Junior Dylan Reese, whose five points lead the team’s defensemen with captain Peter Hafner, will rally a No. 14 Harvard squad against the talented, experienced Dartmouth Big Green, who have stumbled out of the gate due to some poor goaltending. When the t

The No. 14 Harvard men’s hockey team beat Quinnipiac and New Hampshire last week, notching a shutout over the latter squad, then No. 9 in the country. But that didn’t mean that there wasn’t plenty for the Crimson (9-4-1, 7-4-0 ECAC) to work on in practice this week.

“Decent” was junior defenseman Dylan Reese’s assessment of the Crimson’s play en route to the two victories. “Maybe average, but not much better,” he said.

Though Harvard’s defense limited UNH’s momentum and quality shots on net, the Wildcats still outshot the Crimson 32-20. And though Harvard didn’t sit back on its collective heels as time ticked down­—as has been the custom through the season’s first half—the Crimson didn’t mount much of an offensive charge, either.

“I think we played OK,” Donato said, echoing Reese’s sentiment. “We found ways to win both games.”

Winning is what matters, after all. But in the week of practice leading in to today’s 8:00 p.m. scuffle with Dartmouth, Harvard has been forced to ready for what Reese called “a hungry team.” Even if the Big Green (4-7-0, 4-5-0) lacks a national ranking, and even if it stumbled to an abysmal 0-4-0 start, the Crimson-Dartmouth rivalry always promises to be a good one.

The Big Green’s season-opening skid began with a 6-2 loss at Harvard’s Bright Hockey Center and continued with a 3-0 shutout at Princeton, a 7-5 barnburner at Quinnipiac and a 3-2 home-opening defeat at the hands of Colgate.

Successive wins over Cornell, Brown and Yale brought Dartmouth within a game of .500, but three losses in the last four contests have set the team back once again.

“They’re reeling a little bit right now,” Donato said. “After getting the ship righted and playing some real good hockey, they’ve lost a [few] in a row.”

“But they’re a very proud team, a very talented team,” he added. “Obviously, [when] you look at their preseason rating”—second in the conference coaches’ poll and third in the media poll—“that was for a reason.”

The Big Green won 20 games last season, and thus far in this campaign, they’ve started at least five returning blueliners—if not six—every game. But thanks to the graduation of starting netminder Dan Yacey, Dartmouth has tottered between sophomore Mike Devine (2.75 GAA, .890 save percentage) and junior Sean Samuel (4.44 GAA, .843 save percentage) at goaltender.

The team is one of four in the conference to boast three players with more than 10 points, but “they seem to be losing some close games,” Reese said, “and losing some games that I’m sure they expected to win.”

The Big Green certainly hasn’t forgotten its season-opening drubbing at Bright, and both sides’ returning players surely remember that last year yielded a split of one-goal games. Reese’s tally won the first, 2-1, with 58 seconds left on the clock in Cambridge, and Harvard tied the second in Hanover, N.H. with 74 seconds remaining, only to lose in overtime.

“It’s going to be a battle,” Donato said. “But we’re expecting to be ready for it.”

Harvard has averaged a game every three days this season, but has had more than a week to prepare for tonight’s contest in Thompson Arena.

“Time to get back to our systems and make sure everything’s sound,” Reese said.

He knows that on paper, the Crimson has a better record, better goaltending, and a better defense—that on paper, Harvard has won three of its last four, while Dartmouth has lost three of its last four. But Reese also knows that in reality, things aren’t always so simple.

“They just always play us tough,” he said.

—Staff writer Rebecca A. Seesel can be reached at seesel@fas.harvard.edu.