Men's Hockey Beats Providence, Will Play Saturday for Spot in Frozen Four

UPDATED: March 25, 2017, at 9:00 p.m.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Having cracked the NCAA tournament in three consecutive seasons, the Harvard men’s hockey team has grown used to breaking out its dancing shoes. But for the first time in nearly two decades, those shoes aren’t going right back in the closet.

Despite being outshot for just the fifth time this season—by a significant 41-29 margin no less—the top-seeded Crimson outlasted fourth-seeded Providence in a 3-0 affair at the Dunkin’ Donuts Center Friday evening to capture its first NCAA tournament victory in 23 seasons.

“I do think there’s a little bit of relief just to get that first one off our back,” said Harvard coach Ted Donato ’91, who previously had been 0-for-4 in the tournament as a coach. “There was certainly some anxiousness. We really wanted to get that first win.”

“The NCAA tournament [the last two years] left a bitter taste in our mouths,” senior forward Tyler Moy added. “You come so far, have great seasons, but it didn’t really amount to anything…. To get that first one under our belt is something we’ve been working for for a long time. We were coming back for vengeance.”

After a week of stressing the importance of scoring first in an elimination game, the No. 2 Crimson (27-5-2, 16-4-2 ECAC) made good on its plan 1:09 into the second period. With just 17 seconds remaining on the game’s first power play, Moy struck low in the left faceoff circle to give Harvard its first lead at the Big Dance since 2005.

Senior forward Tyler Moy scored twice in Harvard's tournament opener Friday. By Thomas W. Franck

Although Moy had another goal up his sleeve, as did freshman defenseman Adam Fox, that would be all the offense that was necessary. Junior netminder Merrick Madsen made stops left and right throughout the the night, finishing a career-best 41-for-41 between the pipes and willing the Crimson to Saturday night’s East Regional final.

Madsen’s shutout—the fourth he's been a part of this season—comes on the heels of an ECAC championship game where the junior came just 1:17 short of blanking Cornell in what amounted to a 4-1 Harvard victory in Lake Placid. But in that contest, Madsen needed to make just 25 saves; and over the Crimson's first three shutouts, he made an average of only 20 per game.

Junior goaltender Merrick Madsen made a career-high 41 saves Friday against Providence. By Thomas W. Franck

Friday, Madsen received about a third of that amount of shots in less than four minutes. The No. 13 Friars (22-12-5, 12-7-3 Hockey East) took the game to the Crimson early, playing “a little faster than [Harvard was] accustomed to,” per Donato.

Providence peppered the junior netminder with 17 shots in the opening frame, including a number of scoring opportunities from the doorstep—much like Boston College came up with in the first period of the Crimson’s 2016 tournament opener. But this time, Madsen held his ground.

“They had that big first flurry at the start of the first period, and in a way, I felt like that got me into the game a lot easier than it would’ve had I not gotten any shots,” Madsen said. “Obviously we don’t want to be giving up a ton of chances like that early on, but I think as a team we calibrated, and we took it to them the rest of the period. And obviously we took it to them the rest of the game.”

Madsen was technically beaten once, but only after a whistle was blown. Late in the opening period, sophomore top-liner Erik Foley picked the top corner of the net off the rush to potentially give the Friars a 1-0 edge. However, the referees blew the play dead a second prior, deeming that Providence had been offsides when entering the zone—a call that proved erroneous on replay.

“The referees are human—we’re all human,” said Providence coach Nate Leaman, a Harvard assistant coach from 1999 to 2003. “To win a national championship, you know you’re going to have to get some bounces along the way, and I thought Harvard got a bounce there.”

Senior Luke Esposito drives towards the net Friday evening. By Thomas W. Franck

Maintaining the ability to score first as it had planned all along, the Crimson took advantage after Providence sophomore Scott Conway tripped up Moy with 34 seconds remaining in the first period.

At the outset of the second frame, Moy—just one step from the boards near the bottom of the left circle—unleashed a short-side wrister that snuck inside sophomore Hayden Hawkey’s right post, handing the Crimson a 1-0 lead.

“I actually didn’t see very much of the net; there was a defenseman there,” Moy said. “I thought when the puck came across the ice that the goalie might not be set yet. So I just decided to throw it on net.”

After Moy’s decision paid off, sophomore forward Ryan Donato came inches from doubling the lead with 2:14 remaining in the same period. But after dangling down the slot, the Ivy League Player of the Year’s shot flew off off the crossbar.

Shortly thereafter, Donato fell to the ice behind the net. But with the puck still within arm’s reach, the Boston Bruins draft pick extended his stick to will the puck in the general direction of Fox, who took the pass off the cage and beat Hawkey on the doorstep.

Fox’s goal—just the sixth of the season for the ECAC’s Rookie of the Year—came less than a minute after Harvard killed one of four Providence power plays on the night. The Friars generated two of those man advantages in the final period—albeit one was less than a minute in length—but Providence just could not find the keys to solve Madsen.

“It’s tough to be disappointed with the way we played tonight,” Leaman said. “I thought we played a terrific game. We had a lot of great chances, and I thought we got the looks we wanted…. The puck just didn’t go in the net for us.”

Both benches cast their eyes on Tyler Moy's empty-net bid, as the puck travels towards goal. The puck would in fact find the net to put the Crimson up 3-0. By Thomas W. Franck

Moy added an empty-netter with 1:51 remaining to close the book on the 3-0 scoreline, officially securing the first win in three tournament tries for the Crimson’s veterans.

“We felt like we had a really good team last year and the year before, and we weren’t able to get that first win,” Donato said. “They’ll all be difficult, but the first one is a great credit to the leadership in the locker room. I think they wanted it. I don’t feel like they felt the pressure maybe as much as their coach to get that first one.”

Now that the pressure of avoiding an eighth-straight first-round exit is off, the Crimson—now a winner of 15 consecutive games—can turn its attention to Saturday night’s regional final, where a spot in the Frozen Four will be up for grabs. Harvard will play third-seeded Air Force, who topped second-seeded Western Michigan, 5-4, in Friday's second semifinal.

Read The Crimson's game notebook here.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

CORRECTION: March 25, 2017

A previous version of this story stated that this was Merrick Madsen's fourth shutout. He has been a part of four shutouts, but he has been credited as the sole netminder for only three of those shutouts.

—Staff writer Jake Meagher can be reached at jake.meagher@thecrimson.com. Follow him on Twitter @MeagherTHC.