If hockey were a 30-minute game, then the Harvard men's hockey team would be looking pretty good. But alas, a team must play well for a full 60 minutes if it expects to pick up the two points for a win.
And Harvard once again suffered a massive collapse in the later stages of last night's contest, falling to the University of New Hampshire, 5-2, at Bright Hockey Center.
The Crimson (4-5-1 overall, 4-3-1 ECAC) held a 2-0 lead midway through the game, but the Wildcats (9-3-2, 4-2-2 Hockey East) retaliated with five unanswered goals the rest of the way to extend their unbeaten streak to eight games (6-0-2).
"I thought we came out of the gate and played a real strong first period, and the first seven, eight, nine minutes of the second period we played really well," Harvard Coach Ronn Tomassoni said. "But we made a couple of mistakes."
Those mistakes and a Royal pain in the neck, if you will, did Harvard in.
UNH senior Eric Royal scored two goals in the first 3:32 of the third period to break a 2-2 tie and put his team up for good.
From a Harvard standpoint, certainly these early third-period collapses have been happening all too often. Even in the 4-1 win over Brown last Saturday, the Bears got their only goal in the first minute of the final stanza.
Royal got his first tally just 37 ticks into the third. After a Wildcat dumped the puck into the Harvard zone, Royal picked the puck up at the left boards, cut in towards the goal and used his long reach to wrap the puck past Tracy, who had come out to challenge him.
Royal repeated the move and the result three minutes later on a two-on-one. He raced past a Harvard player to a loose puck to create the odd-man rush.
Royal deked Tracy on the fore-hand and lifted a backhand past the Crimson netminder to give his squad a two-goal lead.
"We like the big ice surface [at Bright Hockey Center]," Royal said. "It helps us spread out with our speed."
Nick Poole sealed Harvard's fate with an empty-netter in the final minute.
Given Harvard's several previous late collapses going into the game, one might not be surprised at what happened last night. But then again, the Crimson looked very solid for the first 30 minutes and had no reason to expect another disaster.
"We came out well in the first period," junior defenseman Peter McLaughlin said. "[But] for some reason, we either lost our poise, or we weren't playing the body and weren't skating to the holes as fast as we should. We didn't do the things we need to do to win."
Harvard outplayed the Wildcats in the opening stanza, but it would have come out of the period scoreless if UNH netminder Trent Cavicchi hadn't given the Crimson an early Christmas present.
Cavicchi went behind the net to move the puck along the boards, but Harvard captain Ben Coughlin intercepted the pass and centered the puck to senior Perry Cohagan, who tipped it into the open net with 1:05 left in the first.
Harvard doubled its lead on a power-play goal 7:02 into the second, when freshman Doug Sproule rebounded senior Steve Martins' one-time shot from the point past a befuddled Cavicchi. But that's all that would get by Cavicchi, as the netminder made the few saves when he had to, including one on junior Kirk Nielsen from point-blank range midway through the third.
"We couldn't sustain any offensive pressure after that second goal," Tomassoni said. "We're making some incorrect decisions, some incorrect reads."
And UNH capitalized--quickly.
Midway through the middle period, Wildcat Eric Flinton brought the puck into the Crimson defensive zone in a 4-on-4 situation. Flinton had a man on him, but the Wildcat was able to center the puck.
Mike Mowers, left unguarded in front of junior goalie Tripp Tracy, calmly deflected the biscuit over the netminder and in to cut the deficit to 2-1 just as sophomore Stuart Swenson's penalty had expired--the first shorthanded goal the Crimson has allowed this season.
"We had plenty of time left [when we were down, 2-0], and we had to get the next goal," UNH Coach Dick Umile said. "The next goal is an important goal. When we get within one, we're a pretty good team."
And it didn't take long for the Wildcats to even the score. The Crimson played very lethargically on its power play and the few shifts after the man-advantage expired.
The Crimson's passing wasn't on the mark, and Harvard had trouble clearing the puck out of its own zone. All of that culminated in Flinton's equalizer at the 12:34 mark.
Wildcat Nick Poole centered the puck from behind the Harvard goal, but it stayed untouched until Flinton could corral it. Flinton again was covered by a Harvard defenseman, but the Crimson player couldn't knock him off the puck, and Flinton back-handed a shot from the slot through Tracy's five-hole to even the game.
And the Crimson never got its level of play up to where it had been in the early stages of the game. It generated only eight shots on goal over the course of the final 30 minutes. In the same time span, the Wildcats lit the lamp five times. The Wildcats also took the body very effectively.
"We played well all night," Umile said. "It was a really important win for us, especially in terms of NCAA recognition."
The loss ends Harvard's seven-game home-stand, where the Crimson went a disappointing 3-3-1, including two defeats against non-ECAC schools. (Boston University won a 6-1 contest two weeks ago.)
The schedule doesn't get any easier for Harvard, as the Crimson will now play seven straight regular-season games on the road, beginning with Saturday's contest at Colgate. The two teams tied 3-3 back on November 19, when Harvard collapsed in the third period, allowing two goals in the first 1:04.
"We've got to put [the UNH loss behind us]--we have a huge game going up to Colgate," McLaughlin said. "To be honest, the way our team has been going so far this season, every game is a big one. We could be playing the Perkins School for the Blind, and it would be a big game." First Period Har--Cohagan 2 (Coughlin, Breistroff), 18:55. Second Period Har--Sproute 6 (Martins, Guatafson), 7:02. (pp) NH--Mowers 4 (Flinton, Muir), 10:08. (SH) NH--Flinton 8 (Poole, Royal), 12:34. Third Period NH--Royal 6 (Poole, Flinton), 0:37. NH--Royal 7 (Flinton, Muir), 3:32. NH--Poole 5 (Hall, Royal), 19:28. (EN) Seven Har--Tracy 7 9 2.18; NH--Cavicchi 9-4-6-19. Power Play: Har--1/6, NH--0/5. Attendenost 2.206.
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