Yet the Big Green defense staved off every opportunity.
“I thought we worked incredibly hard,” Dartmouth coach Bob Gaudet said. “It was a two-minute 5-on-3, almost, and that’s a crucial part of the game.”
And though the Crimson came out “flat,” Donato added he’d “be crazy not to think Dartmouth had something to do with [it].”
“There were a lot of things that we did that we haven’t been doing,” he said. “I don’t know if it’s the fact that things have come a little bit easy over the last few games.”
Harvard had scored 20 times in its last three contests, but both sides of the Big Green game far surpassed those of the Crimson’s trio of previous opponents.
Friday night proved a test, one Harvard appeared doomed to fail until mid-way through the second period.
But propelled by a series of impressive defensive stands and a string of Dartmouth penalties, the Crimson finally converted on its power play, albeit due to a Big Green bench minor.
Junior Tom Walsh made a nifty move along the right boards, safeguarding the puck from a Big Dartmouth skater who dove to clear it up the ice. Walsh then fired to Johnson, who slapped it towards Yacey from just within the blueline.
Though Johnson was initially credited with the score, it was later determined that the puck had glanced off the body of sophomore Ryan Maki, who ultimately earned the goal.
“Lucky enough,” Maki said, smiling. “It hit my body, hit my shin or whatever, and it went in. I didn’t have a lot to do with it other than that.”
“I wish I could say I redirected it into the net,” he laughed, “but I didn’t.”
Harvard had knotted the score 17:25 through the second frame, and, though the third seemed to fly by uninterrupted, the Crimson increased the pressure with five minutes remaining, producing a flurry of chances that ended with Reese’s screened game-winning goal.
“Wide-open, I was able to get the shot off quick before the guy could jump me,” Reese explained, acknowledging a seamless pass by his defensive partner, Ryan Lannon. “[There was] a good screen in front, the puck went through, and I don’t think [Yacey] saw it until the last second.”
The Big Green netminder was pulled for the final 47 seconds, but Harvard held on, giving its fourth straight home-sellout crowd reason to cheer after three periods of nail-biting play.
“Dartmouth is a very good team,” Grumet-Morris later reflected. “They came out ready to play, and they took it down to 59 minutes and two seconds.”
And, said Gaudet, “it’s just a bounce of the puck at the end.
“They make a nice play, and the puck has eyes. And it didn’t for us tonight.”
—Staff writer Rebecca A. Seesel can be reached at seesel@fas.harvard.edu.