Men's Hockey Comes Back To Tie Dartmouth

Another comeback, another tie. These have been recurring trends for the Harvard men’s hockey team this season, and the Crimson continued them Tuesday night at the Bright Hockey Center.

Playing its third game in five days, Harvard overcame a two-goal deficit to earn a 2-2 tie against Dartmouth. A late third-period goal off of a power play extended a team record of nine draws in a single season, one shy of the NCAA record.

"It’s another tough game, tough tie," Crimson coach Ted Donato ’91 said. "But after being down 2-0 and being down one going into the third, I really liked our response…. We’re disappointed on one side because we would like to get the goal to get us ahead, but from an effort standpoint I thought the kids really played hard and battled."

The Big Green (9-9-3, 6-6-2 ECAC) had originally gone up two goals in an 18-second span early in the second period, scoring on a power play and on the ensuing shift.

After cutting the lead in half late in the second, Harvard (6-6-9, 5-4-7) pulled even with around seven minutes remaining in the game.

Junior Danny Biega swung the puck towards the net from the right point, and junior Marshall Everson was able to direct the deflection from Dartmouth defenseman Jim Gaudet towards freshman forward Colin Blackwell, who easily sent the puck into the back of the open net on the left side.

"It was just kind of like a broken play," Blackwell said. "I was in the right place at the right time."

After Dartmouth stopped the Crimson on its previous three power plays, it was only natural that the most efficient power play team in the nation—which converts 31.8 percent of its chances, on pace to become the 17th best in history—finally put one in on the man-advantage.

"They clogged up the neutral zone pretty well," Blackwell said. "Their goalie stopped the puck around the net a bunch of times, and we finally got a chance to settle down and play with a little more emotion and a little more poise with the puck."

The game continued to overtime, in which both teams exchanged shots but no real strong scoring chances materialized, ending the game in yet another draw for the Crimson. It was also the ninth time in 14 games this season that Harvard has come back from a third-period deficit to either tie or win.

The game was physical throughout, right up until the very end when junior Luke Greiner, who scored the teams first goal, took a huge hit from Dartmouth defenseman Connor Goggin. The hit, which occured with under two seconds remaining in the game, ended up being called a charge.

"It was a pretty courageous play by Luke to hang in there to try to get the puck to the front of the net," Donato said. "The whole game was pretty physical. It looked like two teams that were battling pretty hard to get the extra point."

The first period was for the most part uneventful on the offensive side, as the Crimson’s blocking and hard hits prevented any Big Green opportunities. And with only one shot on the power play, the home team was outshot, 7-6, in the opening frame.

Midway through the period, freshman Patrick McNally was able to wrap around the net and throw it across the crease to freshman Tommy O’Reagan, but Dartmouth goalie Jody O’Neill was there to stuff the forward’s shot.

Around seven minutes into the second, Big Green freshman Brandon McNally was able to capitalize on a rebound on a shot initially stopped by Harvard freshman goaltender Steve Michalek, who had 29 saves on the night.

Dartmouth forward Alex Goodship then scored 18 seconds later on a fortuitous bounce in front of the right side of the Harvard goal.

Donato noted this wasn’t the first time his team had given up goals in such a short span.

"To give them up [on] back-to-back shifts, that hurts," he said. "We’ve got to find a way to have a good response to a goal against. It’s something we need to manage a lot better."

The Crimson started its comeback late in the second. Greiner redirected junior Brendan Rempel’s initial shot from the center point after senior Eric Kroshus was able to win the puck on the left boards and pass it across the blue line.

Having scored late in the last two games to pull out victories against both Yale and Brown, Harvard had a chance to make it three in a row.

"I think we felt that we were going to be able to find a way to win the game, which is a nice positive feeling," Donato said. "Guys were pushing. It looked like we were going to get some chances."

But despite ending the game knotted up at two apiece, the Crimson continued a five-game unbeaten streak and was able to earn a point in the ECAC standings, placing it in a tie for third with Colgate.

—Staff writer David Mazza can be reached at damazza@college.harvard.edu.