First Line Quietly KOs Catamounts

They’re not flashy, and they’ve only been playing together for a few games, but you’d think someone from Vermont would have paid attention to senior Dennis Packard, junior Brendan Bernakevitch and freshman Ryan Maki.

They may not have the name recognition that a Tyler Kolarik or a Noah Welch have in opposing rinks, and may not quite be at the top of the Harvard scoring charts—though Packard and Bernakevitch are right there—but boy, did they show Vermont why Crimson coach Mark Mazzoleni strung them together on the first line this weekend.

Sure, it’s possible to overlook what the trio accomplished Friday night. Kolarik netted a goal and tallied an assist, turning in his now-standard clutch playoff performance. Freshman Kevin Du notched the game-winner.

But right there, just beneath the surface, was the solid play of Harvard’s first line, propelling the Crimson to victory.

It wasn’t so much the offensive contributions that mattered most. Harvard was already ahead 1-0 when Bernakevitch assisted on Kolarik’s power-play goal. Maki’s crossover move at the blue line to lose his defender before he blasted the puck just above Catamount goalie Travis Russell’s glove, what Mazzoleni termed “a real nice goal-scorer’s goal,” was a nail in the coffin—and a beautiful one at that—but ultimately just icing on the cake.

Shutting down Brady Leisenring and Jeff Miles—two of the premiere scoring threats in the ECAC, with a combined 28 goals and 45 assists—was anything but.

“You’ve got to credit Coach Mazzoleni for that match-up,” said Vermont coach Kevin Sneddon ’92. “I thought they did an outstanding job...taking away two of the most skilled players in our league. They took them out of the series really, just real tight checking.”

Rarely offering the Catamount tandem the opportunity to take a leisurely breath, let alone wind up for a shot, the Crimson’s top line invaded the pair’s comfort zone, limiting the effectiveness of their finesse moves and bursts of speed in both contests.

“Our plan was to take care of the puck at the blue lines and not give them a chance to transition,” Packard said. “The biggest thing for us was taking away their space. They’re kind of small players, they’re very quick...so as long as we took away their space we thought we could stay with them.”

And on those few occasions Leisenring or Miles managed to squeeze off a shot—the two combined for just seven on net in two games—Harvard’s front-liners had forced them so far to the perimeter that junior netminder Dov Grumet-Morris could handle them with ease.

Too bad for Vermont that Russell couldn’t say the same about the shots the Crimson’s first line peppered him with on Saturday night.

Though they’d managed to stay just outside the limelight the previous night, it was clear by the middle of the third period Saturday that a repeat would be impossible.

With 1:33 left in the first, Packard dumped the puck in to Maki, riding a three-game goal-scoring streak. Almost preternaturally, Maki sent it toward the left circle. Bernakevitch crashed through a pair of defenders just outside the goalmouth and buried the puck past Russell for a 1-0 lead.

That shot captured Harvard’s top line in a single moment: not too fancy, even rough around the edges, but good as gold.

“Bernie’s a player,” Mazzoleni said. “Sometimes he gets overlooked a lot on our team but when you look at his play in the offensive zone, he’s as dangerous as anyone we have.”

And though Bernakevitch was separated from his linemates for his second tally of the night, the essence was certainly the same.

With the Crimson on the power play and following close on the heels of two “almost goals”—the first of which was so convincing that the Harvard band began to play while a pair of Crimson skaters held their arms in celebration—Bernakevitch bounded through the slot and guided the puck past Russell to extend the lead to two.

“He’s got a very quick stick, he’s strong on the puck, he’s got a quick first three steps and he’s got a quick release,” Mazzoleni said. “The play that he made tonight when he moved laterally and went upstairs was a great play.”

But it wasn’t the last he and his linemates would turn in.

With Harvard up three, assistant captain Rob Fried slipped a pass under a defender’s stick to Packard, who swatted it past the post for the eventual game-winner.

“He just made a great pass,” Packard said, “right onto the tape.”

And while each cited the play of his two linemates as the driving force between their collective success, trying to deflect the spotlight, this much is clear: come Friday, Brown will be paying attention.

—Staff writer Timothy J. McGinn can be reached at mcginn@fas.harvard.edu.