Healing the Wounds

NCAA tournament action starts tomorrow night, but the closest the Harvard hockey team will get to the competition will be the sounds drifting across the river from Boston College's Conte Forum.

The Eagles (seeded fourth in the East) host Bowling Green, the West's number-five seed, in a best-of-three playoff series Friday through Sunday.

The Crimson, meanwhile, will capitalize on a first-round bye to heal the wounds of last weekend's ECAC tournament.

In addition to the loss of junior defenseman Scott McCormack--out for the season with a broken collarbone--and injuries to seniors Allen Bourbeau and Nick Carone, Harvard has another problem to contend with. The Crimson needs to figure out what went wrong in Friday night's 3-2 overtime loss to Vermont in the semfinals. And fix it. Fast.

"I don't know what's going on with this team," senior Josh Caplan said after the semifinal loss. "We didn't come in here to play. I hope this loss teaches us something."

50-Point Club: Is there a team in the NCAA tournament with more offensive firepower than the Crimson?

Harvard is averaging 5.7 goals per game and hasn't been shut out this season. Four team members--Captain Lane MacDonald, Bourbeau, junior C.J. Young and sophomore Peter Ciavaglia--have shattered the 50-point barrier, and five more forwards have scored 20-plus points.

MacDonald currently tops the scoring charts with 28 goals and 28 assists for 56 points, with Ciavaglia--the Crimson's top assist man--trailing by only one point (11-44--55).

Goal of the Week: Ciavaglia claims he doesn't know how the puck made it into the net. But with Harvard a man down in Saturday's consolation game, the sophomore teamed up with Bourbeau on a 2-on-1 breakway that broke Cornell goaltender Corrie D'Alessio.

With Harvard trailing, 2-1, in the first period, Bourbeau passed the puck to Ciavaglia, who slid around Red defender Mark Ratushny and plowed in a shorthanded goal.

"I don't know how we scored that one," Ciavaglia said. "It was a funny play. The puck just kept bouncing all the way in. I didn't really shoot it, I just shoveled it in."

Killing Streak: The Harvard special teams have been killing off a lot of opposing teams lately.

The Crimson was perfect in its penalty killing over the weekend, blanking Vermont and Cornell six times each, and has been 86 percent effective in the shorthanded situation this season.