Harvard Seeks Second Surprise Weekend

It’s now or never.

Hoping to take its fourth ECAC championship in six years, the seventh-seeded Harvard men’s hockey team will challenge the No. 2 seeded Clarkson in a best-of-three quarterfinal series, which begins tonight at 7 p.m. at the Cheel Arena in Potsdam, N.Y.

“Every game is the most important game of the year from here on out, no doubt,” captain Dylan Reese said.

As the defending champion of the ECAC tournament, the Crimson looks for a win to advance to the ECAC Final Four in Albany, N.Y. to preserve its title and continue on to the NCAA tournament.

“Everything I’d say is now,” Reese said. “You have to win all the way out from the tournament to make the NCAAs, so realistically you’ve got to win the next four games in a row. Obviously we can lose one this weekend, but we’ve got to win the next four games to go to the NCAAs and get another ECAC championship.”

In other words, the pressure is on.

After last weekend’s victory against Yale, Harvard enters the contest with a six-game playoff winning streak. Although the Bulldogs had beaten the Crimson twice this season, Harvard stepped up when it really counted, defeating Yale 2-1 in Game 2 of the first round.

The Crimson aims for similar success against the Golden Knights, who also overcame Harvard twice this year.

“We have four wins coming into this weekend, but it’s going to be a tough series, no doubt,” Reese said. “Clarkson’s awesome. They’re a very good team—I think number five in the country right now—and they beat us twice this year. We’re going in very similarly, preparing the same way we did for Yale. We just know we need to play our best hockey to win.”

The Crimson’s desire for revenge certainly adds more incentive to win, but the seniors on the team have more sentimental reasons for so strongly seeking victory.

“If we lose, our college experience is done,” senior Kevin Du said. “It’s kind of a weird feeling, but I think that’ll help us more to play well this weekend.”

Traveling to Potsdam, N.Y. for the quarterfinal conference, Harvard hopes to come into the contest with focus and composure in spite of the unique challenges that arise when on the road.

“It’s funny because last week it didn’t feel like we were going to lose or there was a chance we could lose,” Reese said. “But now we’re going to a hostile building, and we haven’t had too much success recently, so we need to play really our best hockey of the year to win the series. It’s a feeling that’s both exciting but at the same time kind of a scary feeling.”

Realizing the magnitude of tonight’s game, the Crimson has been preparing with specific plays to shut down the Golden Knights’ solid offense.

“Especially for Clarkson, they have three or four forwards that are very dangerous offensively, so we’re going to key in on them,” Du said. “The goalie’s also very good, too, so I think just containing the forwards is key for us.”

The Golden Knights strong scoring attack may prove troublesome for Harvard. Their four standout forwards have netted 32 points overall, contributing to the squad’s seventh-rank nationally in scoring with 3.59 goals per game.

“They have a really good power play also,” Reese said. “[The forwards] try a lot of one-on-one things, so we’ve been working a lot on one-on-one in practice, and we expect them to try us...up front.”

While the Crimson try to handle Clarkson, Cornell and Quinnipiace, Dartmouth and Princeton, and St. Lawrence and Colgate will also square off.

—Staff writer Courtney D. Skinner can be reached at cskinner@fas.harvard.edu.