This year's Harvard men's hockey team (24-5-4 overall, 16-2-4 ECAC) was one squad that not only reached, but also well surpassed its goals, as it was only one bounce of the puck away from playing in the NCAA final.
"Our goal is to get to the NCAA tournament this year and go further than we did last year," outgoing captain Sean McCann said before the five month campaign began in early November.
Last year, the team had endured a painful 3-2 overtime loss to Northern Michigan in the NCAA East Regional, and nobody knew what to expect from Harvard going into the season, especially on the offensive side. The 1992-93 team had been led by US Olympian Ted Drury and had received most of its offense from Drury, Matt Mall-grave '93 and Steve Flomenhoft '93.
Yet this year's team never doubted that the offense would be there once the season got underway.
"I think our offense will surprise a lot of people," said sophomore goalie Tripp Tracy entering the campaign. "Last year we had a superstar in Drury, and may be looked up to him too much."
The "surprise" then was that the offense this year scored an ECAC-high 107 goals in 22 games (4.86 goals a game).
Junior Steve Martins remained healthy all season and danced around his opponents for 25 goals and 35 assists, while senior Chris Baird (6-38-44) and Brian Farrell (29-14-43) kept goal judges busy as well.
But perhaps the most unexpected source of offense was McCann, as he shattered the Harvard record for goals in a season by a defenseman with 22, 17 of them on the power play. His patented one-timer accounted for the majority of the tallies and left opposing goalies and coaches speeches.
What one could expect from Harvard before the season started was solid defense and goaltending. Sophomore netminders Aaron Israel and Tracy had played phenomenal freshman years, while each of the three defensive pairings was to be headed by a senior with three-years' experience--McCann, Derek Maguire and Lou Body.
And sure enough, there were was no surprise at this end of the ice, as the Crimson allowed an ECAC-low 60 goals against in 22 games (2.73 a game).
Season Summary
Harvard, who had won the previous two ECAC regular season championships, traveled to Providence, R.I. on November 6 for a season-opener against Brown, the team that had eliminated it in the ECAC tournament semifinals in 1993.
Harvard did not lead in the game until junior Cory Gustafson ripped a shot by Brown goalie GeoffFinch 2:49 into overtime.
The Crimson had rallied from a two-goal deficit in the third period to force the extra session, and that would be the first of four times this year that Harvard would come from behind to win in overtime, a record shared with the 1988-89 championship squad.
Harvard went on to win its first five games before it hit a mini-slump (2-3-1) from the end of November through mid-December. However, the rest of the season was remarkable,with Harvard going 17-2-3. Both of its losses wereovertime heartbreakers--a 2-1 loss in the Beanpotfinal to Boston College and a 3-2 OT loss tonational champion Lake Superior State in an NCAAsemifinal. Winning as a Team Harvard won its games as a team--no one playerwas the go-to guy every night. Although nobody came within 10 goals of Farrell(29), Martins (25), McCann (22) or Gustafson (22)each night seemed to produce a different hero. For example, the third line of junior BenCoughlin and sophomores Jason Karmons and KirkNielsen picked up their play tremendouslyfollowing the BC loss in mid-February. The trio almost single-handedly led the Crimsonto two victories the following weekend atDartmouth and Vermont, eliciting this responsefrom Head Coach Ron Tomassoni; "Thank God for theNeilsen line." Karmanos scored only five goals all year, butof them were game-winners, including an overtimegoal at Dartmouth. Another morale booster came at the end of theregular season. Harvard had hit a bit of a rut andlooked like it would drop its final to 10th-placeSt. Lawrence. The final seconds of St. Lawrence's biggest winof the seasons were ticking biggest win of theseasons were ticking off the clock in Potsdam,N.Y., until Farrell froze at the 19:56 mark with agoal that evened the game at 4-4. Then juniorPerry Cohagan picked a perfect time to score hissecond goal of the year to win it in OT. Very Special Teams The power play and penalty killing units wereanother major reason why the Crimson was sosuccessful this year. Harvard went 65-for-191 (34percent) on its power play while holding itsopponents to a 17 percent rate (32-for-184). The typical Harvard power-play goal: Martinswins the face-off to the point to Maguire, Maguirepasses across to Baird who sets up McCann in theslot and in a split second, McCann's one-timer isresting firmly in the net past a dizzy goaltender. However, Farrell's 20 extra-man goals led theteam, as did his 29 total goals. If there wasanyone on the squad who embodied the title "Mr.Clutch," Farrell was it. He placed second in thenation with seven game-winning goals and gave histeam a spark in almost every match, even whennobody else was mentally focused. Numerous people contributed to the penaltykilling, but none were more effective than Martinsand sophomore Tom Holmes. They seemed to controlthe puck as much as the opposition even thoughHarvard was short a man. Harvard's constant pressure and quickness ledto its five shorthanded goals and effectivepenalty killing, which was necessary since theCrimson's aggressive style of play did lead tomany penalties against it. Memorable Moments While Harvard's offense had its heroes, theteam defense was even more domination almost everynight. The Crimson forechecked, backchecked andused its team speed in almost every game to putthe opposition's offense out of sync. Harvard came away from the Yale Whale with a12-1 win--its first victory in New Haven in manyyears--but the most impressive stat of the nightwas that the Bulldogs could muster only 11 shotson goal for the entire game. The three most important victories were alsokeyed by killer defense--those games were theBeanpot opener against Boston University, the ECACtournament final against RPI and the NCAAquarterfinal against the University of NewHampshire. The Terriers managed just nine shots on goal inthe first two periods and 17 for the game againstHarvard on February 7, as the Crimson went on to a4-2 victory before 14,448 mostly pro-BU fans atthe Boston Garden. RPI, which was one of the five teams to defeatHarvard this year, was stifled by Harvard'sdefense and Israel's 21 saves at Lake Placid in a3-0 Crimson victory, Harvard's first ECACtournament championship since 1987. And in its final victory of the year, theHarvard 'D' allowed only 11 UNH shots through twoperiods at Albany, N.Y. This defense led to afive-goal Harvard outburst in a seven-minute spanin the third period in give the Crimson a 7-1 winand a berth in the NCAA semifinals. Harvard faced Lake Superior State in the Finalat St. Paul, Minn.,, and outplayed the Lakes overthe first 40 minutes, but only Farrell could solveLaker goalie Blaine Lacher in that span. Lake State came out flying in the third periodand broke a 1-1 tie, but McCann scored apower-play goal less than two minutes later toknot the game at two apiece. The more experiencedLaker squad seized the momentum, however, andallowed no more than one quality Harvard shot forthe remainder of the game. And its solidforechecking led to a breakaway goal 4:16 intoovertime to end Harvard's season. It was certainly a tough way to end the season,but a loss to the eventual national championscould not take anything away from the wonderfulseason that Harvard had. MEN'S ICE HOCKEY Record: 24-5-4 Ivy League: 12-0-1 Key Players: Steve Martins (25 goals, 35assists), Chris Baird (6 goals, 38 assists), AaronIsrael (354 saves,.898 save%)Seniors: Sean Wenham, Sean McCann, ChrisBaird, Lou Body, Brian Farrell, Ian Kennish
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