Add to those numbers the speed of Stempniak and Ouellette and the size (6’5) of Jessiman, and the Big Green’s first line presents a serious challenge to opposing teams.
Because that trio accounts for so much of Dartmouth’s offense, Mazzoleni wanted to try to contain it with his own top line, the one he also believes plays the best defense.
“We had to have that matchup,” Mazzoleni said. “[Senior] Brett [Nowak] is [one of] our two best center icemen, and [junior] Dennis Packard and [sophomore] Robbie Flynn are big and strong on the wall and they can handle those type of people.”
After being contained for most of the game, Dartmouth’s powerful trio did manage to score the team’s second goal—although it came when the Novak line wasn’t on the ice.
“I thought our [first-line kids] played real well,” Dartmouth coach Bob Gaudet said. “I wasn’t concerned about the match.”
Gaudet was more concerned with Harvard’s defensive pairings than its defensive forward line. The Crimson’s top blue-line duo—sophomore Noah Welch and freshman Peter Hafner—has the size and speed to match up with Jessiman and company.
“Hafner and Welch—they’re both pretty good,” Gaudet said. “Noah masks a lot of deficiencies others have on the ice.”
And holding Dartmouth’s talented young forwards to one goal is a pretty good start to the ECAC Championship weekend.
Red Storm Rising
Last year, Harvard entered the ECAC finals as a Cinderella. This year, the Crimson was expected to return to the championship game. But two things remain the same—the Big Red is waiting, and not many people think Harvard will win.
While the Crimson barely held off Dartmouth's late surge, Cornell made the Brown offense disappear on Friday, holding the Bears to 11 shots on goal—and just one in the first period—in a smothering 2-0 win.
“They play defense like no other team out there,” Mazzoleni said.
Although the Big Red swept the season series this year, Harvard has shown signs that it is more than capable of pulling off the upset. The Crimson played Cornell much closer in Ithaca than the score indicated and it dominated the final two periods of its 4-3 home loss in February. The three goals Harvard scored in the final two periods were more than any team has notched in an entire game against Big Red goaltender David LeNeveu since November.
But Harvard lost that game because it wasn't ready when the puck dropped. The Crimson played with too much emotion in the first period, letting the Big Red score three times before the game was ten minutes old.
“There's no margin for error when you play a team as good as Cornell,” captain Dominic Moore said. “We’ve got to do whatever it takes to avoid a start like that one tomorrow night.”
Yet, Harvard won last year when it mattered most, in the ECAC Finals. The Crimson beat Cornell 4-3 in double-overtime on a Tyler Kolarik goal, earning its first NCAA berth since 1994. That game haunts the Big Red faithful to this day, and a repeat performance will erase any memories of those regular season defeats for Harvard. But Kolarik may not be able to repeat his heroics—he is questionable with a shoulder injury suffered last Friday against Vermont.
The two rivals will battle for the title at 7 p.m. on Saturday. NESN will televise the game live.
—Staff writer Elijah M. Alper can be reached at alper@fas.harvard.edu.
—Staff writer Timothy M. McDonald can be reached at tmcdonal@fas.harvard.edu.