Men's Hockey Advances to Shillelagh Tournament Final With 4-1 Win at Notre Dame

UPDATED: November 28, 2015 at 2:04 a.m.

SOUTH BEND, Ind.—One week after raising the Whitelaw Cup as champion of the ECAC last March, the Harvard men’s hockey team saw its 2014-2015 campaign come to an abrupt halt at Compton Family Ice Arena, where Nebraska-Omaha sent the Crimson packing by way of a 4-1 victory in the opening round of the NCAA tournament.

Thus, when asked last week about returning to South Bend for this weekend’s Shillelagh Tournament, Harvard co-captain Kyle Criscuolo’s message was plain and simple.

“We have some unfinished business out there.”

In its first trip back to South Bend, the No. 8/8 Crimson (5-1-1, 4-1-1 ECAC) erased a few of its demons, taking advantage of nine Notre Dame penalties Friday night to knock off the No. 18/- Fighting Irish (5-4-4, 3-1-2 Hockey East) by a score of 4-1 to move on to the championship game against RPI on Saturday afternoon.

No two penalties proved more costly than the ones dealt to Notre Dame rookies Andrew Oglevie and Dennis Gilbert with the game tied at one late in the second period.

On the ensuing 5-on-3, Criscuolo received a feed through the crease from junior center Alex Kerfoot, but rather than shoot, the co-captain kicked a pass out to junior defenseman Victor Newell, who ripped a shot from the point that skipped off the boards and right back to Criscuolo.

Captain Kyle Criscuolo, pictured aiming to block a shot against St. Lawrence in 2013, tallied two goals against Notre Dame on Friday. By George J Lok

The co-captain did not let the second chance slip. Criscuolo lifted the puck over the right shoulder of sophomore goaltender Cal Petersen to give the Crimson its first lead with 1:16 to go in the frame. Then with 33 seconds remaining, Criscuolo doubled the lead on the 5-on-4, wristing a shot stick-side past Petersen from a crowded slot.

An injury scare midway through the third period nearly overshadowed the Southampton, N.J., native’s first two-goal effort of the season, as Criscuolo struggled to lift himself up following a blocked shot and eventually required assistance after reaching the bench.

But with Harvard on the penalty kill in the final two minutes of play, Criscuolo was back on the ice.

“I think he was stunned a little bit, and he’ll probably have a pretty good bruise,” Harvard coach Ted Donato ’91 said. “But he came back [and] declared himself ready rock and roll…. We didn’t want to fool around with giving up another goal. He’s one of our best penalty-killers, so we wanted to make sure that if he was healthy we got him on the ice.”

Junior defenseman Victor Newell, shown celebrating against Dartmouth earlier this season, played with the Crimson's top power-play unit for the first time Friday night and picked up two assists. By Mark Kelsey

Joining Criscuolo, Kerfoot, captain Jimmy Vesey, and junior forward Tyler Moy on the power play unit was Newell, who took over for rookie forward Ryan Donato as point man of the attack. And Newell was sharp, racking up two assists—including one on a Vesey third-period strike that upped the lead to three—while helping the Crimson improve its puck possession in the attacking zone, an area in which Harvard had struggled over the past few contests.

“We’re always searching for different combinations, and I think we’ll continue to switch—I don’t think one recipe is going to be good throughout the year,” Donato said. “But I thought the power play was persistent today. [It] didn’t click right away, but we were getting some good looks.”

The Crimson failed to convert any of its power-play opportunities in the opening period, but its three trips to the man advantage offered Harvard a change of pace from 5-on-5 play, which Notre Dame dominated for the bulk of the first. The Fighting Irish generated six of the game’s first eight shots, but Crimson sophomore goaltender Merrick Madsen—who made 29 saves in his fourth start of the year—stopped all six to keep his side in contention.

Notre Dame would eventually strike first, however, as assistant captain Mario Lucia’s slapshot from the top of the right circle at 10:30 in the first period put the hosts in front. Rookie defenseman Bobby Nardella picked up an assist on the play, one of two on the night for the Irish’s seventh defenseman.

Nonetheless, only one of Nardella’s helpers went to one of the men in gold. While attempting to track down the puck in his own zone with less than five minutes to play in the first, Nardella coughed up possession alongside the goalmouth, offering rookie forward Lewis Zerter-Gossage an opportunity to pounce on the loose puck.

The freshman made use of the early Christmas gift, coming from behind the net to rip the puck past Petersen for his first collegiate goal, giving the Crimson new life after a slow start.

Following the blunder, Notre Dame went on to commit eight more penalties, making things increasingly more difficult for the Irish penalty kill tasked with stopping the nation’s second-best power-play unit.

“They do a good job of moving the puck,” Notre Dame coach Jeff Jackson said. “They’ve got five big-time forwards on that top unit, so when they move the puck, they have good instincts, they pass the puck well, and they break you down.”

The Crimson and RPI will face off in an all-ECAC tournament final tomorrow afternoon at 4:05 p.m. Notre Dame and Western Michigan will play in the consolation game at 7:35 p.m.

—Staff writer Jake Meagher can be reached at jake.meagher@thecrimson.com.