It Coulda Been Worse...Konik, Cohagan Salvage Road Trip

POTSDAM, N.Y.--For the Harvard men's hockey team, there are a few things in life that they can rely upon: the sun will rise and set every day, there will always be a bed in Cambridge to sleep on....

Oh, and there will always be dramatic last second finishes up in the North Country.

The Crimson returned home Sunday morning having been upset by ECAC cellar-dweller St. Lawrence on Friday night, 4-3, but it rebounded on Saturday with a 4-3 overtime victory over 10th-ranked Clarkson.

The loss Friday night against St. Lawrence (currently 7-8-1, 2-6-0 ECAC) might have marked a low point on the season for Harvard (8-6-1, 6-4-1), which never led and had three goals disallowed in the game, including one with but one second remaining in the game.

The final few seconds of the St. Lawrence game reminded many of last year's trip to Canton, N.Y., when the Crimson scored to send the game into overtime with four seconds remaining.

But on Friday night, with time winding down, Brad Konik appeared to have flipped the tying goal over Saint goaltender Clint Owen as the clock showed :01. The Harvard players raised their arms in joy and the red light went on--but the goal was waived off because the net had been knocked off the moorings.

"It was a tough call, the referees' judgment...there was a lot of traffic in front of the net and [the referees] thought there was nothing intentional," Coach Ronn Tomassoni said. "Obviously they saw it differently."

Intentional dislodging of the goal from its moorings while the puck is in the crease should result in the calling of a penalty shot, the event that the Harvard players were hoping for.

"After watching the tape of the game, it was definitely a goal," the scorer, junior Brad Konik, said. "But still, that's the referee's call."

Jason Karmanos echoed his teammates frustration after the ruling. "We all thought it had gone in, and [Konik] was so angry when he came over to the bench, I knew he couldn't fake that."

But despite the last-second drama, the Crimson struggled through the night.

Steve Hermsdorf, making his first career ECAC start in goal, stopped a flurry of shots before the end of the first period, preserving a 1-1 score. Hermsdorf was one of the few bright spots for the Crimson on the night, stopping 27 shots.

Harvard appeared to go up when Geb Marett fired a shot that went off Joe Craigen and into the net, but the goal was nullified on a high-sticking call.

Only 30 seconds later, the home side went ahead. Hermsdorf tried to poke-check the puck away from Kris Laamanen, but the Saint sophomore flipped it into the net for a 2-1 lead.

After Bryan Lonsinger tied the game up again with a backhanded shot from the point, St. Lawrence went ahead with a shorthanded goal early in the third period, 3-2.

Perry Cohagan tied the game up for the third time at 3-3, cashing in on his own rebound during a St. Lawrence power play. But with 5:57 left in the game, Burke Murphy of the Saints tipped a pass from the corner past a sprawled Hermsdorf for the score.

"I thought I played OK, but that fourth goal is the one I really should've had," Hermsdorf said.

But Tomassoni expressed satisfaction with Hermsdorf's play. "[Hermsdorf] played very well, it was just a hard-fought game," Tomassoni said.

Harvard's power play came up empty once again Friday night, barely putting any shots on net.

"Even strength we played well, but we even let up a shorthanded goal and another at the end of a power play," Tomassoni said.

A Golden Night?

With the disappointing loss to St. Lawrence, one might have expected the Crimson to come out flat against 10th-ranked Clarkson.

Au contraire, mon frere.

Clarkson (which fell to 9-5-2, 5-2-1 ECAC) had not beaten Harvard in almost three years, and the Crimson entered a roaring Cheel Arena by bombarding Clarkson goalie Dan Murphy with 16 shots in the first period. Tripp Tracy only had to face six--but still the game was knotted at 1-1.

The second period swung towards Clarkson, when in a span of 32 seconds Clarkson scored two goals to open up a 3-1 lead.

Steve Palmer of Clarkson took a pass from Kevin Murphy in front of Tracy and fired it home with 12:40 remaining in the period.

Then two preseason All-Americans, Marko Tuomainen and Claude Morin, screamed down the ice in a 2-on-1 break. Tuomainen tipped the puck past Tracy and suddenly Harvard found itself in a two-goal hole.

At this point Clarkson decided to revert to a defensive strategy, allowing Harvard to break out rather easily while focusing on breaking up play in the neutral zone.

But the Crimson fought back in one of the league's most vicious rinks. Kirk Nielsen tallied another power play goal for the Crimson with 6:25 left to go in the second period.

Leading now only 3-2, Clarkson was called for icing repeatedly in the third period, as Harvard controlled the puck in the Golden Knight end for most of the stanza.

As Harvard went on the power play with 6:45 left in the game, Tomassoni called timeout to assemble his troops.

"I wanted them to keep holding the puck in deep but to take no chances, since I thought this would be the last power play that we would get," Tomassoni said.

Appropriately, it was Konik that came screaming up the right side of the ice during this power play. Cory Gustafson looked a foot offsides as Konik crossed the blue line, but Konik fired the puck past Murphy to tie the game at three.

Clarkson head coach Mark Morris and the 3.285 rabid Clarkson fans protested, but to no avail.

"We got a bad break last night, but we get a good one tonight," Konik said.

Harvard continued their dominance into overtime, while the defensive Golden Knights appeared to be playing for the tie. Such an ending seemed evident, until, with less than a minute to play in the extra period, Konik found Cohagan from the right wing on a centering pass for the game-winning goal.

"We knew that they were hanging by a thread," Cohagan said. "We knew we just had to keep doing what we were doing."

"This was by far our best effort of the season," Tomassoni said. "We came out, showed grit, came out at them consistently and didn't let up. We were that much more focused in all phases of the game." Harvard  3 St. Lawrence  4

Harvard  4 Clarkson  3

Harvard  4 Clarkson  3