Icemen Get Revenge at Minnesota-Duluth

Take a deep breath and relax.

Friday night's chant of "Overrated!" by the University of Minnesota-Duluth hockey fans was a little bit premature, as the Crimson thrashed the Bulldogs Saturday night at the Duluth Entertainment and Convention Center, 9-4.

"I think we changed their minds," senior Chris Baird said.

Rebounding from a 3-0 loss Friday night, Harvard (7-3-1 overall, 6-2-1 ECAC) decked the hall with lots of checks and scored five power play goals to earn a split in the weekend series with UMD (5-10-3, 3-8-3 Western Collegiate Hockey Association).

"We were a little intimidated by the [more physical] type of play on Friday," senior defenseman Derek Maguire said. "We adjusted well Saturday, taking the body well and playing with emotion."

In the WCHA the teams play a more physical style of hockey with a lot more hitting than in the ECAC. And the WCHA referees let a lot of the clutching and grabbing go, unlike the ECAC, for the most part.

The game started off on a sour note for the Crimson, however. Perhaps the team was a little too fired up, as sophomore defender Peter McLaughlin was whistled off for slashing 10 seconds into the game.

Sophomore goalie Aaron Israel stopped two UMD shots at the beginning of the penalty kill, but Rusty Fitzgerald tucked the puck into the net after the Crimson failed to clear it away, giving the Bulldogs a 1-0 lead at the 0:27 mark.

UMD almost made it 2-0 several minutes later, but freshman Joe Craigen cleared away a puck that was heading for the open net.

Then the Crimson started controlling the play with their checking game, which led to a Harvard power play six minutes in. This time, the Crimson capitalized, as captain Sean McCann flipped a rebound off Baird's point shot past UMD goalie Jerome Butler to even the game at one.

Another power play goal put the Crimson on top for good. Baird shot the puck from the top of the circle, and junior Steve Martins poked the rebound through the five-hole of Butler at the 12:01 mark of the first period.

Junior Perry Cohagan scored his first goal of the season 34 seconds later off a tremendous effort. As he was being dragged down to the ice by a UMD defender, he slapped at the puck, which found daylight through the five-hole of a dazed Butler to make it 3-1.

"I was able to get a stick on it and shovelled it in," Cohagan said. "My confidence had been down--[not scoring] definitely was a monkey on the back."

The first-period barrage wasn't over, however, as McCann scored his second power play goal of the game to make the 4-1 with 4:42 left. The Harvard captain used his skate to control a hard pass by Martins and then stuffed the puck between Butler and the goalpost.

Special teams played a major role in the game, as the Crimson went 5-for-6 on the power play (its only failure was on an 11-second chance late in the third). The penalty killing was also strong, blanking the Bulldogs on five consecutive power plays after McCann's second goal.

Quick clears out of the defensive zone and good forechecking prevented UMD from testing Israel more than three or four times on those five opportunities.

Senior Brian Farrell scored an unassisted goal right at the end of the fourth penalty kill, 11:16 into the second period. Farrell skated into the UMD zone and backhanded the puck through Butler's legs after a nifty head fake to extend Harvard's lead to 5-1.

Maguire's first goal of the season, the team's fourth power play goal, extended the lead to 6-1, as his point shot deflected up into the air off Butler before trickling behind him into the net.

"I caught the goalie off guard," Maguire said. "It wasn't a glorious goal, but I'll take it."

The Bulldogs scored two quickies in a span of 38 seconds near the end of the second period, but Harvard countered back early in the third off two goals by junior Cory Gustafson.

Gustafson's two tallies initiated replacement netminder Niklas Axelsson and made the score 8-3, ending all realistic hopes of a UMD comeback.

Martins scored his second goal of the game and the team's fifth power play goal to make the score 9-3 before the Bulldogs scored the final goal.

"Most of my goals come off power plays," Martins said. "Thankfully, the power play was working Saturday night."

The physical aspect of the game also worked well for the Crimson, as Harvard gave UMD some of its own medicine. There was a lot of rough stuff, with a half-dozen pairs of coincidental minors being assessed.

The most vicious play of the game came after the final buzzer, when a UMD goon almost took the head off freshman Stuart Swenson (a St. Cloud, Minn. native) with a brutal slash. Swenson had finished a hard check before the final buzzer, but was luckily able to escape without an injury.

Harvard won't be sending any Christmas cards to the UMD players, but the Crimson will take the two points nevertheless.

"Coming off the loss, this win was huge," Martins said. "We played really well. If we play as intensely in the ECAC as we did on Saturday, we can dominate our league."