Advertisement

Icemen Look For First ECAC Win Tonight

But Princeton, Yale won't be nice hosts

Like Harvard, Yale's offense had a rough opening weekend, registering a goal apiece against St. Lawrence and Clarkson.

St. Lawrence, however, features the ECAC's premier goaltender, Eric Heffler Jr., and the talented Elis look to jumpstart its offense this weekend.

The Crimson will counter with Peter Capouch, who has provided the lone bright spot for the Crimson defense. Capouch has demonstrated an exceptional hockey sense and used it to position himself properly to score his first two goals of his Harvard career last weekend.

Nevertheless, the Crimson offense has struggled almost as much as its defense. Last Saturday's game against Colgate marked the first time this season Harvard slipped three shots past a goaltender in one game.

Harvard simply has not generated enough good scoring chances to win games. The Crimson has been especially plagued with poor passing to create shots and an inability to recover rebounds once those shots have been taken.

Advertisement

Compounding the Crimson's woes has been its undisciplined play. Harvard leads the ECAC in penalty minutes with 96 and has already taken three major penalties this season.

"We have to stop shooting ourselves in the foot," Tomassoni said. "We had two major penalties last weekend, and I don't think we had that many all last year."

Out of the forwards, only sophomore stars Chris Bala and Steve Moore are producing right now for the Crimson. The tandem factored in every single Harvard goal last weekend.

They may find a weakness in the Tigers' defense. Princeton opened the season with a 9-1 loss to Boston University. Right now, the Tigers do not have a top goaltender, still trying to find a replacement for the graduated Erasmo Saltarelli, who finished his career with the best save percentage in Tiger history.

Princeton will start either senior Nick Rankin or freshman David Stathos. Rankin made 28 save Friday night shutting in shutting out the Saints.

Despite losing ECAC player of the year Ray Giroux to graduation, the Bulldogs still feature a veteran defense. Any mistakes it makes are usually compensated by All American senior goaltender Alex Westlund. Westlund enters this weekend with a 2.52 GAA and an excellent. 909 save percentage.

"I don't think we have had a chance to mesh yet," Tomassoni said. "We are a pretty good team, the goals will come."

The Crimson might receive an offensive boost from freshman Jeff Stonehouse, who will make his Harvard debut this weekend. After breaking his hand in the preseason, doctors placed a softer cast over his injury giving him the flexibility to play.

However, the Crimson will lose some size and grit as 6'6, 215 lbs. freshman Kyle Clark separated his shoulder in practice this week. Junior forward Trevor Allman will also not make the trip to attend to a family matter.

Any way Harvard looks at it, it faces a daunting task this weekend. The team has to leave New Haven Saturday night with no worse than a split or risk facing an 0-5 record with games against Clarkson and St. Lawrence looming.

While its too early to worry about post-season ramifications, dropping games to Brown, Cornell and Colgate dug Harvard an early hole.

After the loss to the Red Raiders, junior Matt Scorsune best outlined how the Crimson can begin to climb out:

"Two wins, we gotta go for two wins."

Recommended Articles

Advertisement