With only 41.8 seconds left in the period, the game was tied, 1-1.
Harvard senior Dennis Packard said his teammates regrouped in the locker room with two things in mind: “Forget the last minute of the period, and gain the momentum back.”
Done and done. Thirty-three seconds into the third, Bernakevitch won an offensive zone draw to Ryan Lannon, who pushed it across to Peter Hafner, who sent in a wrister that Bernakevitch redirected for his fourth postseason goal.
“Almost too easy,” mused Bernakevitch. “It was sitting there and I whacked it in.”
It was a classic goal for Bernakevitch, a power forward with a plus-13 rating who may have the best touch around the net of any Harvard player. And oh, just in case you were hoping for more synergy after the McCulloch goal: Bernakevitch scored the game-winner from close range in the Crimson’s 5-3 semifinal win over the Big Green last year.
Friday, Dartmouth outshot Harvard 11-9 in the third, but Grumet-Morris (30 saves) stood tall for his sixth consecutive win.
He was helped by 17 blocked shots, including five during a crucial penalty kill midway through the third. “That’s the kind of thing you need this time of year,” McCulloch said.
So it’s on to the final, where the Crimson will have to earn every inch against a workmanlike Clarkson team. After an inconsistent regular season (sound familiar?), the Golden Knights are 5-1 in the tournament, including a hard-won quarterfinal series win at Cornell. They are making a bid to become the lowest-seeded team in ECAC history to win the Scotty Whitelaw Cup.
Everything points to an even match-up. The teams split the season series, 1-1-1. Harvard’s seniors are 4-3-3 against Clarkson. And the Crimson is 8-7-1 against Clarkson in ECAC tournament play.
“They play a scrappy, gritty game,” Packard said. “We know we’re in for a battle.”
Said Mazzoleni: “It’s going to be a lunch-pail kind of game.”
It will be Harvard’s first postseason meeting with Clarkson since the 2002 ECAC semifinals, a 3-2 Crimson victory on an overtime winner by Tom Cavanagh, the team’s most consistent performer this postseason.
Harvard has met the Knights in only one ECAC championship game.
The year was 1971. Joe Cavanagh was a senior. Harvard won.
—Staff writer Jon Paul Morosi can be reached at morosi@fas.harvard.edu.