After an emotional win over Massachusetts last month, Harvard coach Mark Mazzoleni held a high-energy press conference during which he told the assembled hockey scribes that his varsity, which had just beaten the nation’s No. 8 team, was “not that talented.”

“I don’t know where the perception is that we’re talented,” he said then.

“We have 12 kids that are drafted [by NHL teams], but a lot of them are drafted on size and potential.”

To some, Mazzoleni’s words suggested a strained relationship between a coach and his team. But Crimson captain Kenny Smith, himself a 6’2, 215-pound Edmonton Oilers draftee, said that is not the case.

“When we went on a little slide, the captains had a meeting with the coaching staff. We said, ‘Be harder on us. In practice, get in our face. If we’re not giving 100 percent, go bananas if you want, get right in our faces,’” Smith said last week. “That’s something they do, anyway, but us saying that to them and talking about it was helpful.”

Smith said the team has to “take certain comments for what they’re worth.”

“You listen to the criticism, and you let it fire you up a bit,” he said.

“When something Coach says to you is a little heavy, you know he just wants to see you playing your best.

“We knew Coach was going to be extremely intense. That’s something you always get out of Coach Mazz. We’re ready for the paper stuff, and we use it the proper way. If he gets in your face, no one takes anything personally.

It’s just about being prepared to play hockey games.”

Smith said that conversation among Harvard players rarely centers on the fact that a dozen of them have been drafted by NHL teams.

“A lot of people talk about the draft picks in relation to our team. You can use it to make good points, and you can use it to make bad points, but we don’t focus on that at all,” Smith said. “We very rarely talk about the teams we’ve been drafted by, or who’s drafted. It’s really a non-issue.

“We have 26 guys who play Harvard hockey, and that’s what we’re focusing on. Really, the only time pro stuff comes up is when students here ask about it. They want to know what it’s all about, and that’s fine.

“But right now, all we’re concerned with is just trying to win games in the Harvard jersey.”

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