Wildcat Power Play Notches Two

The No. 9 Harvard women’s team has relied on its penalty kill all season long.

Heading into this past weekend, the Crimson knew it would be put to the test as No. 3 New Hampshire came to Bright Hockey Center with its top ranked power-play unit in the country.

As the final buzzer sounded near 4 p.m. on Saturday, offense had won out as Harvard (7-5-2, 4-2-2 ECAC) fell to the Wildcats (12-2-0, 6-1-0 Hockey East) by a score of 3-0. Two of UNH’s goals came on the power play, as the Wildcats converted twice on six opportunities.

Entering this weekend, their conversion percentage was 29.6, while the Crimson killed 89 percent of its one-man down disadvantages. But on Saturday, UNH stifled Harvard’s power play, killing all four of its chances.

“We really controlled the puck, which has been our trademark,” UNH coach Brian McCloskey said. “Our special teams were outstanding again, but that’s been the case all year.”

Despite the two tallies the Crimson gave up, Harvard managed to prevent the Wildcats from simply outplaying it while on the power play. The first goal came with senior goaltender Ali Boe on the ground after scramble in front of the net, while the third one was the result of a miscue on the line change that left senior Jennifer Raimondi by herself to stop a four-man UNH charge.

On that second goal, the Wildcats executed perfectly by bringing the puck to the right side of the goal and then passing it directly in front of the net for the one-timer from Sadie Wright-Ward.

“We work on the power play a lot in practice,” said UNH forward Leah Craig, who scored twice and had two assists. “And it’s funny because playing against our own [penalty kill] in practice it gets frustrating because we never score. So when we get in a game like this, it is frustrating when you have so many opportunities, but you got to keep working at it and hope it goes in.”

ON HER SHOULDERS

With the Crimson offense remaining stagnant through much of the game and UNH constantly keeping the pressure on, Boe had the burden of keeping Harvard in the game almost by herself.

In the opening two periods, the Wildcats had 23 shots on net and six power plays, including a four-minute stretch in the first during which Boe stuffed a number of opportunities.

In fact, the three goals that UNH scored all seemed to be somewhat out of Boe’s control as none of the three were simple slap shots. All came from scrambles in front of the net or crisp and quick passing by the Wildcats.

“[Boe’s] the most consistent player we have,” Harvard coach Katey Stone said. “She’s been the same performer day in and day out. She was under assault. It was a scary game to play in as a goaltender and defenseman.”

The only score that could maybe be attributed to Boe was an unfortunate bounce for the Crimson. Boe blocked a shot by UNH’s Craig with her right arm, but the puck bounced on her shoulder, and as she brought her arm down, it fell behind her and into the net.

Both of the other two tallies against Harvard came with Boe on the ground or out of position after having already stopped two or three chances with some quick reactions. The constant pressure put on by the Wildcats finally broke through in each case.

“Their forwards were cycling the puck well down low and putting a lot of pressure on our defense,” Boe said. “That made it tougher for them to get it up to our wings. They held the blue line really well, so that made it tough to get out of the zone.”

PARITY STRIKES AGAIN

When Minnesota-Duluth took the number-one ranking in this past weekend’s polls, it seemed like finally the women’s collegiate hockey world had a team to beat.

This past weekend, however, Wisconsin proved that the national picture is still wide open as the No. 4 Badgers outshot the Bulldogs by a 37-23 margin, tying Duluth 2-2.

Moving east, the biggest shocker came against an ECAC frontrunner. Just last weekend, Clarkson proved that it may be just as good as No. 2 St. Lawrence by splitting a series with the Saints.

On Friday and Saturday, however, Niagara—which had been 4-9-1 before this series—swept the Golden Knights in two games. The Purple Eagles edged No. 8 Clarkson by margins of 4-1 and 1-0, while goalie Alison Rutledge stopped 76 of 77 shots during the two games.

For ranking purposes, the Crimson may stay at No. 9 since its competitor—No. 10 Minnesota State—lost and drew in a two-game set against No. 5 Minnesota. In last week’s poll, Harvard had six more points than the Mavericks.

—Staff writer Gabriel M. Velez can be reached at gmvelez@fas.harvard.edu.