M. Hockey Ousts Brown in Double OT

Getting a monkey off your back never took so long. But for the Harvard men’s hockey team, it was well worth the wait.

After closing out the regular season by losing eight of its final 11 games, the Crimson (13-14-4, 10-9-3 ECAC) swept Brown in its best-of-three, first-round series of the ECAC playoffs this weekend. It certainly wasn’t easy for the Crimson, though—Harvard needed a full 94 minutes and 41 seconds to beat the Bears, 2-1, in Game 2 Saturday night.

It was the longest game in Harvard hockey history, and it ended at 14:41 of the second overtime period—four hours after it began—when junior center Dominic Moore did the near-impossible and solved Brown sophomore goaltender Yann Danis. Danis had stopped 66 Crimson shots on the night, an all-time Harvard record by an opposing goaltender.

Coupled with Friday night’s 4-1 Crimson win, the Game 2 thriller earned Harvard a berth in the ECAC Final Five at Lake Placid, N.Y. next weekend. The Crimson will face Clarkson in Friday’s 4 p.m. semifinal game.

All of a sudden, Harvard’s regular season woes are a distant memory.

“I couldn’t be prouder of our kids,” said Harvard Coach Mark Mazzoleni, whose team won two straight games for the first time since Jan. 4-5. “We did what we had to do. We deserve to go to Lake Placid the way we played this weekend. It was a major step forward for us.”

Harvard 2, Brown 1 (2OT)

Simply put, Saturday night’s game was an instant college hockey classic. And to top it off, Harvard’s most electrifying player came up with the team’s biggest goal of the season.

With the Crimson clearly dominating play but seeing its shots turned away time and time again by Danis—a bona fide French-Canadian puck-stopping machine—Moore took matters into his own hands. But of course, it didn’t come easy.

Moore began his game-winning sequence with a shot from the slot that Danis turned aside. Moore chased down his rebound to Danis’ left before picking the puck up and wrapping around the net counterclockwise.

Moore then popped back out in front of the goal and tried to backhand a shot by Danis, but was denied again. Just as he had done the first time, though, Moore pounced on the rebound, setting the stage for one last circle around the net.

“Well, it was déjà vu all over again on that second time around,” Moore said with a smile after the game. “I rolled out again, and that time I decided that I wasn’t going to get stopped.”

Moore was right. This time, Danis didn’t put a pad on Moore’s shot and it slipped by him along the ice on his glove side.

“I made two loops—one for each overtime,” Moore joked after the game. “Luckily it went in and we were done with it.”

As the red light went on in front of the Harvard student section—which had migrated from its usual location underneath the Bright Center press box before the second overtime in order to have a prime view of the anticipated game-winner—a mass celebration ensued.

“That was one heck of an individual play,” Mazzoleni said. “I don’t know how many times [Moore] came out. It had to be one heck of a play to beat [Danis], because we couldn’t beat him with anything. You watched him save shot after shot and just said, ‘I can’t believe this.’ He’s one heck of a goaltender. He’s as good as I’ve seen. I won’t be surprised next week if he’s on the All-ECAC First Team. He deserves that.”

Moore, though, was confident that his team was going to be able to solve Danis one last time to punch its ticket to Lake Placid for the second year in a row.

“I think we dominated both overtimes,” Moore said. “I think Brown sort of laid back. It might’ve been because they were tired or just wanted to play a conservative style, but I think the shots reflected that we controlled the play in both of the overtimes. It seemed to us that it was just a matter of time.”

The numbers certainly supported Moore’s statement, especially when looking at the third period and first overtime session. During that 40-minute stretch, Harvard outshot Brown (14-15-2, 10-10-2) by an eye-popping margin of 34-7.

Danis saved all but one of those shots, the exception being Crimson junior center Brett Nowak’s tally at 5:30 of the third that tied the game 1-1.

The goal was characteristic of Nowak’s strong play all season in front of the net. With wingers Tyler Kolarik and Brendan Bernakevitch clogging things up in front of Danis, Nowak was able to put back his own rebound for his 13th marker of the season, tying him with sophomore Tim Pettit for the team lead in goals.

“Nowak’s a tough kid down low,” Brown Coach Roger Grillo said. “He’s probably one of the best kids I’ve seen in college hockey in the last six or seven years as far as controlling play down low. He’s a tough guy to knock off the puck.”

Nowak’s game-tying goal—and, ultimately, Moore’s game-winner—validated a tremendous individual effort by freshman goaltender Dov Grumet-Morris. The only mar on Grumet-Morris’ 31-save performance came on a penalty-shot goal by Brown just before the second intermission.

As time was expiring in the second period, Crimson senior captain Peter Capouch—playing in the final home game of his stellar career—was whistled for tripping Brown sophomore winger Brent Robinson as he brought the puck in on Grumet-Morris. Referee Scott Hansen awarded Robinson a penalty shot.

With the Bright Center crowd of 1,594 on its feet as Robinson aggressively addressed the puck at center ice, Grumet-Morris charged out of his crease to challenge his opponent. Robinson countered Grumet-Morris’ energy by pulling the puck back about 25 feet from the goal and beating the Harvard rookie five-hole to send the Bears to the locker room with the game’s momentum in hand.

But that was the only time the Bears got the better of Grumet-Morris, who solidified his position as the team’s number one goaltender with very consistent play throughout the weekend.

“I’m very proud of [Grumet-Morris],” said Mazzoleni, a former goalie himself. “I thought he did a very, very good job for us and made some key saves. That’s a tough game to play as a goalie when the puck is on their side for that long.”

Grumet-Morris—now 7-2 in home starts this season and undefeated in his last four games at Bright—refused to let fatigue or the superb play of Danis on the other end disrupt his focus.

“I was just trying to concentrate on the basics and stay mentally alert,” Grumet-Morris said. “Every time a period ends you just want to go out there with a clean slate and focus on winning that 20 minutes.”

It was a tough loss for Brown, but the Bears had plenty to be proud of as they left Bright Saturday night. Brown was one of college hockey’s great success stories this year, winning 10 more games than it did last season, including victories over St. Cloud State (Minn.) and UMass-Lowell, both of whom were in the top ten nationally at the time.

“I think this game speaks volumes about the character of the kids we have in this locker room,” Grillo said. “The lumps we took last year helped us this year, and the lumps we took this year will help us next year.”

Harvard 4, Brown 1

When asked after Game 1 how long it had been since his team had played as well as it did Friday, Mazzoleni paused a few seconds. Then he grinned.

“It’s been a while,” he said. “I can’t remember. We were hitting on all cylinders tonight.”

That pretty much says it all.

The most important goal of the night was the first one. Going into the game, Mazzoleni and most everyone else on the team stressed how important it would to take an early lead.

As it turned out, it took a Warwick, R.I., native—Harvard freshman Tom Cavanagh—playing against his hometown-area school to get the Crimson on the board first.

Cavanagh gave Harvard a 1-0 lead just 2:16 into the game when he capitalized on a turnover caused by linemate Brendan Bernakevitch in the neutral zone. Cavanagh skated in along the left-wing side before beating Danis five-hole with a laser from the faceoff dot.

“That was big,” Mazzoleni said of Cavanagh’s goal. “We’ve played pretty well during our struggles, but we just haven’t finished very well. Jumping out in front gave us a big shot of confidence. I thought we continued to build off that.”

Cavanagh sensed how important the goal was, as well.

“We hadn’t [scored first] in the past few games, and we lost the past few games,” said Cavanagh, who assisted on two more goals in the game for his 20th and 21st points of the season. “So it was good to get the first one and get everything going.”

The Crimson built off of Cavanagh’s goal and dominated play for the rest of the period, using its forecheck both to apply offensive pressure and limit Brown’s chances. Harvard held a 10-4 edge in shots on goal at the first buzzer.

The Crimson had a 2-0 lead by that time, as well. With under three minutes to play in the period, the Crimson power play needed just eight seconds of ice time to strike, as freshman defenseman Noah Welch unleashed a rocked from the point that beat Danis glove side.

After a scoreless second period, the Harvard power play struck again early in the third. This time, Pettit got the puck at his sweet spot above the right faceoff circle and blasted it by Danis to make it 3-0 just 27 seconds in.

Brown brought the deficit back to two on a tally by sophomore center Shane Mudryk, but Moore added an empty-netter with 19 seconds left to seal the victory.

Danis made 31 saves in the game, while Grumet-Morris stopped 22 for Harvard.

M. HOCKEY 2, BROWN 1 (2OT)

At Bright Hockey Center

Harvard (13-14-4, 10-9-3) 0 0 1 0 1—2

Brown (14-14-2, 10-10-2) 0 1 0 0 0—1

First Period: None. Second Period: B, Robinson (unassisted) PShot 19:59. Third Period: H, Nowak (Kolarik, Bernakevich) 5:30. Overtime: H, Moore (unassisted) GWG 14:41. Shots on goal: H 8-14-16-19-11 68, B 7-10-4-3-8 32. Power Play: H 0-4, B 0-4. Penalties: H 7-14, B 7-14. Goalies: H Grumet-Morris (31-30), B Danis (66-64). A: 1,594.

M. HOCKEY 4, BROWN 1

At Bright Hockey Center

Harvard (12-14-4, 10-9-3) 2 0 2 — 4

Brown (14-13-2, 10-10-2) 0 0 1 — 1

First Period: H, Cavanagh (Bernakevitch) 2:16. H, Welch (Cavanagh) GWG PPG 17:17. Third Period: H, Pettit (Welch, Cavanagh) PPG 0:27. B, Mudryk (Kirley) 10:26. H, Moore (Kolarik) ENG 19:41. Shots of goal: H 10-14-11 35, B 4-10-9 23. Power Play: H 2-3, B 0-4. Penalites: H 4-8, B 3-6. Goalies: H Grumet-Morris (22-21), B Danis (31-28). A: 1,694.