Men's Hockey Secures Share of Ivy Title Following 2-2 Draw with Cornell

For the No. 13/13 Harvard men’s hockey team, Friday night’s bout with rival Cornell presented palpable stakes: Win and secure the program’s first Ivy League championship since 2006. Tie and leave the Bright-Landry Hockey Center with no less than a share of the crown.

Therefore, one point was all that separated the Crimson from snapping a decade-long drought. But as Harvard forward Seb Lloyd put it in the postgame presser, “You don’t come to a game hoping to tie.”

Yet in spite of the sophomore's sentiment, 65 minutes of hockey proved insufficient for determining a winner on Friday, as the No. 16/- Big Red (12-8-6, 7-7-5 ECAC) erased two separate one-goal deficits in what amounted to a 2-2 draw in front of a capacity crowd of 3,095 at the Bright Center.

“I think the game for the most part ended up to me the way it should’ve been—a tie,” Harvard coach Ted Donato ’91 said. “I would like to say that we played better and deserve better, but I think quite honestly both teams left a lot out on the ice. It was a physical game, a tough game, and both goalies made some big saves…. It was Harvard-Cornell—a typical game.”

The result brought about mixed feelings in the Crimson locker room, as Harvard will now have to wait for the result of next Friday’s contest between No. 8/8 Yale and Princeton to find out whether or not it has won the championship outright. The Crimson finished the year with a 7-1-2 record in Ivy League play, while the Bulldogs sit just one win off that mark.

Before the dust settled on Friday, Harvard (14-8-4, 10-5-4) nabbed a 2-1 edge with a little more than 12 minutes remaining in regulation after Lloyd received credit for beating junior goaltender Mitch Gillam amid an eight-man pile-up in the crease.

Sophomore Seb Lloyd (15) scored his third goal of the season midway through the third period to put the Crimson in front, 2-1. By Y. Kit Wu

Just inside the right faceoff dot, junior forward Tyler Moy ripped a shot on goal that bounced off Gillam and into the air, giving Lloyd the opportunity to swat it down atop the goalmouth. The puck eventually reached Gillam, who swiped at it with his glove, sending it just outside of the blue paint. But then madness ensued.

Sophomore forward Dwyer Tschantz attempted to clear the puck behind his net, but instead, it pinballed off the skate of sophomore center Jared Fiegl and into the goal in the midst of a sea of bodies, giving Harvard its 26th power play goal of the year.

The goal mirrored a Cornell threat in the waning minutes of the second period where captain Christian Hilbrich poked in a loose puck that had been lying underneath sophomore goaltender Merrick Madsen. However, a quick whistle from the officials, who deemed Madsen—lying on his back—had control of the puck, negated the goal that would have put the Big Red up, 2-1.

“The puck was obviously loose because we shot it in,” Cornell coach Mike Schafer said. “And then they let that scramble [where Harvard scored] go on forever, and our goalie gets pushed in…. I mean, the referee’s got to blow the whistle.”

Cornell sophomore defenseman Dan Wedman's first career goal pulled the Big Red even at two with a little more than 10 minutes remaining in regulation. By Y. Kit Wu

Nonetheless, the Crimson’s goal would count and the Big Red’s would not, putting Cornell in a 2-1 hole midway through the third. But less than two minutes after Harvard jumped in front, the visitors delivered an equalizer.

Fresh off an attacking zone faceoff won by rookie forward Anthony Angello, sophomore defenseman Dan Wedman beat Madsen top shelf after his blast from the point skipped off the skate of sophomore defenseman Clay Anderson just two feet in front of the goaltender. Wedman’s first career goal capped the scoring with 10:41 still left to play in the third.

The Big Red’s first equalizer of the night was more of an opportunistic one. After generating 15 shots on target in the opening frame, the Crimson came out firing again at the start of the second. But one outlet pass from freshman defenseman Alec McCrea was all Cornell needed to negate Harvard’s aggressive start.

Five minutes into the second frame, McCrea hit captain Teemu Tiitinen with an end-to end pass through the middle of the ice, and Tiitinen beat Madsen stick-side before freshman defenseman Adam Baughman had a chance to catch up.

Despite the Big Red's two tallies, Madsen was on top of his game Friday night, holding second-chance opportunities to a minimum and finishing with a total of 31 saves. On the other end, Gillam logged 33 saves of his own—16 more than he made in the teams’ first meeting back on Jan. 23 in Ithaca, N.Y.

“Phenomenal” was Schafer’s adjective of choice when describing some of the saves made by the dueling goaltenders. Yet the most impressive stop of the night belonged to someone far less accustomed to flashing the leather.

After Madsen held his right post to deny a Matt Buckles wrister towards the end of the first period, the puck shot off the back of sophomore defenseman Wiley Sherman and began rolling towards the goal line. Diving in to swat it away with his right hand, however, was junior center Sean Malone, whose save enabled the Crimson to kill off the second of four Cornell power plays on the night.

Junior Sean Malone scored a goal and saved another in the first period of Harvard's 2-2 draw with Cornell. By Y. Kit Wu

Malone also provided Harvard with its first tally, converting a turnover into a goal from Gillam’s left post 8:32 into the opening frame. The Buffalo Sabres prospect left the game with an injury in the third period, but Donato—while unsure about Malone’s availability for Saturday night—revealed that the junior was bouncing around in the locker room after the game, easing concerns about his prospective recovery.

After the game, Seb Lloyd spoke about how winning an Ivy League title was one of the Crimson's goals at the start of the season yet called it "unfortunate" not to win the championship outright against Cornell. By Y. Kit Wu

With the draw, the Crimson remains in third place in the ECAC, but its hold on a potential first-round bye—awarded to the top four teams in the conference—is down to two points. No. 18/- St. Lawrence and Dartmouth, who are currently tied for fourth, are right on Harvard's tail with three games remaining in the regular season.

Meanwhile, the Crimson will be pulling for Princeton next Friday, as a Tiger win or draw at home against Yale would give Harvard outright possession of the Ivy League title.

“We don’t want to be sharing it with anybody,” co-captain Kyle Criscuolo said.

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

—Read The Crimson's game notebook here.