Next Shift Mentality: Men’s Hockey Splits Opening ECAC Weekend

A week after the Harvard men’s ice hockey team opened its season by splitting its series against the then-No. 20 UMass Minutemen, the Crimson (2-2, 1-1 ECAC) returned to Bright-Landry Hockey Center to face the Brown Bears (0-3, 0-3) and the Yale Bulldogs (2-1, 2-1) to begin its conference slate.

Against its two Ivy League opponents, Harvard split the weekend once more, posting a 4-1 win over Brown and a 4-3 overtime loss to Yale.

Reflecting on the dominant victory against the Bears on Friday, the Crimson’s new head coach Rob Rassey was cautious about playing up the team’s accomplishments just yet.

“We’re worried about the first five minutes,” Rassey said. “We’re worried about everybody’s first shift. So we have a next shift mentality.”

That mentality is still setting in after two weeks of play, though Rassey looked ready to move on from Saturday’s loss and focus on the first five minutes of next week’s three-game slate, which includes two ranked opponents: No. 13 Boston University and No. 6 Quinnipiac.

The Crimson has proven it can play a dominant first period. On the other hand, Harvard still faces obstacles in staying out of the penalty box and finishing games with the same dominance it starts with.

For Rassey, that is part of the plan: keep “wins small,” he said, and keep building toward a more complete game. The next three games, on the road no less, will serve as a further test of the team’s approach.

Harvard 4, Brown 1

On Friday night, Harvard had three different goal scorers in the first period, starting with sophomore forward Chase Stefanek’s puck pickoff from a Brown defenseman.

The sophomore raced up ice, secured possession of the puck, and flipped a shot over the Bears’ goaltender and into the net. Senior forward Ben MacDonald and junior forward Mick Thompson each added goals of their own in the final three minutes of the period to cement a 3-0 lead.

Rassey touched on Stefanek’s opportunistic play in his post-game interview. He noted that he and his fellow coaches have emphasized giving the players personal goals to achieve during games.

“From a mentality side of things, we place a huge emphasis on that every single day, every single week,” Rassey said. “We try to simplify our message from that side of things, and keep the spots and everything simple, and give them targets and areas of the game to focus on from the mentality side of things that are just work, work ethic, compete level, winning your races, winning your battles.”

“A perfect example was Chase Stefanek’s first goal. He was just hunting and hunting and moving his feet, took the puck from the kid, and ended up with a great scoring chance. So that, for me, is what we love to see,” the coach added.

A particularly scrappy second period left the team without its top defenseman in captain Matthew Morden, who was called for a game misconduct following a post-whistle scrum. The call followed Brown’s lone score by junior forward Charlie Gollob, who completely outskated the Crimson’s defense for a wide-open shot on junior goaltender Ben Charette.

Harvard, lucky its five penalties yielded no goals, slowed its game down to avoid the Bears’ comeback bid.

Thompson fortunately closed out the contest late in the third period off another turnover, staking up ice on a three-on-one play that provided him options with the puck. The junior ultimately settled for putting it between the goaltender’s pads to make it 4-1.

The win was a welcome turnaround for Harvard in its recent years against Brown. The Crimson has won just two of its seven matchups against the Bears since 2022. The victory was also a good sign of the team’s continued strength in Harvard and Brown’s rivalry — the oldest continuing college hockey rivalry in the United States — which the Crimson leads all-time, 121-50-17.

Harvard 3, Yale 4 (OT)

Harvard lost its second ECAC contest against Yale in a narrow back-and-forth affair marked by a flurry of penalties in the first half and two Bulldog goals. Yale’s late offensive surge forced overtime, and the visiting team eventually won.

The Crimson opened the scoring after killing a power play with a shot from freshman defenseman Alex Huang, who tallied his first collegiate goal.

More penalties against both teams — totaling nine in just the first period — disrupted the momentum of both sides.

Yale responded to Huang’s goal two minutes later on the power play to even the game at 1-1. What looked like a routine breakout came apart defensively when Bulldog senior forward Iisai Pesonen cut to the crease and scored on Crimson freshman goaltender Rudy Guimond.

Between penalty calls, three more goals came on power plays: two for Harvard and one for Yale.

The tally at the end of the first period was deadlocked at 2-2, but soon became 3-2 thanks to MacDonald’s power-play chance in the opening minutes of the second period. A miraculous pass from Thompson at the point slipped between two Bulldog defenders and onto MacDonald’s stick for a quick shot and rebound goal.

Following the chaotic trading of shots and penalties, the Crimson and Yale finally settled into play. However, MacDonald’s go-ahead goal pressured the Bulldogs to respond.

Yale freshman forward Kyle O’Leary answered the call, tying the score at the halfway mark, 3-3.

Although MacDonald took a tripping minor with two minutes to go in the second period, the Bulldogs couldn’t break the tie. The third period brought little progress, and Harvard failed to convert on a late power play. The game extended to overtime.

Both teams had numerous scoring opportunities in overtime, starting with two separate chances from the right point into the crease that Crimson sophomore forward Richard Gallant and junior defenseman Lucas St. Louis couldn’t cleanly handle.

Guimond, who got the start over Charette on Saturday — and had flashy moments by drawing an interference penalty and making the important saves to prevent a Yale go-ahead goal — was injured late in the match, Rassey confirmed after the game. Late in the extra frame, Charette had to step up to play, despite Guimond trying to stay between the pipes.

Ultimately, the Bulldogs successfully completed the comeback and capitalized on the change, coming out victorious after a surprise play with thirty seconds remaining in extra time. Thompson, the closer in the game against Brown, tumbled into Yale junior forward Ronan O’Donnell, who snatched up the puck and scored the golden goal for the visiting team.

The Crimson will have to tighten up play if it hopes to survive its upcoming three-game road trip, facing BU on Tuesday, Nov. 10, before its Friday-Saturday sequence against Princeton and Quinnipiac, respectively. All three games will stream on ESPN+ and start at 7 p.m. EST.

—Staff writer Nate M. Bolan can be reached at [email protected].