Saturday night at Bright Hockey Center saw a flat Harvard offense
prove too much for a quick Princeton Tiger team.  The Tigers hustled
most of the night, but their flat offense never got the rebounds.
The Harvard team and supporters will be happier with "60 minutes"
of hockey, but I can't be very happy with a dull offense that
down the line won't be able to score.
 
Harvard opened the scoring when Sean McCann (Brain Farrell, Steve
Martins) knocked in a rebound (what else?) on a power play.  Jason
Karmanos (Farrell, Peter McLaughlin) centering the first line, hit
in another rebound after a defensive error.  The Crimson made it
3-0 when Ben Coughlin scored off a nice shot from a quick 1-2 move
after a face-off.  In the second period, Kirk Nielsen (Farrell, Perry
Cohagan) scored on a tremendous slap shot from just inside the blue
line.  Princeton got on the board when Jean Verdon (Sean O'Brien,
Mike Bois) finished off a well executed 2 on 1 break.  Harvard made
it 5-1 when Farrell (Chris Baird, Derek Maguire) scored on a de-
flection from a shot from the point on the power play.  In the
third period, Ethan Philpott (Joe Craigen, Maguire) finished off
an end to end rush with another rebound.  The chance was created by
some nice back-checking by linemate Stuart Swenson.  The Crimson
closed out the scoring when Cory Gustafson (Lou Body) tipped in
the rebound off the back boards from a point shot.
 
Princeton played fairly well.  They had good speed.  The were a
quick bunch of grinders.  Their problem was, like many teams,
they played a counter-attack offense, wishing for a chance.  The
result is they burned much energy shutting things down, but had
little to generate offense with.  I liked the play of Captain
defender Sean O'Brien.  He is a very skillful player.  The line
of O'Connor, Bois, and Verdon were very good on the fore-check.
They intercepted numerous passes.  The line of Fust, Sharp and
Pelle had a fairly good game.  I look for the Tigers to surprise
a number of teams this year.
 
What is keeping Harvard going is the 3 strong defensive pairings.
They provided a solid defense and many of them are happy to join
and or create an attack.  Again Ashlin Halfnight was wonderful.
When the play gets dull, I just watch this kid's skills.  It is
fun.  Last night he read the plays very well, stopped them, and
then turned around and provided the good outlet pass, or skated
off to lead the rush.  Brain Farrell had a great weekend.  He is
becoming an offense force for the Crimson.  Tripp Tracy played a
good game in goal.  He had many more hard shots to stop last night,
and for the most part he looked strong.  The line of Holmes,
Cohagan and Nielsen played the best as a team.  Their fore-checking
was very good.  Chris Baird had a good night as a penalty killer,
using his speed well.  On the power play though, when he plays at
the point, I am always worried.  He looks too rigid out there.
Other teams will see and use that soon.  Steve McCann had another
superb match.  The line of Swenson, Craigen and Philpott needs to
skate more, and watch less.  I was happy to see them score in the
third period.  Hopefully this will encourage them.
 
Opportunism is not an offense.  The flat offense Harvard used last
night will not get them far in the long run.  I was hopeful that
the angular offense would come alive again after the display of
Friday night.  It did not.  From the fans in the stands: "They're
missing the one big scorer this year".  I disagree.  Between
Martins, Farrell, Gustafson and the defenders, Harvard has people
who can score goals.  The question is, will they concentrate enough
on offense to create the chances every team needs to score.  If
they just play it safe with defense first and hope-for-a-rebound
flat offense, they will have problems.  The players that make up
this years team are very skillful.  The real problem, will they
get the positive direction (like Bill Cleary use to provide)
they need to create a strong offense.  We will see.
 
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 good shooting
 rhun
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