Rob Fried smiled knowingly as he watched the early stages of Ryan Maki’s Harvard hockey career.

“I thought to myself, wow, this kid’s making a lot of the same mistakes I made during my freshman fall,” laughed Fried, now a senior assistant captain.

Fried sees a lot of himself in Maki, a first-year winger from Shelby Township, Mich. They are roughly the same size: Maki is 6’2, 195; Fried is 6’3, 210. Each plays the same power-forward, hard-to-the-walls game. And it took both of them time to adjust their long-limbed frames to Division I college hockey.

But from what Fried has seen recently, he’s willing to declare Maki different from himself in one big way: “He’s correcting the mistakes a lot faster than I did.”

After coming agonizingly close to his first collegiate goal countless times in his first 25 games, Maki has cracked the “G” column. Early in the third period Friday, he pounced on a misplayed puck and beat Vermont’s Travis Russell for his first career tally.

Truth be told, it wasn’t an artistically brilliant goal. But that doesn’t matter.

“I’ll take whatever I can get, you know,” Maki said in a subtle accent, easily traced to his family’s roots on Michigan’s Keweenaw Peninsula. “I was having my fair share of chances, so I knew it was coming.”

In hockey, this business of scoring and not scoring tends to run in cycles. So after Goal No. 1, another wise senior assistant captain, Tyler Kolarik, told Maki, “Now that you’ve got one, they’ll all start falling.”

So far, Kolarik’s been proven right. Maki scored again, late in the second period of Saturday’s 4-0 win over Dartmouth.

As far as everyone in the dressing room was concerned, it was about time.

Fried recalled how Dennis Packard—another winger with size (6’5, 215)—had watched Maki from the bench one day and said, “God, I can’t believe this kid doesn’t have a goal yet. He’s been popping tons of goals in practice and getting chances in games.”

Not so anymore. “We’re all glad to see him coming on,” Fried said.

Maki, who has five points this season, played on the team’s top line against the Big Green, alongside Packard and Brendan Bernakevitch. He’s also slated to skate there Friday when Harvard opens its best-of-three ECAC playoff series with Vermont.

Not bad for a freshman who just scored his first goal.

“What’s happening now is a clear indication of the type of player he is,” said Harvard coach Mark Mazzoleni. “He gets around the ice, he’s physical, and he makes plays.”

Maki likes the old adage that, at this point in the season, the freshmen aren’t really freshmen anymore. That’s been especially true this season for Maki, and the team’s other freshman forwards, Kevin Du and Steve Mandes.

With veteran front-liners Kenny Turano, Andrew Lederman, and Charlie Johnson out with injuries at different times during the season, Du, Mandes, and Maki have seen plenty of ice time. Du is the only member of his class to have played in all 29 games, but Maki (27) and Mandes (26) are close behind.

“We’re not like the wide-eyed freshmen who came in at the beginning of the year,” said Maki, who has played in 24 straight games. “We know the ropes now.”

Meanwhile, Maki has enjoyed the non-hockey aspect of Harvard life. He said his classes are tougher than they were at his public high school, but that some careful time management has helped him enjoy Yard life. Overall, Harvard’s been everything he expected, “and more.”

“I’ve learned a lot this year,” he said. “Hockey’s been fun, and I have great roommates. It’s been a great experience.”

And now he’s got a couple goals to show for it.

UPON FURTHER REVIEW

From the bench, Mazzoleni liked what he saw from junior defenseman Ryan Lannon Saturday night. But it wasn’t until he broke down the tape that he realized exactly how good Lannon played.

Lannon recorded 12 hits, according to the team’s unofficial statistics—the highest single-game total for a player in Mazzoleni’s five years here.

“He was a rock back there,” Mazzoleni said. “That’s the best game he’s played here.”

Lannon was paired with sophomore Peter Hafner in that game, since Hafner’s normal partner, All-American Noah Welch, was out of the lineup (coach’s decision).

Mazzoleni, who has been impressed with Hafner’s play over the last month, liked the job Lannon and Hafner did on Dartmouth’s top line and said he “might” play them together again this weekend.

“It worked pretty well on Saturday,” said Hafner, who has skated with Lannon during practice this week. “He’s excellent.”

Meanwhile, Mazzoleni’s decision as to which defenseman he will sit keeps getting more and more difficult. Captain Kenny Smith was plus-6 last weekend, and senior Dave McCulloch was plus-4. Lannon, sophomore Tom Walsh, and freshman Dylan Reese each had assists on Saturday.

Mazzoleni said yesterday that he has not yet established his defensive lineup for the weekend.

FRIED HONORED AGAIN

Fried, who founded and operated the Crimson City Hockey Clinic for underprivileged youths, learned yesterday that he has been selected as Harvard’s Coca-Cola Community All-American. “I just got the e-mail,” Fried said after practice. “I had no idea my name was even in the hat, or what the award was about.”

Fried will now represent Harvard at the national level. If he is chosen as the Division I-AA national winner, he will receive a $5,000 donation for the community/philanthropic cause of his choice …

The Harvard athletic department has purchased a number of student tickets from the ECAC for this weekend’s playoff series and will give them to Harvard students free of charge. Students can reserve tickets for all three games—Friday, Saturday, and Sunday (if necessary), all at 7 p.m.—by navigating to http://www.hcs.harvard.edu/~hclub beginning at 4 p.m. today.

—Staff writer Jon Paul Morosi can be reached at morosi@fas.harvard.edu.