Harvard has been down this road before—both literally and figuratively. Late January, in Harvard’s first game back from an exam period break, the Crimson traveled down I-95 to Providence for a date with the Brown Bears, a date that ended in heartache as the Crimson lost in overtime, 2-1. And back to Brown Harvard goes, this time in a best-of-three quarterfinals series that starts tonight at Meehan Auditorium.

Harvard and Brown go way back in hockey; they have the longest running collegiate rivalry and, this year at least, that rivalry has been tipped decidedly in Brown’s favor. Before that 2-1 overtime loss in January, the Crimson set off on the wrong foot, beginning its season with a 2-0 loss to the Bears at Bright Hockey Center. Harvard discovered that night what the rest of the ECAC soon learned—the Brown Bears, long dependent on the goaltending of Yann Danis, had developed an offense to go alongside its all-world goaltender. Much of that scoring comes from three skilled forwards—Brian Ihnacak, Brent Robinson and Les Haggett—who’ve combined for nearly 90 points to help resurrect the Bears’ offense.

That offense was not present in the 2001-2002 season, when the Crimson dominated Brown in a playoff series at Bright. The series culminated in a double-overtime win in which Danis was forced to turn aside 66 shots until Harvard’s Dominic Moore scored the game-winner on a supreme individual effort. And last year, though the Bears defeated Harvard in the season-opener (it’s happened three years in a row, it really shouldn’t be a surprise anymore) they struggled all season long to score goals in support of Danis.

No longer. This season the Bears have continued the tradition of solid defense. Danis rates near the top of the ECAC in every major goaltending category, Brown has the second best team defense in the ECAC, allowing less than two goals per game, and also the league’s best penalty kill unit. But to that defense Brown has added a potent power play, a unit that is tops in the ECAC and fourth in all the nation.

And for much of the season, the rest of the ECAC came to know what Harvard had found out on opening night—Brown is a whole team and it’s dangerous. The Bears spent much of the season atop the ECAC, but slipped over their last six games, going 1-4-1 since mid-February. They ended the season on a high note, beating Vermont 6-0, and spent much of their bye-week recuperating.

“Our layoff was a positive,” said Brown coach Roger Grillo. “The guys we’ll back at 100 percent.”

Harvard cannot quite say the same thing; despite playing with a full slate of skaters last weekend, senior forward Kenny Turano sustained an injury in practice and is questionable for tonight’s game. That, according to Grillo, is where part of the Crimson’s strengths become a factor.

“Harvard’s a good team—they’re solid at all positions,” he said.

Harvard is particularly solid in net, thanks to the performance of junior goaltender Dov Grumet-Morris, who has elevated his play over the last three games. In the regular season finale, Grumet-Morris shut out Dartmouth and came back the next weekend to blank Vermont in the opening round of the ECAC playoffs. That marked the first time in 17 years that the Crimson had recorded back-to-back shutouts. And despite allowing three goals, including two late power play tallies, Grumet-Morris was solid, if unspectacular, in the series-clinching Game 2 win.

“You can’t go into a playoff series and expect to win unless your goaltender brings his game,” said Harvard coach Mark Mazzoleni. “You’ll see this weekend. The four teams that make it to Albany will be the teams whose goalies made a difference for them in the quarterfinals.

“You can’t go out there and win games 5-4 and 6-5. You can’t rely on offense. You have to play very good team defense and your goaltender has to be at the top of his game.”

And both good team defense and strong goaltending have been the case of late for Harvard, giving the team confidence as it approaches its series against a team that already holds two in-hand over Harvard. But that’s something Mazzoleni is quick to dismiss.

“It’s all new,” he said. “We’re a different team from the last time we played them. You can wipe out past records. It’s only two games during the regular season.

“That has no meaning whatsoever.”

Towards that end, the Crimson must find a way to solve Danis. In the two games this season that Mazzoleni dismisses, Danis has allowed but one goal on 58 shots. And he turned in a particularly strong performance in Brown’s last game, the 6-0 win over Vermont. The way to do that is simple, according to Mazzoleni: crash the net and work hard for second-chance goals.

“Most of the challenge besides Yann Danis is to get to the net,” he said. “They play very, very good team defense. If you’re not taking away his eyes and getting second-chance scoring opportunities, I don’t think your possibilities for success are going to be very good.

“You have to get to the net away from the puck,” he continued. “You’re not going to beat [Danis] with a lot of first-chance scoring opportunities. And that’s something they do well. They limit your ability to get second-chance opportunities.”

Something else Brown does well is play its best hockey at home; this season alone the Bears are 8-3-2 in Meehan, and over the last three season the Bears have gone 26-9-8 on their home ice, meaning Harvard will have its work cut out for it if it wants to take 2a best-of-three series on the road.

“It’s going to be playoff hockey at its finest,” Mazzoleni said. “I think it’s going to be an outstanding series, an outstanding series. We’re going to have to play extremely hard to beat them.”

Grillo agreed: “Our guys are looking forward to it. It’s going to be a great college hockey weekend.”

The ECAC reached an agreement to televise part of the league playoffs on the cable network CN8. The first telecast will be tonight at Brown, with a 7:30 p.m. start. The game may also be viewed via webcast at www.cn8.tv.

—Staff writer Timothy M. McDonald can be reached at tmcdonal@harvard.edu.