Recharged Crimson Back On Ice

It’s been over two weeks since the Harvard men’s hockey team last stood on the blue line, listening to the national anthem before a contest.

On Nov. 28, the Crimson dropped an overtime heartbreaker to Vermont when Dean Strong netted the game-winner with just 1:35 remaining in the extra frame.

Harvard (3-9-0, 2-7-0 ECAC) hasn’t played another game since the Catamounts lit the lamp. After a busy November—11 games, including six against top-20 opponents—the Crimson entered a two-and-a-half-week lull in the schedule.

The break has been savored by coaches and players alike.

“If you’re 9-3, it’s great to have a front-loaded schedule,” captain Dylan Reese explains. “But when you’re losing games, it’s great to have that extra time.”

“The break has allowed us an opportunity to take a deep breath and refresh both mentally and physically,” says Harvard coach Ted Donato ’91.

The 17-day gap came at an opportune time. After an 0-3 start to the season, the Crimson appeared to have turned things around with victories over then-No. 3 Boston College and league foe Colgate over a three-game span. But since then, Harvard has faltered again, picking up only one win in its last six games.

Though there are drawbacks to taking a significant hiatus from competitive hockey—Reese acknowledges “it’s tough to practice for two weeks when you don’t have a game”—the Crimson’s 11th-place position in the league tables has been a strong motivating factor.

“As bad as it is to lose, maybe losing the game going into break is the most beneficial game we’ve lost all year because it leaves a sour taste in our mouth,” Reese says.

Moreover, as Donato points out, the gap in the schedule wasn’t disrupting any momentum worth keeping.

“I would see [the break] as more of a negative if we had established a winning streak or a real good identity as to what type of team we want to be,” Donato says. “Seeing that we didn’t, the time off was welcomed and allowed us to refocus.”

During its 1-5 slide, Harvard notched two goals or fewer in five of the six games, with the only aberration being a 4-2 victory over then-first-place Quinnipiac.

The culprit? According to senior center Kevin Du, it was a misplaced emphasis on scoring “pretty goals.”

“During this break, we emphasized making sure we hit the net instead of maybe trying to pick that top corner and driving wide,” Du says.

In the past two weeks, the Crimson coaches have stressed a simpler and grittier approach to scoring. Rather than setting up elaborate plays, they wanted all players—from forwards to blueliners—to focus on shooting to produce rebounds and crashing the net.

The result, though less elegant, may be necessary for a team that is struggling to make a mark on the scoresheet.

“When you’re having trouble scoring goals, you want to keep things simple—you don’t want to make an incredible play,” Reese says. “You want to execute the simple play: move the puck around, get a shot, get a rebound.”

Though Harvard has had the most difficulty scoring even-strength goals, the Crimson’s power play has needed work as well. As Reese notes, many of Harvard’s man-advantage tallies have come during 5-on-3 play, a factor that may overstate its power-play efficiency.

Consequently, Donato has been shuffling his lineup, trying out new special teams units and realigning his forward lines to try to inspire a spark in his squad.

“Certainly, with our offensive production, we don’t feel there are a lot of guys in the lineup that really have earned a cemented status,” Donato explains. “We’ll continue to look at different combinations, and hopefully, as a team, we’ll just come out and play more cohesively and with a lot more intensity.”

The uncertainty in the lineup extends to the net, where neither senior Justin Tobe nor rookie Kyle Richter has been able to nail down the starting job. Although Tobe has been more consistent recently, he has yet to post the kind of impressive performances that Richter has produced on occasion, including the Crimson’s only shutout of the year in its upset victory over the Eagles.

“Justin has played well as of late, but it hasn’t really resulted in wins for us,” Donato explains. “Kyle has been a little bit more up-and-down, but he’s played a few very good games for us. So that’s a situation we’ll continue to monitor.”

“Hopefully, we’ll get whoever’s playing a little bit more offensive production to work with,” he adds.

When Harvard returns to action Saturday night against Dartmouth, its revamped offense will be immediately put to the test. The Big Green topped the Crimson, 5-2, to open the season, and Dartmouth currently sits eight spots higher than Harvard in the ECAC standings.

And the schedule doesn’t get any easier after that. Over the winter vacation, the Crimson will travel to the Wolverine State to participate in the Great Lakes Invitational, a prominent holiday tournament at the Detroit Red Wings’ Joe Louis Arena. Harvard will face No. 14 Michigan State on Dec. 29 before potentially taking on No. 10 Michigan in the next round.

Nevertheless, the prospect of facing tougher teams has Harvard revved up. Not only could the Crimson’s results during the upcoming stretch have potential NCAA tournament implications, but a solid showing could be just what the team needs to regain the confidence and rhythm to have a purposeful second half.

“We can’t really look down at the line as to how many wins or how far we can come back,” Donato asserts. “But we just hope that we really improve and that by the end of the year, we’re a much better team capable of making a good run.”

To Donato, it’s clear that Harvard can change its fortunes. And if it does, he may find himself looking back in the spring and pointing at the December lull as the turning point.

—Staff writer Karan Lodha can be reached at klodha@fas.harvard.edu