Entering Saturday night, neither the Harvard men’s hockey team nor the University of Windsor had won a game. For the Crimson, this exhibition matchup was the first of the season. For the Lancers, the contest came on the heels of seven straight exhibition losses. And after 65 minutes of play on the Bright Hockey Center ice, both teams were still without a win.

For Windsor, the 2-2 tie was an accomplishment in-of itself—Princeton had just drubbed the Lancers 9-2 the night before. But for Harvard, which expected to dominate the game easily, the tie came as something of a disappointment.

The Crimson outshot Windsor 15-1 in the first frame, but the Lancers’ goaltender, Reese Kalleitner, stood tall between the pipes. He had played just 20 minutes against the Tigers, allowing two goals on nine shots.

Harvard senior Rob Flynn broke through 9:40 into the second period, and blueliner Dylan Reese struck again less than two minutes later. The sophomore, hovering midway between the points, picked up the puck as it bounced from the boards and fired a straight shot past Kalleitner.

“I thought the first half of the game, we really could have separated ourselves, and you know, [Windsor] did a good job,” said Crimson coach Ted Donato ’91. “They played smartly. They hung around.”

The Lancers notched their first goal 17:28 into the second frame, when Kyle Voy went top-shelf on Harvard’s John Daigneau. They then knotted the score at two just 0:22 into the final period, as Crimson junior Andrew Lederman sat in the sin bin for obstruction-hooking, a penalty carried over from the previous frame.

Despite the Crimson’s fair share of open looks and cross-crease passes, the teams ended regulation knotted at two, and five more minutes of overtime play saw no goals.

“It wasn’t a good turnout for us, obviously,” assistant captain Tom Cavanagh said. “We wanted much more than a tie tonight, and I thought that with the shots we had, and, I thought, the territorial advantage we had, we should have come out with a win.”

BETWEEN THE PIPES

After senior netminder Dov Grumet-Morris’s stellar showing last year, nobody expects a goaltending controversy this season. Taking advantage of the game’s exhibition status, though, Donato gave all three of his goalies time on Saturday night.

Grumet-Morris lasted just a hair under 30 minutes of his start and earned perfect numbers—one save for one opportunity.

Donato substituted in Daigneau with Harvard up 1-0, and the junior amassed five saves. However, he let in two goals, the latter coming on a Crimson penalty kill.

Sophomore transfer Justin Tobe saw almost 17 minutes before Harvard pulled him with four seconds remaining. Though he never saw an official shot, Tobe looked confident in the crease and “handled the puck very well,” according to Donato.

NEW FACES

The Crimson graduated nine seniors last spring, so for this fall’s batch of freshmen—nine of them, to be exact—there will be little adjustment time.