Winless Streak Stretches to 10 Games

And the slump continues.

The Harvard men’s hockey team fell to No. 8 Princeton, 5-1, Saturday night at the Baker Rink in the rivals’ first contest since last season’s ECAC playoff championship in which the Tigers (13-2-0, 8-1-0 ECAC) seized the title. The weekend’s losses extend the Crimson (4-10-2, 4-5-2) winless streak to 10 games, paralleling last season’s 10-game dry spell during the winter months.

“The last couple years, we’ve gone through some sort of slump similar to what we’re experiencing now,” co-captain Jimmy Fraser said. “We’ve just stayed positive and kept working hard in practice...and we came together as a team. We’ve been doing that already and just haven’t seen results yet, so we’re going to continue to harp on that theme in the locker room.”

Princeton nabbed the lead less than two minutes into the game with a quick shot past freshman goaltender Matt Hoyle into the right pocket.

“Both [weekend] games, [our opponents] were able to get goals early in the game…and tonight they were able to score in the first minutes,” Fraser said. “We need to have a better start.”

After a few Harvard attempts to close the gap, sophomore Michael Biega evened things up for the Crimson at 7:49, picking up a pass from freshman Eric Kroshus and slamming a one-timer into the Tiger net. But the first-period goal was the last Harvard would put on the board against Princeton, perhaps not surprisingly, as the Tigers outshot the Crimson in every period and more than doubled the Crimson’s shots on goal overall, 41-19.

“Unfortunately, we weren’t able to produce enough offense to win the hockey game tonight,” Fraser said. “If you look at the shots, they put a lot of pucks on the net, and if you do that, you’re going to win...The opposition scoring early is one factor in terms of them scoring goals, and they’re just getting more shots on the net, and when you do that, you increase your likelihood of scoring.”

The Tigers reclaimed the lead halfway through the first period with a man-advantage goal. Princeton’s Dan Bartlett picked up a pass on the right side and came in from behind the net to tap in a goal at the left post, putting his team ahead, 2-1.

Hoyle limited the Tigers’ lead to one by making several difficult saves in the last five minutes of the frame, getting his pad on a Princeton attempt and then diving to block the rebound shot. Hoyle made 27 saves over the course of the night.

Early in the second period, Harvard picked up its first power play of the game, giving the Crimson a good chance to even the score. But the Tigers snatched up a turnover at the offensive blue line and ripped a short-handed breakaway shot to boost their lead to 3-1.

Harvard got another power-play opportunity halfway through the middle frame, but Princeton goaltender Zane Kalemba got in front of shots from sophomore Matt McCollem and freshman Alex Killorn. And when the Crimson got a short-handed breakaway of its own, Kalemba stepped in front of sophomore Pier Olivier-Michaud’s shot to keep Harvard scoreless in the second period.

Princeton kept its momentum in the third frame, out-shooting Harvard, 19-8. The Tigers slammed in their second power-play goal at 8:37 and secured another breakaway goal at 11:21 to bring its lead to 5-1. Sophomore Ryan Carroll took Hoyle’s place in the net for the remainder of the game, making nine saves before the buzzer.

Harvard was held scoreless on all three of its man-advantage chances.

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