Goalies star in deadlock
No one was shortchanged by last night’s 1-1 tie between Yale and No. 6 Harvard that was played before a packed Bright-Landry Hockey Center crowd of 3,095.
Crimson goalie Merrick Madsen (27 saves) and Bulldogs counterpart Patrick Spano (33) were named co-MVPs for the game and shared the Tim Taylor Cup, named in honor of the late Harvard All-American forward and longtime Yale coach.
The teams skated through 46 minutes of scoreless hockey before the visitors broke the ice. Freshman Robbie DeMontis fired the puck toward the net from the left side and Ted Hart had staked position in front of Madsen as defenseman Clay Anderson tried to move him away. Hart managed to hold tight to tip in DeMontis’ shot at 16:44 of the third period.
“I saw the puck redirect just as it went by me,” said Madsen, who had two players to look around as he tried to find the release point on the DeMontis shot.
Yale’s largesse lasted just over a minute. Luke Esposito cashed in a backdoor pass from Sean Malone at the left of the crease to tie things up at 17:53.
“You could feel the tension mounting,” Harvard coach Ted Donato said. “You knew someone was going to get one either way.”
Yale coach Keith Allain had a good feeling after his club went ahead.
“I thought we had it won there,” Allain said. “Then they tied it late, so I would say a tie is probably an appropriate result.
The Crimson outshot the Bulldogs, 3-2, in overtime.
Harvard (12-5-2, 8-4-2 ECAC) outshot Yale (87-4, 4-5-3) in the opening frame, 10-7. The hosts’ best early opportunity came while skating shorthanded, but a bid by Alexander Kerfoot was turned aside by Spano, who came in fresh off a 7-0 shutout of Dartmouth the previous night. Madsen, who blanked Brown, 3-0, on Friday night stopped a bid by Ted Hart and robbed Reading product Mike Doherty with the left leg pad.
In the second period, Yale’s penalty-kill tandem of DeMontis and John Hayden generated a shorthanded chance. Hayden just missed wide to the left of Madsen on the 2-on-1 break-in. The story of the remainder of second was the play of Spano, who foiled Malone, who had cut around the defense and hung on to the puck as Esposito crashed into the goalie. Spano’s best work may have come midway through the period when he made consecutive stops, the second against freshman Frederic Gregoire that resulted in Buldogs freshman defenseman Matt Foley of Longmeadow gaining possession of the puck in the crease and clearing the zone. Harvard posted 13 shots in the stanza, with Spano holding down the fort on late attempts by Kerfoot and Ryan Donato.
Madsen maintained his end of the goaltender bargain as he just managed to get his catching glove on a rising shot by DeMontis, who had broken in alone at 1:17 of the third period, and deflect the puck wide.
Harvard leads the alltime series by a mark of 142-90-21.