M. Hockey Finally Has All The Pieces

PROVIDENCE, R.I.—The Harvard men’s hockey team welcomed back the rest of its offense Saturday night.

The Crimson had scored only four goals in its previous three games. More problematic was the fact that Harvard’s top line of Dom Moore, Tyler Kolarik, and Rob Fried had provided all the scoring. Both concerns were eliminated Saturday night, as all three of Harvard’s scoring lines joined in the five-goal offensive outburst.

“We had good chemistry with all three lines [on Saturday],” said Harvard Coach Mark Mazzoleni.

The Crimson showed the ability to adapt to multiple styles of play, scoring with its bigger second and third lines early as Brown tried to keep the game physical. Once Harvard established a lead and play began to open up, Harvard’s quicker, top line added two more goals to put the game out of reach.

Dennis the Menace

For months, Mazzoleni has been raving about sophomore forward Dennis Packard’s progress. Evidence of that improvement finally showed up on the scoreboard this weekend.

Packard notched his first multiple-goal game of his college career Saturday, scoring two consecutive first-period goals.

After a slow start to his freshman season, Packard showed signs of improvement in Harvard’s final few games. He ended the season with four goals.

The forward has provided a consistent offensive presence this year. Mazzoleni said that he leads the team in scoring opportunities, despite only earning three points before Saturday.

“I’ve been getting a lot of chances, so it feels good to finally put a few home,” Packard said.

Packard has looked more comfortable since playing on the same line as junior Brett Nowack and freshman Rob Flynn. All three players rely on strength rather than finesse in creating scoring opportunities, a good contrast to Harvard’s smaller, quicker first-line.

“They all play at about the same speed,” Mazzoleni said. “They’re not burners, but they’re very smart players. “

A Change in Plans

After Brown’s season-opening victory over Harvard, Mazzoleni said that the Crimson must take more shots from the blue line and create traffic in front of the net to be successful.

Neither of these things happened Saturday night. If anything, Harvard utilized its defensemen even less than it did in the season-opener, and no blueliner figured in on any of Harvard’s five goals. The team also had few stretches of sustained pressure in the Brown zone, scoring most of its goals on quick plays.

In the end, all the Crimson needed to score against Brown was more discipline on offense.

“They tried to trap us in the neutral zone again tonight, but we didn’t turn the puck over in the offensive blue line the way we did in the first game,” Mazzoleni said.

Several Harvard forwards tried to create scoring chances by themselves in the first game, leading to an excessive number of turnovers as they discovered that none of them could skate past multiple defenders without losing the puck.

This time, Harvard waited for the scoring opportunities to present themselves, and the error-prone Bears provided the Crimson with plenty of easy chances.

“We just made too many mistakes, and they did a nice job of capitalizing on them,” Brown Coach Roger Grillo said.

Roughing

Brown came into Saturday night’s game hoping to make it a physical contest. Once Harvard pulled away, however, the quality of the physical play deteriorated.

“They were prepared for us, and our guys got a little frustrated,” Grillo said.

Play on the ice reached bizarre status three minutes into the third period. It began when Bear forward Tye Korbl leveled Harvard senior defenseman Liam McCarthy in the open ice. After the whistle, every player on the ice got into some sort of scuffle with an opposing skater, and for the next few minutes Meehan Auditorium looked more like a barroom than a skating rink.

The officials decided that the situation was just too chaotic to assign blame, so they just punished everyone. All ten skaters on the ice were given two minute roughing penalties, and an additional intereference infraction was charged to Korbl for his initial hit.

In a rare, almost-comical sight, eleven players stuffed themselves into the two penalty boxes, looking quite uncomfortable in compartments barely large enough to hold three skaters each.

Some Brown fans added to the ugly display, pelting the Harvard bench with garbage in the third period. Things got so bad by the time Harvard scored its fifth and final goal that referee John Melanson had to order arena security behind the Harvard bench to keep order.

Hitting the Road

After a relatively easy start to the season, Harvard’s schedule now becomes

decidedly more challenging—11of the Crimson’s next 14 games will be away from Bright Hockey Center.

The extended road trip opens with three tough non-conference games. Harvard travels to Michigan on Friday to take on the red-hot No. 11 Wolverines, winners of their last five.

After a two week break, the Crimson will play in a holiday tournament in Denver, opening against No. 6 UMass-Lowell, winners of their last eight.

Harvard could also face No. 2 Denver in the second game of the tournament.

The Crimson went winless in a similar stretch of non-conference games last December. But the daunting schedule is also a chance for the Crimson to make some noise on the national level.