. Of Harvard’s seven goals, four were scored by skaters who were previously goalless on the season—Mandes and Hafner, as well as defenseman Tom Walsh and senior Rob Flynn, who added Harvard’s fifth and sixth goals, respectively.

“It’s great to see,” Donato said. “We haven’t, to this point, scored a ton of goals 5-on-5. But the majority of the goals we scored tonight were 5-on-5, so I think that’s a good sign. In order for us to beat teams down the stretch we can’t rely on special teams.”

—Staff writer Timothy J. McGinn can be reached at mcginn@fas.harvard.edu.