If, as conventional wisdom has it, teams live and die by their special teams in the playoffs, the Crimson is living it up.
Four power-play goals and a shorthanded tally gave the Harvard men's hockey team a 5-2 triumph over Brown in the second game of their ECAC quarterfinal series Saturday night at Bright Center.
Saturday's victory and a 6-2 triumph over the Bruins Friday gave Harvard a quarterfinal sweep and advanced it to the conference semifinals in the Boston Garden Friday. The top-seeded Crimson (24-4) will face seventh-seeded RPI (12-17-1) at 9 p.m. after third-seeded St. Lawrence (23-8) battles fourth-seeded Yale (15-11-2) in the first semifinal at 6 p.m.
Tickets for the semis, and the finals and consolation game the following night go on sale at the ticket office in the basement of Harvard Hall at 2 p.m. today.
The tournament champion will receive an automatic bid to the eight team NCAA Tournament which starts the following weekend. Altogether, four Eastern teams will advance, the ECAC and Hockey East tournament champions and two others.
In the first two years of Hockey East's existence, the two leagues have each been given one of the two Easten at-large bids.
Early Saturday night, the Crimson looked like its post-season might come to a premature end. The Bruins, making their first playoff appearance in nine years, burst out of the gate early and flattened the hosts.
When fourth-line center Mark Langton converted a Bruin three-on-two 4:43 into the game, Brown led 1-0 in goals and 6-0 in shots.
The game seemed like it was going to be a far cry from the opener in which the Crimson outshot the Bruins 14-4 in each of the first two periods.
Saturday the visitors threw 31 shots at senior netminder Dickie McEvoy. Although he was making his first-ever post-season appearance, McEvoy kept Brown at bay as Harvard struggled to recapture enough spark to put the pesky visitors and their loud cheering section out of contention.
"We weren't ready to play tonight," Harvard Coach Bill Cleary said. "We had to grind it out as a result."
After McEvoy's outstanding performance Clearysaid he had not decided whether or not he wouldcontinue to alternate McEvoy with junior JohnDevin in net.
Brown Coach Herb Hammond was happy about theway his team hung in against the Crimson.
"I thought we did a pretty good job of it,"Hammond said. "But talent catches up to you."
The physical aspects of the first game (42penalty minutes) did spill over to Saturday asreferee Wayne Houmiel handed out 66 minutes ofpenalties (including 10-minute misconducts to twoBrown players).
All those whistles worked for the Crimson whichwent four-for-seven on the power play and killedfive of the Bruins six extra-man chances.
After Brown went ahead, junior Allen Bourbeaubrought Harvard back with two power-play goals.The center put in a pair of rebounds for his 17thand 18th scores of the year.
"I was in the right place at the right time,"Bourbeau said. "I'll take 'em, I haven't been ableto get the easy ones recently."
The Bruins came right back at the start of thesecond stanza. After Steve Armstrong was whistledfor tripping, Bruin defenseman Mike Girouard put ashot from the point past a screened McEvoy tore-tie the game and send the Bruin hordes in thestands into a frenzy.
The scrappy Bruins, despite an 11-15 markentering the game, refused to give in to thevastly more talented hosts.
"They played over their heads," said HarvardCaptain Peter Chiarelli. "They were a much betterteam than the one we played earlier in the year."
Ten minutes later, Harvard senior Tim Barakettbroke out of six-game goal-scoring slump withanother Crimson power-play lamp-lighter. The 3-2lead would hold up the rest of the way, givingBarakett his 10th game-winner of the year.
It fell to junior Lane MacDonald, who scored ahat trick Friday, to put the game away. The juniorslammed in his 34th goal of the year at the 11:31mark of the third period to give Harvard a 4-2lead.
MacDonald also had three assists giving the HobeyBaker finalist (unclear) points on the year (a two-point-a-gameaverage) and the 10th best single-season total inHarvard history. MacDonald also moved into fifthplace on the Crimson career
Read more in News
Alumni Listen to Symposia
