Men's Hockey Opens Season With Win

PROVIDENCE, R.I.--In the Harvard men's hockey team's 5-3 victory over Brown Saturday in Providence, freshman goalie J.R. Prestifilippo became the 11th straight Harvard goalie to win his starting debut in net, a streak begun on November 23, 1982 by Dickie McEvoy (no relation to the writer).

There was a lot of speculation as to whether Prestifilippo or sophomore goalie Peter Zachowich (6 GP, 3-2-0, .876%, 3.87 GAA last year) would start in the season-opener. Both goalies played in Harvard's 3-0 shutout of the Polish National team last week, but Harvard coach Ronn Tomassoni said that his decision to start Prestifilippo had nothing to do with that game.

"[The decision to start Prestifilippo] was mostly based on what we've seen in practice...What happens in the future--I'm not exactly sure," Tomassoni said. "We'll just play it game to game, but I certainly thought J.R. played very well for us."

Prestifilippo, who was drafted in the seventh round of the NHL draft by the New York Islanders, was excellent in net and showed very few signs of first-game-jitters. He ended up with an impressive 21 saves for the night and praise from his coaches and teammates.

Prestifilippo, however, gave most of the credit to his defense.

"It's the best defense I've ever played with," Prestifilippo said. "They kept all [Brown's] shots to the outside and really my job all night was making the first save. They didn't allow any rebounds or anything like that."

Goaltending has traditionally been a strength for Harvard. Outstanding netminders of the past include Chuckie Hughes '92, Tripp Tracy '96, and Aaron Israel.

Power Play/Penalty Kills

Not only did the Crimson show promise in net, but the power play looked remarkably improved from last year. In the first period, the power play unit was very patient and controlled. Harvard's first two goals of the season came off the man advantage.

"It was a good start," Tomassoni said. "I thought overall we were pretty pleased with how we played. I thought our power play played very well especially in the early going."

Unfortunately, as the game progressed, the power play looked much less promising and Harvard failed to capitalize on its last three power play opportunities.

While Tomassoni may have been pleased with his team's power play, he was much less thrilled with the team's penalty-killing.

"I think one of the areas in which we're very raw--or inexperienced in--is penalty killing, in particular up front," Tomassoni said. "We graduated some pretty good kids who did an excellent job of penalty-killing last year..it's early and we're not expecting [penalty killing] to be necessarily in sync. The more experience we get--the more we get to practice--I think the better we're going to get in that particular part of the game and eventually it will become a strength."

ECAC or Hockey East?

Last Saturday's game looked, at times, like a Hockey East game on account of the many skirmishes that flared up between Harvard and Brown players and the overall physical intensity of the game.

The Brown Bears clearly wanted Crimson blood but Harvard did an admirable job of keeping its composure up and its fists down.

"I thought the one thing our team did was not retaliate and was very disciplined out there," Prestifilippo said. "That helped a lot and gave us a lot of advantage power play-wise."

"Whenever we come up to [Brown's Meehan Auditorium] they're always riled up to play us," senior center Joe Craigen said. "We know that going in its going to be a little chippy and that there's going to be a lot of hitting, a lot of stick work. We just have to be prepared to deal with it and dish it out a little bit, and also skate right through it."