E.A. Sports: M. Hockey Goes The Distance In Marathon

The Harvard men’s hockey team was at its most dominant in routing Brown Friday. It was at its best Saturday.

With its epic double-overtime victory over Brown in Game 2, the Crimson didn’t just earn a ticket to Lake Placid, it also put the struggles of the previous five weeks behind it for good.

Harvard regained its midseason form last weekend not by blowing out Brown when everything went right, but by coming through when scoring a goal seemed impossible.

Few people gave the Crimson a chance this weekend. And they had good reason not to—Harvard had looked lifeless for most of the last month during it’s 2-8-1 post-exam swoon, and it played with virtually no emotion in its final regular season game, a 3-0 loss at Princeton.

By contrast, Brown had won six of its last eight, beaten two top-ten teams since January and featured the ECAC’s best goaltender in Yann Danis. Harvard had not defeated a team with a winning record since November, and the Bears began the weekend 14-13-2.

Given its recent performance, the Crimson’s ability to regain its midseason form so suddenly was shocking. Harvard dominated a quality opponent for the first time in months, producing one of the most lopsided 4-1 victories you’ll ever see.

“We were hitting on all cylinders [Friday] night,” Harvard coach Mark Mazzoleni said.

Still, Friday’s win didn’t prove that Harvard had emerged from its slump. The Crimson knew it could play well under favorable circumstances. Even during it’s post-exam swoon, Harvard had its moments of dominating hockey, playing well for stretches against Vermont, St. Lawrence and Yale. Yet these flashes of promise were quickly extinguished by lopsided losses in the Crimson’s next games.

What Harvard had lacked since exams was the ability to handle adversity and sustain a high level of intensity and focus for an entire game. And when a resurgent Brown team showed up Saturday night, it was clear Harvard would have to play its best hockey or 60 minutes.

In this case, it would need 90.

And even that almost wasn’t enough. Danis was simply phenomenal in net, stopping a ridiculous 66 shots, including a string of spectacular saves in the third period and first overtime, when the Crimson rarely left the Brown zone.

“Danis was going to stop anything that’s shot at him, anything on the first shot and probably anything through a screen,” freshman goaltender Dov Grumet-Morris said.

Put Harvard against a goalie playing half that well a week ago, and the Crimson would have become frustrated and probably lost badly—hey, it happened last week at Princeton. Any opponent in February that played as stubbornly as Brown did Saturday would have beaten Harvard easily.

But this was a different Crimson team.

Harvard didn’t lose focus in the first period when it became clear it wouldn’t be as easy as the night before. It maintained its intensity after giving up a goal on a penalty shot with no time left in the second period. It refused to become rattled when Danis looked superhuman in the third and in the first overtime. And it kept its composure early in the second overtime when Brown started to dictate the pace of the game and created several scoring opportunities in transition.

When junior Dom Moore willed the puck past Danis shortly after 11 p.m., the Crimson erased any doubts that the last month might have stirred up.

“It’s a helluva step forward for our kids,” Mazzoleni said Saturday.

It’s anyone’s guess what caused the Crimson to finally wake up. Maybe it was the threat of elimination, or maybe the players were just fed up with losing. All that matters is that the players’ constant talk about “maintaining consistency” and “playing our game” finally translated into action.

And as a result, the Crimson saved what would have been a disappointing season.

The odds are against Harvard winning at Lake Placid and earning an automatic NCAA berth. Even if the Crimson gets by a solid Clarkson squad, it would likely have to play Cornell in the final, by far the best team in the conference.

Still, the Crimson needs only two victories to win the tournament, and it has proven this year that it can beat any of the other four teams playing. And even if its season ends next Saturday, the Crimson can skate off the ice holding their heads high.