FOCUSED PENALTY KILL

What was, at many points during the year, Harvard’s biggest weakness has been transformed into a strength. The team’s penalty kill, which struggled mightily this season despite the fact that Harvard took the fewest penalties in the ECAC, has shut down other teams’ power play units with increasing efficiency over the season’s final weeks.

Despite allowing two goals in less than a minute and a half Saturday night,

Harvard has killed off all but two of the last 21 power plays it has faced. And those two power-play goals allowed on Saturday hardly came during typical circumstances.

“That was a little weird...it was a 6-on-3—I think I’ve only seen that one other time in my career,” Crimson captain Kenny Smith said. “We battled hard; I know they got two goals there, but those were some difficult circumstances to be in, and we played really well through that.”

Harvard will need to play as well, or better, against Brown.

The reason that the Bears spent much of the season atop the ECAC was their ability to put points on the board to support Danis.

In particular they have sported an efficient power-play unit, the best in the ECAC, which converts at a 23.2-percent clip.

Stopping that unit will be one of the keys for the Crimson.

COMBINATIONS

Harvard’s line combinations—whether up front or back along the blue-line—are more efficient, more balanced and more focused than they have been all season.

It’s a hard contention to quantify (though Alex McPhillips and Tim McGinn both touch on those subjects; see related articles) but I trust my own eyes, and they tell me that the Crimson has finally found combinations that work well together, generate scoring chances, play physically and avoid costly penalties. Smith happens to agree.

“We’re not making the mental errors that we made early in the year, [those] plagued us during the first half of the season,” he said.

Minus costly penalties (which I still have concerns about, especially against Brown) Harvard’s lines have been filling their roles admirably.

The fourth line (Turano-Flynn-Fried) skates and checks hard.