SEASON RECAP: Once Again, Crimson Fails To Get Out of First Round

The Harvard men’s hockey team peaked at the right time.

But once again, it wasn’t enough to vault the Crimson past the first round of the NCAA Tournament, as Harvard fell to Maine in Albany, N.Y., just a week removed from the Crimson’s dominant performance in the ECAC Final Four at the same rink.

Nevertheless, the successful season, which included an Ivy League title in addition to the ECAC championship, was an impressive accomplishment for a Harvard team that was predicted to suffer severely from the graduation of the Class of 2005.

“I don’t think anyone expected us—outside of the team—to do as well as we did,” said senior goaltender and team MVP John Daigneau. “Unfortunately, we fell under the curse or whatever everyone was saying, but we were ECAC champs, and to get a two seed [in the NCAA tournament] was unbelievable for us.”

The Crimson kicked off its season in nerve-wracking fashion. After going 2-1 through its first three games, Harvard played four straight games in which its opponent staged a third-period comeback.

Though Cornell was the only team in that stretch that managed to steal a win, the Crimson’s inexperience showed.

Harvard especially struggled in its league contests during the period from Thanksgiving weekend through winter break.

The Crimson pulled out one-goal victories at St. Lawrence and against Quinnipiac but dropped three other Ivy games, including a 4-3 loss to perennial bottom-feeder Yale.

On the other hand, Harvard notched two crucial non-conference wins in December, logging victories in 1-0 nailbiters at New Hampshire and North Dakota—a factor that would weigh heavily in the NCAA selection committee’s eventual decision to award the Crimson a No. 2 seed.

“It does a lot for our confidence,” said junior center Kevin Du after the trip to North Dakota. “We proved to ourselves that we could play with any team in the country.”

Harvard’s league struggles continued in January during a home-and-home set with Rensselaer and Union.

The Crimson picked up only three points in the standings, earning a tie in Schenectady and a win against the Engineers at home but losing the other two contests.

Harvard finally turned things around with a pair of overtime wins against Brown and Princeton.

But in order to clinch a first-round bye in the ECAC playoffs, the Crimson needed to play exceptionally well over a nine-day period against the top four teams in the conference.

Facing an uphill battle, Harvard delivered. Though the Crimson dropped the first game of the set with a 4-1 loss to Colgate, Harvard upset the Big Red the following day before returning home to sweep Clarkson and the Saints and clinch fourth place in the ECAC standings.

“We’ve really played well in the last ten, fifteen minutes of games with the lead,” said captain Peter Hafner after the game. “We had a problem with that early in the season, and we’re really starting to figure out how to play with a lead.”

Though the successful finish, coupled with the Crimson’s strong non-conference performance, had Harvard poised for its fifth consecutive trip to the NCAA Tournament, a poor ECAC playoff run could have changed that.

And for a time, it seemed as if the Crimson might blow its opportunity. Fifth-seeded St. Lawrence took Game 1 of the best-of-three quarterfinal series and led 2-1 after two periods in Game 2.

But Harvard scored two goals in the third period to even the series before exploding for eight scores in Game 3. The Crimson carried its offensive momentum into the ECAC Final Four, dominating Dartmouth 10-1 in the semifinal before deposing Cornell with a 6-2 victory in the championship game.

Harvard’s remarkable run earned the squad a No. 2 seed in the NCAA tournament. But despite playing its first-round matchup at the same rink where it had just tallied 16 scores over two games, the Crimson could not compete against eventual Frozen Four contestant Maine, getting outplayed in all facets of the game in a 6-1 loss—Harvard’s fifth consecutive first-round exit.

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

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