A Year Later, the Tables Are Turned

A year ago Saturday, the Harvard men's hockey team travelled to Troy, N.Y., to battle RPI, then the nation's number one ranked team.

The Engineers, riding a 29-game winning streak, were in first place in the ECAC and needed to knock off the Crimson to clinch the regular season title.

Harvard, then in second place, was looking for an upset to keep its hopes for the ECAC crown alive.

But those hopes died after 60 minutes of play in front of over 5000 partisan spectators in Houston Field House, as RPI stormed past the icemen, 4-1.

This year the two teams have traded places

The Crimson (16-5-1 overall, 15-2 ECAC) is in first place in the ECAC and need only win two of its remaining four games to claim the regular season title. It currently boasts a modest four-game winning streak and has gone unbeaten in 12 straight home contest.

The Engineers (19-6-1 overall, 12-4-1 ECAC)--who visit Bright Center Saturday at 7:30 p.m.--are in the same spot as the Cantabs were last year.

Namely, second. With only a slim chance of winning it all.

To take home the ECAC regular season crown for the second straight year, RPI must win its remaining four games--including its showdown with Harvard in front what promises to be a loud sellout crowd at Bright. Meanwhile, the Crimson must lose two of its remaining three games against Vermont, St. Lawrence and Clarkson.

Harvard, a 4-2 winner over RPI earlier in the season, could take a giant step toward a first place finish by beating Vermont (15-10 overall, 9-8 ECAC) Friday night at Bright.

The Catamounts defeated the Crimson, 3-2, earlier in the year and have an outside chance of snagging home-ice advantage for the ECAC playoffs, which begin March 7.

Harvard, which earned home-ice rights after its 5-1 pounding of Colgate Saturday, is looking for revenge.

"We shouldn't have lost that first game," Crimson Caption Scott Fusco says. "We owe them one."

Vermont is in sixth place in the league, a game in front of the Red Raiders (14-10-2 overall, 8-8-1 ECAC). Another upset over Harvard would give the Catamounts an outside chance of catching fourth-place Cornell (13-5-3 overall, 10-5-2 ECAC) and sending one of the first round playoff matches to Burlington, Vt., instead of to Ithaca, N.Y.

How likely is a Vermont victory?

A quick glance at the ECAC goaltending leaders shows Vermont's Tom Draper in second with a 2.85 goals-against average.

In the first matchup between the two teams, Draper held the Crimson--then without the services of first-line wing Lane MacDonald, playing for the U.S. Junior National Team over the Christmas break--to two goals by former junior teammate Tim Barakett while stopping 43 Harvard shots.

But even if Draper--an All-American candidate--turns in a typically fine performance against the Crimson, he is likely to be outdone by the ECAC's leading netminder, Harvard's Grant Blair.

Blair leads the nation with a 2.76 goals-against average and must also be considered a potential All-American. And Blair leads the ECAC with a 2.50 g.a.a.

The league sports another fine goalie in Cornell's Doug Dadswell, who earned ECAC Player of the Week honors for his 46 saves against Harvard in the Crimson's 4-3 victory Friday and his 29-save shutout of Dartmouth the next night, boasts a 2.93 g.a.a.

USA Today's Rod Beaton wrote a story last week which listed his 10 top candidates for the prestigious Hobey Baker Award, given to college hockey's most valuable player.

Fusco was the third player named.

Although the Crimson's all-time leading scorer doesn't have the opportunity to play nearly as many games as his rivals for the award--Minnesota-Duluth's Brett "The Little Golden Jet' Hull has already skated in 36 contests to Fusco's 22, for instance--and, therefore, cannot record as many points as his competitors, Fusco can boast of a 2.13 points-per-game average, which ranks in the top-10 in the country.

Fusco--with 14 goals and 25 assists--leads the ECAC in points. The senior took the conference scoring title last year en route to being named ECAC Player of the Year.

He also apparently wrapped up the Ivy League scoring title with his two-point effort against Cornell, finishing with 10 goals and 15 assists for 25 points, two more than injured teammate Allen Bourbeau (still the ECAC's second-leading scorer with 33 points) recorded.

Cornell's Duanne Moeser and Yale's Randy Wood still have two Ivy games left to play. but with 14 points apiece each would need monstrous efforts to pass Fusco, who averaged two-and-a-half points per game in the Ivy League.

In the last six games, the Burlington native has chalked up 15 points and appears to be fully recovered from the midseason slump in which he recorded only seven points, including just one goal, in the seven games beginning with Harvard's first 5-4 loss to Wisconsin in late December and ending with the Crimson's 7-0 rout of St. Lawrence three weeks ago.

If be continues on his current pace and is able to lead his team to the ECAC tournament championship and beyond, Fusco should have a better than fair chance of snagging the Hobey Award, which his brother Mark won in 1983.

Among the other Eastern candidates mentioned by USA TODAY were Boston College's Scott Harlow, who led the Eagles past the Crimson in the first round of the Beanpot Tournament, Hull, the son of former NHL star Bobby Hull, and Providence goaltender Chris Terreri.

Fusco--a finalist a year ago--will certainly be among the 10 finalists announced on March 7.

Blair wasn't mentioned. But it's hard to see how the award committee could overlook his play this year--especially in comparison to Terreri's.

Terreri owns a 4-14-0 record compared with Blair's 15-4-1 mark.

His goals-against-average is 4.00, a goal-and-a-half more than Blair's.

The only category in which Terreri out-performs Harvard's senior netminder is save percentage. Terreri ownes a .901 percentage, a little better than Blair's .897.

Terreri may be a sentimental choice because of his stellar performance in last year's NCAA tournament, in which he led the underdog Friars to the finals against RPI. He was named the tournament MVP, despite his team's 2-1 loss to the Engineers.

Draper, too, must be considered a candidate. And before his stomach muscle pull that sidelined him for the consolation game of the Beanpot and the Crimson's last two ECAC contest, Bourbeau was also mentioned in connection with the Hobey Baker Award.

Bourbeau, like UMD's Hull, is a sophomore and will have up to two more years to pursue the award.

But this is Fusco's last chance.

If the ECAC playoffs were held today, the Crimson would host eighth-place St. Lawrence (14-12 overall, 8-10 ECAC). RPI would battle Colgate at Troy's Houston Field House, Vermont would visit Yale (16-8 overall, 12-6 ECAC), and Cornell would take on Clarkson (12-10-3 overall, 9-6-3 ECAC) in Ithaca.

St. Lawrence, which had to forfeit its January 4 victory over Army, is hanging on to last playoff spot over Princeton (10-14-2 overall, 6-10-1 ECAC).

The forfeit was awarded because St. Lawrence skated an ineligible player, Joe McEachern. McEachern had transferred from Boston College at mid-year but had not completed an academic year at St. Lawrence.

All individual statistics for the game remain valid, but the result has been changed to "loss by forfeit."

Ninth-place Princeton hurt its chances for a playoff birth by losing 5-3 at RPI and 5-2 at Vermont last weekend.

The Larries, meanwhile, have recovered from their 0-7 opening league mark, winning eight out of their last 10 games--including a recent sweep of Yale and Brown.

ECAC STANDINGS Team  W  L  T  GF  GA  Overall Harvard  15  2  0  100  42  16-5-1 RPI  12  4  1  82  62  19-6-1 Yale  12  6  0  85  61  16-8-0 Cornell  10  5  2  77  58  13-5-3 Clarkson  9  6  3  80  60  12-10-3 Vermont  9  8  0  49  49  15-10-0 Colgate  8  8  1  70  84  14-10-2 SLU  8  10  0  74  78  14-12-0 Princeton  6  10  1  59  63  10-14-2 Army  2  9  0  36  57  14-10-1 Dartmouth  3  14  0  45  96  6-15-0 Brown  3  15  0  56  105  4-15-0

Harvard Men's Hockey 16-5-1 Overall, 15-2 ECAC,9-1 Ivy

Career Name  Gm  Gl  A  Pt  PM  Gl  A Scott Fusco  22  17  30  47  25  100  199 Tim Smith  22  17  18  35  16  53  47 Allen Bourbeau  17  18  16  34  14  19  16 Tim Barakett  22  14  20  34  6  25  39 Mark Benning  20  2  25  27  10  6  62 L. MacDonald  22  11  9  20  29  32  40 Ed Krayer  22  3  14  17  2  3  14 Randy Taylor  21  4  12  16  28  10  45 Rob Ohno  22  5  9  14  4  14  23 S. Armstrong  22  5  6  11  16  11  11 Jerry Pawloski  22  2  9  11  14  2  18 Pete Chiarelli  19  2  8  10  14  11  18 Pete Follows  18  4  5  9  2  13  17 Nick Carone  21  6  2  8  26  6  6 Chris Biotti  15  3  5  8  18  3  5 Don Sweeney  19  4  3  7  8  7  10 Greg Chalmers  6  2  2  4  10  28  31 Andy Janfaza  16  1  3  4  18  3  5 Josh Caplan  18  1  2  3  4  1  2 Gerald Green  8  0  3  3  2  0  3 Grant Blair  20  0  2  2  8  0  3 Butch Cutone  11  0  2  2  0  3  12 Craig Taucher  2  0  2  2  0  0  2 Rick Haney  8  0  1  1  0  1  7 Dickie McEvoy  2  0  1  1  0  0  1 John Devin  2  0  0  0  0  0  0 Total  22  121  209  330  282  --  -- Opponents  22  61  107  168  345  --  --

Harvard power play: 40-135 (29.6%)

Harvard penalty killing: 75-101 (74.3%)

Name  W  L  Sv%  GAA Grant Blair  15  4  1  89.8  2.76 John Devin  0  1  0  86.1  4.34 D. McEvoy  1  0  0  97.1  0.79 TOTAL  16  5  1  89.9  2.75 Opponents  5  16  1  86.0  5.45

ECAC Scoring Name/School  G  A  PT Scott Fusco, Harv.  14  25  39 A. Bourbeau, Harv.  17  16  33 J. Nieuwendyk, Cor.  16  17  33 Tim Smith, Harv.  15  17  32 Gerard Waslen, Col.  13  17  30 Tim Barakett, Harv.  12  15  27 Pete Natyshak, Cor.  10  17  27 Mark Jooris, RPI  15  11  26 John Carter, RPI  14  12  26 R. Boivin, Colg.  16  10  26 Randy Wood, Yale  13  13  26 Bob Logan, Yale  13  13  26 The Polling Place

WMEB 1.  Denver (10) (27-9)  126 2.  Michigan State (1) (25-8-2)  97 3.  Minnesota (1) (26-10)  87 4.  Wisconsin (24-12)  84 5.  Harvard (16-5-1)  69 6.  Boston University (20-11-2)  68 7.  Minn.-Duluth (25-10-1)  53 8.  N. Dakota (1) (23-12-1)  49 9.  B.C. (21-10-2)  40 10.  W. Michigan (26-10)  23

As voted by coaches and conducted by radio station WMEB in Maine, with first-place votes votes and records followed by total points.

WMPL 1.  Denver (7.5) (27-9)  92 2.  Minnesota (26-10)  77 3.  Wisconsin (2) (24-12)  70 4.  Michigan State (.5) (25-8-2)  63 5.  B.C. (21-10-2)  58 6.  Harvard (16-5-1)  42 7.  Boston University (20-11-2)  38 8.  Minn.-Duluth (25-10-1)  33 9.  N. Dakota (1) (23-12-1)  32 10.  W. Michigan (26-10)  26

As voted by coaches and conducted by radio station WMPL in Michigan, with first-place and records followed by total points.