He isn’t a “talker.”

That’s Dov Grumet-Morris, the goalie whose mouth runs like a river.

He doesn’t bring “jam.”

At least if he does, no one has said so.

Whatever Ryan Lannon, Harvard’s senior defenseman, lacks in flash and spontaneity, he makes up for in substance—giving hell every day, harassing the nation’s best scorers.

That requires no testimony. But you’ll get it anyway.

“He’s kind of quiet, but he’s real intense,” freshman forward Jon Pelle said. “He’s a good guy to follow.”

“He’s real solid,” sophomore forward Ryan Maki said. “A great skater.”

“He works hard,” Justin Tobe, a sophomore goaltender, said. “Just a guy that the younger guys look up to.”

Hockey defensemen, save for scoring specialists like the NHL’s Rob Blake, rarely light up the lamps. Lannon, the blond-haired tough guy from Grafton, Mass., is no exception.

But a closer look at game scorecards shows plenty of Lannon fingerprints.

First, there’s the case of the remarkable plus/minus (+11) that ranked Lannon second among Harvard players—and first among Crimson defensemen—in 2003-04.

The stat is all the more impressive considering the current senior did not score a single goal.

Thus his strengths—“making the first pass, playing physical, and just showing some consistency on the defensive end,” according to Lannon’s own assessment—work perfectly on a team of talented scorers.

“He’ll do anything for the team,” fellow Harvard defenseman Dylan Reese said. “He’s a guy that fills the gap in anything we need at defense.”