Hockey Splits New York Road Trip

While the Harvard men’s hockey team matched St. Lawrence and Clarkson relatively evenly, what ultimately separated the Crimson from these two teams was how it played in the second period. Over the weekend, Harvard (2-2-0, 2-2-0 ECAC) found itself in between the two teams, topping the Saints (2-6-3, 2-2-0), 4-2, and falling to the Golden Knights (5-4-2, 1-2-1), 3-1.

“We played much better on Friday than we did on Saturday,” co-captain Chris Huxley said. “On Friday night, we played a full game. We came out hard and played for a full 60 minutes and had a lot of energy throughout. But on Saturday night, we didn’t play a full 60 minutes. You can’t win games if you don’t play a full game.”

CLARKSON 3, HARVARD 1

On Saturday night at Cheel Arena, the difference between the two seemingly even teams was shown through each squad’s performance during the second period. Despite holding back the Clarkson offense for much of the first period, assistant captain goaltender Kyle Richter and the Crimson defense were unable to prevent a second-period surge by the Golden Knights. In a span of three minutes, the Clarkson offense slipped a pair of goals into the net to make it 2-0.

Though Harvard owned advantages of 36-35 in shots and 34-33 in faceoffs, the Crimson could not take advantage of its chances. A particular failure of Harvard was its inability to convert on its power-play opportunities. The Crimson went 0-for-4 on the power play in the third period and 0-for-5 overall.

With Harvard pressuring during the third period, senior forward Michael Biega was able to halve the Clarkson lead with his first goal of the season, 6:30 into the frame. But Golden Knights goalie Paul Karpowich’s 12 saves in the third period and a late Clarkson goal helped the Golden Knights hold on to win 3-1.

“The road trip that we were just on was a tough one,” Richter said. “Every team right now, early in the season, is a learning experience for us that gives us takeaway points from every game. But I think that the biggest thing that we’ve learned so far is just the level of competition that we are going to have to bring [to get] back-to-back wins on the road, especially next weekend.”

HARVARD 4, ST. LAWRENCE 2

Against Rensselaer last weekend, Harvard did not register its first goal of the game until the final 10 seconds of play. But by the end of Friday’s game, the Crimson had made its mark on the scoreboard. Harvard scored once late in the first period, twice in the second, and once in the third to capture its first road victory of the season at Appleton Arena.

Taking advantage of a slow start from the Saints, junior forward Eric Kroshus gave the Crimson a first-period lead with his breakaway goal at the 13:37 mark.

Leading up to the early goal, sophomore defenseman Danny Biega collected the puck in his own zone and found Kroshus with a long pass to the neutral zone, where the waiting Kroshus was left unmarked. The junior forward then skated towards net and knocked the puck past netminder Matt Weninger to put Harvard in the lead, 1-0.

With this early goal, Harvard never looked back. In the second and third periods, the Crimson dominated on both sides of the puck. During the second period, Harvard outshot St. Lawrence, 20-7, resulting in goals by juniors Colin Moore and Alex Killorn.

Defensively in the second period, Harvard was also nearly perfect. In the opening minutes of the period, St. Lawrence seemed poised to capitalize on a three-on-two break until Huxley delivered a hip check to halt the Saints offense in the midst of its best scoring opportunity of the period.

Though St. Lawrence would eventually get on the board at the 9:12 mark of the third period, and later trim the Crimson lead to one goal with about five minutes remaining, Harvard’s performance in the second period and the solid goaltending by Richter throughout the game proved insurmountable for the Saints.

With only a few minutes left on the clock, St. Lawrence brought heavy pressure by pulling their goalie and adding an extra offensive attacker. But Richter, who registered 41 saves in the game, proved to be unbreakable, and Kroshus sealed the win with an empty-net goal with seven seconds left.

“We have confidence in all our goalies,” Huxley said. “But Richter by far has been playing really well. In the middle of games, when there are a few minutes of chaos and teams are all over us, he’s been holding up the iron and making the big saves."