The good news was, Crothers is back and feeling strong. Friday was Crothers’ first game in net since going down with an illness two weeks ago. The official word is that he had the flu.

“He was fatigued,” Mazzoleni said.

The illness struck on the heels of Crothers’ best effort in a Harvard uniform. Against Dartmouth on Nov. 10, Crothers had 44 saves as Harvard escaped Hanover with a 3-3 tie.

But with Crothers out, Harvard freshman Dov Grumet-Morris was suddenly given an open audition for the starting job. The rookie impressed, guiding Harvard to back-to-back wins against Cornell and Colgate before falling victim to a lousy effort by Harvard’s defense against Boston University.

But if Crothers had been tired before last weekend, there was little sign of fatigue against B.C. Aside from the lost rebound, Crothers’ night was flawless.

There weren’t many shots by either team to start the game, but when the B.C. attack gathered steam late, Crothers rose to the challenge.

In the third period, Harvard was slow getting back on defense and B.C. mounted one odd-man rush after another. One instance was particularly threatening, as B.C.’s Tony Voce and A.J. Walker broke in on a two-on-one.

Voce approached on Crothers’ right, skated all the way to the goal line and then—after forcing Harvard defenseman Noah Welch to commit to the puck—stopped short and flung a centering pass to a wide-open Walker.

Crothers didn’t miss a beat, sliding to his left to stop Walker cold.

“I’m pretty confident that I can get across when I need to,” Crothers said. “I just stayed with the shooter until he passed it.”

There were many more saves like that one. The athletic Crothers, whose father was an Olympic sprinter, made them all look easy.

“[B.C.] caught us in transition tonight,” Mazzoleni said. “I bet you they had about six or seven of those [breakaways] tonight. Will played very well through those.”

Against most teams, Crothers’ near-perfect performance would have been enough for a win. But B.C. netminder Tim Kelleher also had something to prove Friday.

Like Crothers—who toiled patiently as the backup to Oliver Jonas ’01last year—Kelleher also played second-fiddle in 2000. Scott Clemmensen, now in the NHL, was B.C.’s main man last year.

Also like Crothers, Kelleher knows what it’s like to have a talented , upstart freshman breathing down his neck. After allowing some iffy goals in a 5-2 loss at Wisconsin on Nov. 2, Kelleher watched Matti Kaltiainen step in and win three straight games.