No. 2 Cornell Downs M. Hockey

It took No. 2 Cornell just nine minutes to put the Harvard men’s hockey team in a gigantic hole. It’ll take the Crimson until the middle of March to climb out.

The Big Red jumped all over a stunned Harvard squad in the game’s first minutes to open up a 3-0 lead, then withstood a furious rally by the No. 15 Crimson to prevail 4-3 in front of a raucous sellout crowd at the Bright Hockey Center Saturday night.

“Best feeling in the world, coming into Harvard and winning,” said Cornell forward Ryan Vesce.

The Big Red’s victory virtually assures it of the ECAC regular season crown—Cornell (20-4-1, 15-2-1 ECAC) is three points ahead of the Crimson with four games left to play and also owns the tiebreaker advantage, having defeated Harvard twice this season. The Crimson (16-8-1, 14-4-0) will likely finish second, assuring it a first-round bye and home ice for the second-round, best-of-three series.

More importantly, without a regular-season win over an elite opponent, Harvard likely must win the ECAC tournament to secure an NCAA bid. Cornell has all but clinched an at-large spot.

Yet Crimson captain Dominic Moore is unfazed by the task ahead.

“If it happens that we need to win in the playoffs to get a bid then so be it,” Moore said. “We did it last year, and we’ll do it again.”

Before the game, Harvard coach Mark Mazzoleni emphasized avoiding penalties and preventing scores early in a period. Yet the Crimson forgot these warnings once the puck dropped, giving up two power-play goals in the opening five minutes.

“We came out with a lack of poise,” Moore said. “Guys were trying to do other people’s jobs, and some guys were just too excited.”

A high-sticking penalty by sophomore defenseman Noah Welch just 20 seconds in led to Cornell’s first goal, and the Big Red opened up a two-goal lead with another power-play score at the 4:58 mark. Less than four minutes later it was 3-0 Cornell, forcing Mazzoleni to use his team’s timeout to help the Crimson regain its composure.

“The thing which upset me was our lack of execution on the penalty kill,” Mazzoleni said. “They’ve run the same power play for three years. We knew how we wanted to defend it, we went over it on the board, showed a tape on it and we just didn’t execute.”

Harvard’s prospects looked bleak—the Crimson has not recovered from a deficit of more than one goal all season, and Cornell goaltender David LeNeveu had not allowed three goals in a game since Nov. 16. Yet rather than giving up hope and falling apart, the Crimson displayed remarkable resiliency in mounting its best comeback effort of the year.

Harvard survived the rest of the period, then came out in the second a different team, outplaying the Big Red for the remainder of the game

“You can’t start thinking ahead when you’re down 3-0,” Moore said. “You have to stay calm, stay cool, find an opening and try to capitalize. We didn’t panic or try to do too much. We knew once we got our chance we could capitalize.”

Harvard pulled to within 3-2 with five minutes remaining in the second period on goals from juniors Dennis Packard and Tim Pettit. With just a minute to go in the second, however, the Big Red tallied what proved to be the game winner when Vesce scored on a herculean effort by linemate Stephen Bâby. For Harvard it was a final, fatal relapse of the defensive breakdowns that plagued the Crimson in the first period.

“It was a lack of execution,” Mazzoleni said. “We were there, we didn’t make the play. He made the play, give him credit. It was a classic Bâby play.”

Down 4-2, Harvard got a goal back quickly when sophomore Tom Cavanagh tapped home the rebound off a huge slapshot by Pettit at 2:19 of the third. But although the Crimson dominated play in the final period, it could not sneak another puck past LeNeveu, who made several key stops to preserve the Big Red win.

“They changed things in the third period,” Cornell coach Mike Schafer said. “They came out with the philosophy of throwing the puck to the net and trying to crash the net. But LeNeveu was very solid down low and didn’t give anything up.”

Moore took an optimistic perspective on the outcome, focusing on the Crimson’s ability to come from behind against one of the nation’s best teams.

“To tell you the truth I feel fine about this game,” Moore said. “We learned our lesson about coming out and having poise, and we won the game 3-1 from the second period on.”

The Big Red’s win gives Cornell the regular season sweep over Harvard for the first time in five years. But with a possible ECAC title game looming, neither team thinks the season series is over.

“We’re definitely going to see them again,” said Cornell forward Sam Paolini. “Both teams know it.”

—Staff writer Elijah M. Alper can be reached at alper@fas.harvard.edu.