On Hockey: Extensive Experience and Extensive Expectations

The Harvard men’s hockey team has ended the past two seasons in the same arena, at roughly the same time of the year, and in the same (first) round of the NCAA Tournament. But despite those similarities, the tone on which each season concluded was dramatically different.

In the 2001-2002 season the Crimson barely kept its head above water, and indeed the team would have finished with a sub-.500 record had it not been for its improbable, and impressive, ECAC playoff run.

Following a 2-8-1 skid to conclude the season, Harvard defeated Brown in two games at Bright to open the playoffs. The team moved on to Lake Placid, where it upset Clarkson 3-2 in overtime and then defeated top-seeded Cornell 4-3 in double overtime. Winning the ECAC title secured an NCAA tournament berth for the Crimson, and Harvard battled Maine valiantly before bowing out 4-3 in overtime.

That season was an unqualified success for the Crimson; the team contended for, and won, an ECAC title when few people expected Harvard to even advance to the ECAC final. And that performance upped the bar of expectations for the 2002-2003 season.

Unlike 2001-2002, the Crimson sailed through the regular season, posting a final record of 22-10-2. But the specter of falling short in big games—temporarily banished by clutch wins over Clarkson and Cornell, and the near victory against Maine—returned in full. Amongst the team’s 22 wins, the names of Cornell, BU, Maine and BC were conspicuous in their absence.

Harvard met or exceeded expectations in the regular season, but the team did not end last season on a positive note. Instead, the Crimson lost in 3-2 in overtime of the ECAC final to Cornell, despite leading 2-1 with 33 ticks left in regulation. Compounding that disappointment (it was the Crimson’s third loss to Cornell) was Harvard’s play in the opening round of the NCAA Tournament against BU.

The game was a back-and-forth affair. The Terriers took the lead twice in the first period and each time the Crimson tied the score. In the second, Harvard went ahead, only to find the game knotted again later in the period. Back and forth it continued—until the Crimson allowed three goals in three and a half minutes to start the third.

Despite mounting a frenzied comeback, the outcome was academic from that point on. Again Harvard bowed out of the NCAA tournament in the first round, and with expectations of another ECAC title and advancement in the NCAAs, the losses to Cornell and BU overshadowed the team’s strong regular season record.

This season, expectations are higher than ever. For the first time in years, the Crimson is favored over Cornell in both national and league polls. And the team’s recognition comes with good reason—Harvard has more players with NCAA tournament experience over the last two seasons than any team in the country.

That the Crimson’s tournament experience has been full of disappointments is something that coach Mark Mazzoleni and his players believe will be essential to turning postseason disappointment into success this year.

“There’s a very small margin between wining and—I hate to say—losing,” Mazzoleni said. “The team came back in very good shape, and with a real positive mind set. I’m very confident we have guys who do not have their focus on individual aspirations and stats, but more on the team. We have to take the next step, but we’re poised to take the next step.”

For his part, Cornell coach Mike Schafer, who’s Big Red team has been responsible for more than a little Harvard heartache, sees strong similarities between the Crimson team this year and his own senior-led squad from a year ago that advanced to the Frozen Four.

“They’ve gone through it before, like us, and they’ve been to the NCAA tournament and been disappointed with the result,” Schafer said. “They’ve had a lot of success, like the senior group we had last year. Those guys have already achieved the ECAC championship, but at the same time they have greater ideas of grandeur, much like our team.”

Schafer’s words are echoed all across the Crimson’s roster, which admits disappointment with last year’s early end, yet still manages to exude confidence.

“Last year was a very incomplete season,” said junior all-American defenseman Noah Welch. “We won 20 games, but we had a restless offseason because we know we have something to prove.

“We’ve been in the tournament both years I’ve been here. We have so much experience.”

But that experience has included too few wins in crucial games, says team captain Kenny Smith.

“We know how to play the big games, but we haven’t won them,” he said. “We’ve been to a lot of them now, so it’s time to start converting them into wins.”

All the pieces are present to produce wins in key situations—the oft-stated experience, the collected talent (a dozen NHL draft picks), depth at all positions and a challenging nonconference schedule.

Harvard’s schedule, through a quirk of fate, likely includes six teams that are ranked amongst the top 15 in the country, but they are scheduled in a manner that is very beneficial to the Crimson.

The team’s first real test will come just before Thanksgiving when BU makes its way to Bright. A win in the team’s first nonconference game, and against a cross-town rival no less, would set a strong tone for the month of December, when the Crimson will travel to Ithaca, skate at BC and at home against UMass, and in Providence for a holiday tournament against St. Cloud State and (likely) Providence.

All that awaits the Crimson in its first 15 games, and a solid mid-season indicator of the team’s success is the number of wins it has by Jan. 1st. Anything less than a dozen wins from the first 15 will have to be considered a disappointment.

For Harvard to be successful, the loss of Dominic Moore ’03 and Brett Nowak ’03 must be mitigated and the defense must continue to play solidly in front of goaltender Dov Grumet-Morris. The two players on which the burden for the Crimson’s success most heavily falls is junior center Tom Cavanagh and Welch.

While Brendan Bernakevitch and Charlie Johnson adapt to the move from wing to center, Cavanagh must elevate his game. He certainly has the ability; Mazzoleni has heralded him as having “50-point potential,” and he has centered Harvard’s most effective playoff scoring line the last two seasons.

In addition to Cavanagh, Welch must improve upon his performance from a year ago, a year in which he was named an all-American. He garners accolades from opposing coaches wherever he plays. Dartmouth coach Bob Gaudet has credited Welch as that rare kind of player who makes all those on the ice with him better, and BC coach Jerry York has labeled him as one of the best rear-guards in the country. But there were times last season when Welch’s youth showed through, primarily when taking a bad penalty. He has, and has shown, the ability to contribute offensively and to dominate his end of the ice. The question now becomes, how consistently can he control a game?

That’s a lot of hypotheticals—if Harvard can win 12 of its first 15 games, if an all-American can improve on his performance from a year ago, if a junior can replace two of the best centers the Crimson has seen in the last decade. If, if, if. Lots of hypotheticals, but lots of possibilities as well. The foremost among those possibilities—the chance to succeed where the last two Harvard hockey teams have not, in the crucial season-making-or-breaking games.

It is, of course, uncertain whether the team will succeed where others have failed, but to be put in that position to succeed, whether it be the ECAC finals or the NCAA tournament, is why players come to Harvard, according to Smith.

“[The senior class] has one chance left, one more Beanpot and one more shot at a national championship,” he said. “We didn’t come here to challenge for the league title and then bow out in the first round of the [NCAA] tournament.

“We came here to win a national championship.”

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