Revenge Up Next For Crimson

It was rock bottom for the Harvard men’s hockey team just three weeks ago. A 4-2 loss at Brown on Feb. 1 capped off a 2-9-2 dive that started after a 3-3 tie at Yale on Nov. 28.

“Some of those ties felt like losses,” senior forward Paul Dufault said. “We were playing pretty well, but in the third period we just lost it.”

Although the Crimson (11-11-3, 9-7-2 ECAC) had a 3-2 advantage with a minute remaining in its last bout with the Bulldogs, the game ended in a tie. Such were the fortunes of the Harvard squad at the end of 2007.

Oh, how the times have changed.

Now, fresh off a 4-1 run, with three wins against ranked opponents, including key ECAC rivals No. 17 Princeton and No. 19 Quinnipiac, the Crimson stands poised to move up in the standings this weekend and seize the fourth-place spot in the ECAC and the first-round bye in the conference tournament that comes with it.

As before, the team’s fortunes will start with Yale and end with Brown. The Bulldogs (12-9-4, 8-6-4 ECAC) will face Harvard at the Bright Hockey Center on Friday night, followed by the Bears (4-17-4, 4-11-3 ECAC) on Saturday.

The Crimson intends to keep its hot streak going as the team fights its way back up in the standings. For now, Harvard is right back where it wants, and expected, to be.

“We struggled through December and January,” co-captain Dave MacDonald said. “But if you talk to the people on the team, we’re not surprised to be winning now. We had the talent and the guys to be winning games all along.”

Excellent play up and down the roster has been responsible for the recent run, highlighted by some individual exploits.

“Doug Rogers and Mike Taylor are really stepping us for us right now,” senior forward Alex Meintel said. “Earlier, everyone was playing well, but we just weren’t getting results. Now we are.”

The only problem for the Crimson is that Yale enters tomorrow night’s game on a roll as well. Though the Elis dropped two on the road to Quinnipiac and Princeton earlier in the month, they’ll skate onto the Bright Hockey Center ice coming off an impressive 5-2 win against No. 12 Clarkson.

“Yale has been playing really good hockey this year,” MacDonald said. “They’re on a hot streak too, and we’re tied with them right now.”

Harvard and the Bulldogs both have 20 points heading in to tonight’s match, just one point behind fourth-place Cornell. With only ECAC teams left on the Crimson’s schedule, including a March 1st game at the Big Red to close out the regular season, every win counts. The determined squad wants to leave nothing to chance.

“The mentality is: we’re in the playoffs right now,” MacDonald said. “Every two points is a huge opportunity. We can gain some ground and pull away from Yale tomorrow. In terms of a tie-breaker, we want to win it against them.”

Brown, on the other hand, sits at the bottom of the ECAC standings, tied with Dartmouth and Rensselaer for 10th place. Although the Bears notched two straight wins to open February, including the 4-2 victory over Harvard, they enter Saturday night’s action 1-3 in their last four games.

Brown sophomore netminder Dan Rosen, the ECAC Goalie of the Week earlier this month, held Harvard off with 32 saves in the teams’ last contest.

“He played very well,” MacDonald said. “They controlled the game and they got an early lead. We need to know how important it is to come out strong. We want to come out hungry.”

This is the mindset that has brought the Crimson back into contention. Though the team wants revenge on its path to the conference tournament, the players careful not too look too far ahead.

“We’re taking it one game at a time,” Meintel said. “You can’t look past any game. You can’t look past any shift.”