After Vesey drew a slashing penalty that prevented a potential breakaway for Colgate’s Daniel Gentzler, McNally extended the Crimson’s lead to 3-1, beating Finn five-hole with a wrister from the right faceoff circle at 8:16 in the second period. McNally, who returned to the lineup last weekend after undergoing rehab for a potentially season-ending knee injury, earned All-Tournament team honors alongside Vesey and Michalek.
“I think [a chance at an ECAC title] was one of the reasons why I decided to push myself and try to come back,” McNally said. “I knew that with the group of guys that we had, that we could make a run like this, and I just wanted to be a part of it and try to help out as much as I could.”
Its season on the line, Colgate nearly tied the game late. Senior forward John Lidgett received credit for the Raiders’ second goal after a crease-scrum in which Crimson junior defenseman Desmond Bergin inadvertently kicked the puck past Michalek. With just over a minute to go, Colgate captain defenseman Spiro Goulakos grazed a potentially game-tying shot off the right post.
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The miss marked a difficult end for the Raiders, who entered the year as the preseason conference favorites and were looking for their program's first ECAC crown since 1990. Colgate finishes its tournament just outside the top 16 teams of the PairWise rankings, a highly predictive measure of selection to the NCAA tournament.
Meanwhile, Harvard’s win will allow Yale to secure an at-large bid. The Crimson will learn the identity of its first round opponent on Sunday afternoon.
“It’ll be a fun one if we get those guys again at some point,” Criscuolo said of the Bulldogs.
Picked to finish in the bottom half of the ECAC in preseason polls, Harvard put up the best record in college hockey through December yet suffered key injuries and a second-half slide in the new year.
But with the late returns of McNally and Blackwell, the Crimson survived a late third period deficit in Game 3 of the ECAC quarterfinals at Yale before sweeping through its final two opponents in Lake Placid. Harvard is the lowest-seeded team to win the ECAC tournament title since another sixth-seeded Crimson team won in 2004.
“This is a talented group that believed in themselves,” Donato said. “They refused at every turn to listen to what some people on the outside thought.”
—Crimson staff writer Michael D. Ledecky can be reached at michael.ledecky@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @mdledecky.