Harvard Closes Challenging Homestand With Shootout Loss to Cornell

In the last game of its two-game homestand, the Harvard men’s ice hockey team (2-2-1, 2-2-1 ECAC) lost in the first round of a shootout, 2-2, to the Cornell Big Red (3-1-2, 1-1-2 ECAC) on Saturday night.

Harvard finished its first home-ice weekend stint of the season by nearly stunning the sold-out crowd at the Bright, which didn't lack for Cornell fans donning the carnelian red.

The Crimson looked sharp early on. Any wrinkles in the Crimson’s game from its first couple contest, including the close loss against Dartmouth to open the season on Nov. 1, semeed to have been ironed out in practice.

From the moment the team took the ice, it was faster, more aggressive, and much smarter with the puck than Cornell. Shots rained down on the Big Red netminder from the first whistle.

Indeed, Harvard took the game’s first three shots in as many minutes.

An interference penalty called against junior Harvard forward Joe Miller was killed immediately off phenomenal defensive play from senior defenseman and captain Ian Moore, alongside others in front of the net.

In earlier games for the Crimson this season, as well as many games late last year, the team seemed to let the significance of each game get to its head, resulting in overly physical play with few goals to show for it.

On Saturday night, the play on the ice was aggressive, without passing up offensive opportunities to make the big hits Harvard was presented with.

One of the notable players early on was freshman forward Justin Solovey. He made several major second and third efforts, seizing a Cornell puck mishap and carrying it up the ice for a breakaway chance.

His superb puck awareness extended to other moments of the game as well. He managed to send the puck to teammates even when pressed by multiple Big Red defenders, making spinning pass attempts to get the puck off cleanly.

Harvard soon got one of its shots to go, scoring first at the tail end of a power play on a shot by sophomore Ryan Fine, just as the game entered the final minute of the first period.

Clearly upset with his team’s poor performance, Big Red junior forward Dalton Bancroft made direct contact to the head with a Harvard player moments after the center ice puck drop, earning him a five-minute major.

After further discussion, referees decided to dole out a ten-minute misconduct for the play, ejecting Bancroft from the contest.

At first it seemed like Bancroft’s outburst would act as a wakeup call for Cornell. In as little time as Harvard had to score, the Big Red got one to go to open the next period, tying the score at 1-1.

With a shot from Cornell’s Tim Rego sneaking its way through traffic, there was little that the Crimson’s star junior goaltender Aku Koskenvuo could do.

Despite the setback, Harvard struck back less than five minutes later, as junior defenseman Mason Lagenbrunner earned his second goal of the season by sneaking the puck under the goaltender’s pads.

At the halfway point, the game seemed to find its stride. Harvard extended its surge on the ice, but Cornell kept up with strong offensive setups and shots of its own.

For much of the third period, the Big Red struggled to build an effective comeback bid. In fact, it noticeably trailed behind Harvard in almost every facet of the late-game stretch.

Cornell hardly appeared exhausted. The Crimson simply fought harder on the boards, kicking pucks off the glass and out of the zone and forcing Cornell to make sloppy errors on both ends of the ice.

Yet when it mattered most, Harvard’s grip on the game loosened.

With just over six minutes to go, Crimson sophomore forward Ben MacDonald took an especially costly cross-checking penalty.

This led to the game-tying goal by Cornell sophomore forward Ryan Walsh, just outside the right side of the crease.

With the score tied at two, neither team managed to score before the end of regulation. The game would go to overtime.

In OT, Harvard appeared on its backfoot and had to frequently circle back behind its own net to secure the puck. However, Cornell was unable to pull ahead.

Then, in the shootout, two Cornell goals on Koskenvuo and two misses for Harvard against the Big Red’s goaltender gave Cornell the tight victory.

With the homestand now in the rearview, Harvard will get a chance to bounce back on the road against UMass Amherst this coming Friday. Puck-drop is at 7:00 p.m. in Amherst, Mass. and the game will be available to stream on ESPN+.

—Staff writer Nate Bolan can be reached at nate.bolan@thecrimson.com .