NEW HAVEN--The frustrations of the 1977-78 Harvard hockey team reached a new height as the icemen's playoff picture sunk to new depths with the 3-2 loss to Yale here Saturday afternoon.
A standing-room-only audience at Yale's Ingalls Rink watched as Coach Tim Taylor's inspired and vengeful squad won its ninth home game of the season out of 14, with strong defensive play and a clutch third-period showing in goal by freshman Mark Rodrigues.
For Harvard, which had stalemated Yale through two periods of play, just waiting for the chance to open a final period barrage on Rodrigues, it was the story of the disarmed power-play as the Crimson failed to score, though a man up for six of the last seven minutes.
Ironically, it was the Yale power-play that dealt the conquering blow, when forward Anders Carlsson tallied at 1:31 of the final period to untie the 2-2 score permanently.
Nineteen seconds into Rick Benson's sentence for hitting after the whistle, Bulldog captain Don Blue dumped the puck into the Harvard zone, and when Crimson defenseman Kevin O'Donoghue failed to get a handle on it, Carlsson took it off his stick and fired a shot that outraced Hynes to the lower left side of the cage.
At the time it didn't seem like Carlsson's goal would be the backbreaker, as the aggressiveness of both teams would almost surely lead to a mistake or two.
And while Harvard didn't make any mistakes, the succession of No-Deposit, No-Return power-play situations that punctuated the final minutes of the game attests to the fact that the icemen didn't do much of anything.
Super Saver
Who would have thought that Rodrigues would have come up with a 30-save performance after he was beaten on the first shot of the game? Bobby McDonald rode the opening face-off in, hit transplanted center George Hughes on the left, and the elder Hughes easily golfed it by the freshman to give Harvard its only lead with only eight seconds gone in the contest.
Anders brother Mats Carlsson tied the game at 14:19 of the first and culminated Yale's first and only pressure of the Harvard-dominated stanza.
But Crimson pressure fell off as the exhortations of the crowd and Coach Taylor grew louder. It was the Bulldogs that got the quick goal this time, with freshman Jim Murphy stuffing the rebound of a Paul Castraberti shot by Hynes at 1:22 of the second to give Yale the lead.
But with an eye for frustrated excitement, Harvard tied it up for the last time at 8:31 on Jim Trainor's second goal of the year, to set the stage for the man-up tragedies that would follow.
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