Albany, N.Y.—For all the excitement and scoring over the final 15 minutes of hockey, the first 47 minutes of the ECAC Championship March 22 was about the best goaltending a team can have.

The top two goaltenders in the conference faced off in Cornell’s Dave LeNeveu and Harvard sophomore Dov Grumet-Morris, and for the first 47 minutes the fans in Albany were treated to a demonstration of why those two names lead the statistical categories across the ECAC and the nation.

On this night LeNeveu, named the Tournament MVP and Dryden Award winner as the best goaltender in the conference, showed why he is so highly regarded. The sophomore stopped 25 of the 27 shots he faced, blanking the Crimson for the first 48 minutes of the game.

Harvard captain Dominic Moore finally broke the ice for the Crimson off a turnover deep in the Big Red zone and a point-blank shot that found the back of the net. With few exceptions, Harvard’s early shots were from the outside as Cornell defenders kept the center of the ice clear of traffic. As time wore on and none of their perimeter shots met with success, the Crimson forwards began maneuvering with the puck as close to the net as possible before shooting.

“They just got better opportunities sometimes as the game wore on,” LeNeveu said.

And while those opportunities from inside were the key to cracking LeNeveu, just the opposite was the case for Grumet-Morris, whose three misses were all from the perimeter.

The first goal came on the Big Red’s opening power play, not two minutes into the game. Cornell captain Stephen Bâby fired a hard shot from the point, and winger Sam Paolini, creating traffic in front, deflected the puck past Grumet-Morris to give the Big Red an early lead.

Cornell’s second goal, the one that tied the score, came off a faceoff in Harvard’s end with less than a minute on the clock. Junior center Ryan Vesce won the draw back to defenseman Mark McRae. With Moore skating over to cut off the Big Red’s best shooter, Doug Murray, McRae drifted towards the middle with the puck before firing through traffic. That shot found its way through the traffic and Grumet-Morris could not find the puck.

“They won the draw, and they blocked out well,” Grumet-Morris said. “[McRae] made a good shot, and it went off the post and in.”

With a 15-minute intermission to consider the game-tying goal before the overtime, Grumet-Morris said he came out ready to face another period of Cornell’s attack.

“Your attitude is the same before or after a goal,” Grumet-Morris said. “You go in there, you try to do your best and make them make a perfect shot to beat you.”

For the Crimson though, that perfect shot was soon to come. The game-winner was a hard shot, and very frustrating since the team had seen it before.

It reminded many of the John Ronan shot less than two minutes into the overtime against Maine that eliminated Harvard from the NCAA Tournament a year ago. This time, the Crimson’s nemesis Paolini (eight goals and eight assists lifetime against Harvard, the most of any Cornell player) skated around junior defenseman Kenny Smith and skated hard into the Crimson zone, creating a 2-on-1.

“I just tried to get it behind [Smith’s] heels and fortunately I was able to sidestep him,” Paolini said. “I shot it as hard as I could and it went over his glove.”

“The overtime goal was reminiscent of the Maine goal last year,” Grumet-Morris said. “It was a good shot.”