Done Dancing... Again

ALBANY, N.Y.—Apparently, the fifth time isn’t the charm, either.

As the Harvard men’s hockey team has done the past four years, the Crimson failed to get out of the first round of the NCAA tournament, ending its season with a 6-1 defeat to Maine Saturday afternoon at Pepsi Arena.

With the loss, the Crimson moved to 0-3 all-time against the Black Bears in the postseason. But unlike the down-to-the-wire contests of 2002 and 2004, Saturday’s game was a blowout.

“We were outplayed pretty much for the entire game, from top to bottom,” said Harvard coach Ted Donato ’91, adding, “[In] our biggest game of the year, to come up with one of our poorer performances—[it’s] frustrating.”

From the moment the puck dropped, Maine controlled the tempo. Stringing together a series of tape-to-tape passes and maintaining an aggressive forecheck, the Black Bears forced Harvard to spend the majority of the opening frame protecting its own net.

On the other side of the ice, goaltender Ben Bishop and the Maine defense moved the puck quickly out of their zone, limiting the Crimson to seven shots in the first period.

“We weren’t able to establish our forecheck, [and] we weren’t able to sustain any type of pressure in the offensive zone,” Donato said. “We spent the…entire game playing against their forwards in our own zone.”

The Black Bears drew first blood, scoring near the midway point of the opening frame.

With a faceoff in the left circle of the Harvard zone, pivot Michel Leveille won the draw and shipped it back to linemate Josh Soares. The winger fired a wrister from the blue line, floating it through traffic and past Crimson goaltender John Daigneau’s glove at 8:16.

The early score seemed to wake Harvard up. Just 1:16 later, sophomore forward Mike Taylor tallied the equalizer for the Crimson, putting away the rebound of linemate Nick Coskren’s shot.

But Maine’s offense, still firing on all cylinders, answered with a second goal less than half a minute later, as blueliner Bret Tyler converted on a wraparound attempt at 9:57.

“The first period, we were lucky to get out of it there with just a [one-goal] deficit,” captain Peter Hafner said. “To tie it up there and to have them score right away was deflating.”

From that point on, the Black Bears took control of the game. Harvard rarely threatened Bishop, managing only 13 shots on net through the first two frames and generating very few scoring chances.

Remaining aggressive, Maine netted two more tallies in the second period. Winger John Hopson slotted a rebound goal at 7:49 before Leveille took advantage of a takeaway in his own zone to break down the ice and beat Daigneau with a backhander just over four minutes later.

“They came out with a purpose tonight, and we just weren’t able to match that,” Hafner said. “It’s disappointing because we really didn’t show what type of team we [are].”

Though the Crimson had its opportunities in the third period, Harvard struggled to set up its offense. Even in the last 10 minutes of the game, the Black Bears were skating harder and faster.

Donato eventually pulled Daigneau with just over four minutes remaining, but it was to no avail, as Hobey Baker finalist Greg Moore skated up the right boards and flicked the puck into the gaping goalmouth at 16:24 to ice the game.

But even after that, Maine didn’t lower the pressure. Forward Brent Shepheard potted a scrappy tally with just 40 seconds remaining to account for the final tally.

And as the horn sounded for the final time in Harvard’s 2005-06 season, Donato and his skaters shuffled to the locker room, thinking—once again—of what could have been.

“It was one of those days,” Donato said, adding, “We just flat out got beat to loose pucks, we lost one-on-one battles—we never established our will on Maine.”

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