One Point Separates Men's Hockey From First-Round Playoff Bye

For the first time in four years, the Harvard men’s hockey team’s path to Lake Placid will likely go through Cambridge.

With one point in either of its final two games, the No. 12/12 Crimson (15-8-4, 11-5-4 ECAC) can lock up a first-round bye and home ice in the quarterfinals of the ECAC tournament for the first time since 2012. But before it can return home to the Bright-Landry Hockey Center, Harvard will have to travel more than 350 miles north in pursuit of that point.

This weekend, the Crimson heads to North Country to square off against Clarkson and No. 19/- St. Lawrence, two sides battling for different variations of home ice. Currently ranked eighth in the ECAC, Clarkson (16-13-3, 8-9-3) needs one point this weekend to secure home ice for the opening round of the tournament, while St. Lawrence (16-12-4, 10-7-3) looks to maintain its one-point edge over Dartmouth and Rensselaer for fourth place, which comes with a first-round bye and home-ice in the quarterfinals—the same reward Harvard is after.

While the Saints have very little breathing room, the Crimson—three points ahead of St. Lawrence—has a bigger cushion at its disposal. Only Rensselaer has the ability to knock Harvard out of the top four, but to do so, the Engineers would need to win twice, have the Crimson lose twice, and also get help around the league over the course of the weekend.

Yet even with a bit of room for error, Harvard will not be treating this weekend differently from any other, according to junior center Sean Malone.

“At this point in the season, we know we’ve got to be playing our best hockey anyway,” Malone said. “Of course we have to get a point, but at the same time, we’d like to sweep the weekend.”

If the Crimson is to secure a sweep, however, it will have to be without the Buffalo Sabres draft selection, who did not make the trip after injuring himself in a collision with Cornell’s Christian Hilbrich in the third period of last Friday’s home bout with the Big Red.

“I threw a hip-check, and you know, the guy was pretty big,” said Malone, who was seen donning crutches in the stands of the Bright on Saturday’s Senior Night. “He’s about 6’7”. I took kind of a beating there on the side, but our plan is to get me back and ready to go for playoffs coming up.”

If Harvard can clinch a first-round bye this weekend, Malone will have an extra week to recover, as will several other members of the Crimson, including star forward Jimmy Vesey, who acknowledged on Saturday that this is the “point of the year where everyone’s banged up” before laughing off his minor injuries.

“They’re kind of piling up on me a little bit,” Vesey said.

But before Harvard can start thinking ahead, it must prepare for Clarkson, who blew the Crimson out of its own building by a score of 5-1 last month. The upset jump-started an eight-game unbeaten streak for the Golden Knights, elevating them from a conference cellar-dweller to a legitimate contender for a first-round bye in a month’s time.

More recently, Clarkson has fallen back to earth, having dropped three consecutive games. But the Golden Knights are still in prime position to host an opening round series, as they sit three points ahead of Union for eighth place in the conference.

If Clarkson does get a chance to host a playoff series, betting against the Golden Knights in the opening round would be difficult. Clarkson has compiled a 11-2-2 record this year at Cheel Arena, where it will host Harvard on Friday night.

Joining the Golden Knights with 11 victories at home is St. Lawrence, winner of seven of its last eight games overall. With two more wins this weekend—including one over the Crimson on Saturday, the Saints could potentially leapfrog Harvard into third place in the ECAC.

St. Lawrence ranks third in the conference in scoring, one spot behind the Crimson, with just under three goals per game on the year. Harvard topped the Saints, 3-2, in the two teams’ first meeting on Jan. 15, but the Crimson has not won at St. Lawrence’s home, Appleton Arena, since 2010.

The Saints’ home success against the Crimson nearly carried over to the Bright last month, when St. Lawrence held Harvard off the scoreboard for the first 40 minutes. Thanks to three goals in a span of five minutes from Vesey, however, Harvard escaped with a win, prompting Saints coach Greg Carvel to say, “We feel like we lost to Jimmy Vesey—we didn’t lose to Harvard.”

Carvel will have another shot at knocking off Vesey and the Crimson this Saturday, but with playoff seeding on the line, Harvard will be aiming to erase its Appleton demons with points in its regular season finale.

“You never want to go into the postseason on a lull,” junior forward Luke Esposito said. “So if we can get a couple big wins—two tough rinks to play in, two tough opponents—that’d give us some good momentum going forward.”

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