This year, with its plethora of offensive talent combined with more stay-at-home backliners, Mazzoleni has installed a system that takes advantage of his squad's strengths.

The Crimson will play a constant puck pressure game that places a premium on turnovers. It hopes to catch teams in transition with the defensemen getting the puck to forwards as quickly as possible.

"We want to quickly counter the puck before our opponent has a chance to establish itself in transition," Mazzoleni said. "You have a three- second time span to show the puck down their throat before they can establish themselves."

The new coaching staff has also gotten creative in organizing the Crimson on the ice. Mazzoleni has tried almost every possible line configuration in practice and experimented with personnel moves like shifting Bala to the off-wing.

"I've tried to put the past in the past," Mazzoleni said. "It's been a wide open opportunity. We've tried to be as objective and fair in our initial analysis as we can."

The first test for the new regime will come this Saturday at Brown. The Bears should provide light competition and Harvard gets a relatively easy first tryout of its new style.

Forwards

The forwards need to be the true strength of the Crimson this year. At first glance, this seems unusual for a Harvard team that averaged just 2.94 goals per game a year ago. But injuries hampered output, especially to Bala , who spent the second half of the year with a cast over his shooting wrist. Moreover, layers starting reaching their potential during the second half of the year.