M. Hockey Falls One Period Short Of Complete Effort

PORTLAND, Maine—One step up and one step back. That’s not quite how The Boss penned it, but such a line speaks volumes in describing the week the Harvard men’s hockey team experienced.

In a five-day span the No. 11 Crimson faced No. 6 Boston College and No. 1 Maine. These are the teams Harvard needs to beat if it is to be considered among the nation’s elite.

On Wednesday, Harvard took a step forward with a 2-2 tie against the Eagles. But yesterday, the Crimson fell a step back, losing to the Black Bears in Portland, 4-2.

The elements present in that loss are the same that Harvard has struggled with all season—composure and penalties. Lacking the former resulted in the latter, which in turn led to the score after one period: Maine 3, Harvard 0.

After the game, Harvard coach Mark Mazzoleni emphasized that his team had played 45 good minutes of hockey but that games are 60 minutes long. Put simply, Harvard was caught flat-footed in the first.

Maine scored 45 seconds after the drop of the puck on a Colin Shields goal during a scramble in front.

That first goal caught Harvard unprepared. The next two caught the team undermanned.

Sophomore defenseman Ryan Lannon was whistled off for holding at 9:24 of the first, and the Black Bears made the Crimson pay a mere seven seconds later, Off the draw deep in the Harvard end, Martin Kariya one-timed a pass that snapped the net behind Crimson sophomore goaltender Dov Grumet-Morris.

Less than six minutes later, facing a 5-on-3 (stick count 5-to-1) Maine scored again, this time on a Shields’ slap shot from the top of the circle. Mazzoleni agreed it seemed like the Black Bears had set up camp in the Crimson end, .

“When you have five power plays in a period, that’s 10 minutes in a period—10 out of 20—that’s why they were in front of the net a lot,” Mazzoleni said. “Give them credit, they capitalized on [the power plays] and they finished them.”

Count for the period: five penalties, two of which led directly to Black Bear goals. And that was the ballgame, folks.

Harvard made it interesting in the second and third, staying away, for the most part, from stupid penalties and playing solid defense. But the Black Bears had things under control, for a full sixty minutes. Harvard had things under control for only two periods, and that was the difference in the game.

“I thought we competed very well for 40 minutes,” Grumet-Morris said. “We won the next two periods 2-1. But, you know, that first 20...You got to play all 60 minutes.”

“You can’t beat experience,” said Mazzoleni earlier this season. “Being in big games means an awful lot, and we won a lot of big games towards the end of the year. We played with composure and focus.”

They did that for all but 15 minutes against Maine, and that was the difference between the No. 11 team in the nation and the No. 1 team.

Harvard has taken steps this year, dispelling the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde stigma that plagued the team through the regular season last year.

Earlier this season, the Crimson proved it could dominate less-talented opponents. This past week, it proved it could skate with the best teams in college hockey.

But the major step that Harvard still needs to take, regardless of its steps up and steps back against BC and Maine, is its big game performance—a full 60 minutes of effort, without the frequent penalties.

Captain Dominic Moore probably put it best.

“Obviously it’s a good sign that when we do play our game we can compete with the best teams in the country,” Moore said. “But it’s about time that we started treating ourselves as one of the best teams in the country.”

—Staff writer Timothy M. McDonald can be reached at tmcdonal@fas.harvard.edu