Harvard Upsets Fifth-Ranked Yale

Being the underdog doesn’t seem to bother the Harvard men’s hockey team. For the second time in as many weeks, the Crimson welcomed a top-10 opponent to Bright Hockey Center, and for the second time, the home team came away with a win.

Harvard (3-10-2, 3-5-2 ECAC) used a three-goal run in the second period to gain control of last night’s matchup with No. 5 Yale (9-4-3, 5-2-2 ECAC) and held on for the 3-2 victory.

“Obviously we’re very happy with the win,” said Crimson coach Ted Donato ’91. “Yale’s a very good team, we have a lot of respect for them…We’re really pleased with the way our guys battled.”

Again it was Harvard’s vaunted freshman class that provided the offense, with rookie Louis Leblanc scoring twice and classmate Alex Fallstrom tallying his first career goal—all in an eight-minute stretch in the second frame.

The Crimson set the tone for the offensive outburst in the first period, when sophomore Alex Killorn got a few good looks on net.

Harvard’s best scoring opportunity came on its first power play after Bulldog Broc Little was whistled for hooking. Set up in the offensive zone, the Crimson moved the puck around the horn, giving Killorn the puck on his stick right in front of the Yale net.

But the Bulldogs’ rookie netminder Jeff Malcolm got a pad on the shot, and Yale killed off the rest of the penalty without incident.

Though the Bulldogs held a 12-4 advantage in shots through the opening frame, Harvard was not discouraged.

“I thought we outplayed them in the first period,” Donato said. “I wasn’t so concerned with the shot total…They threw a lot of pucks, a lot of long shots, but I think we’re well aware that the scoreboard is different from the shot [count].”

The second period opened with Yale up a man after Crimson sophomore Ryan Grimshaw was called for a penalty in the final minute of the first. The Bulldogs’ nation-leading offense did not waste the opportunity.

Just 36 seconds into the second frame, Malcolm gave the puck to defenseman Tom Dignard, who found Sean Backman streaking up the left side of the ice. Backman skated into the Harvard zone and put a long slapshot past junior Crimson goalie Ryan Carroll for the 1-0 lead.

But Harvard seized the momentum back 88 seconds later with a power-play goal of its own.

Killorn slid a centering pass to freshman Conor Morrison, who placed the puck on Leblanc’s stick. The rookie slammed the puck past Malcolm to even the score.

Just over a minute later, the Crimson went ahead for good. Fallstrom took a pass and charged up the right side of the ice, beating Malcolm with a long shot from the faceoff circle to make the score 2-1. Grimshaw and fellow sophomore Daniel Moriarty were credited with assists.

Now in control of the game, Harvard’s first line created another score at the midway point of the period.

Junior Michael Biega crossed the puck to Grimshaw, who put a long shot on Malcolm. Though the Yale goalie stopped the first shot, Leblanc was there to put the rebound away for the 3-1 lead.

The recently-reunited top forward line of Michael Biega, Leblanc and Killorn accounted for nine of the Crimson’s 22 shots and four of its points on the night. Killorn nearly added a goal of his own in the third period, but his shot rang off the left pipe.

“We struggled looking for each other in [Saturday’s loss at Minnesota], but I know for sure tonight we clicked,” Leblanc said of his linemates. “We work hard in practice and we seem to click well.”

After the flurry of points, the game took a turn for the more physical. As the Bulldogs grew frustrated with their inability to finish shots, scuffles after the whistle and an onslaught of penalties became commonplace.

“They got away from their own game plan, and if you’re a finesse team, I think you’ve got to stick with what you’re doing,” Leblanc said. “They got bumped off the puck and gave us more opportunities to score.”

It was an interference penalty on Harvard freshman Luke Greiner that gave the Bulldogs their second goal of the night.

Yale came on strong at the end of the power play, pulling Malcolm from the net to gain a 6-on-4 advantage on a delayed penalty. And just a second after Greiner came out of the box, Little poked the puck past Carroll to bring the Bulldogs within one.

But though Yale would dominate the rest of the third period—including a shot off the stick of Denny Kearney that hit the crossbar in the game’s waning minutes—Carroll held strong in net.

The junior made 35 saves against the prolific Bulldog offense, which came into the game leading the nation with 4.27 goals per game.

“[Carroll] looked comfortable,” Donato said. “I thought he made some good saves, I thought he did a good job controlling the rebounds, and I think the whole game he looked comfortable.”

And Yale doomed itself with a late-game penalty that put it on the kill for the last minute of play. For a Harvard team that has often forfeited late-game leads, holding on for the win represents a step in the right direction.

“Third period, we’d like to continue to improve and be able to stay aggressive—that’s a little bit of work in progress,” Donato said. “[It was] probably one of our most complete games…our guys have battled and I think they got rewarded tonight.”