I was wondering the same thing. Gaffney it seems has been out all season. Not sure what's going on there. Tough weekend on the road at RPI and Union even at full strength. Hoping for the best.
USCHO Fan Forum
This is a sample guest message. Register a free account today to become a member! Once signed in, you'll be able to participate on this site by adding your own topics and posts, as well as connect with other members through your own private inbox!
-
The USCHO Fan Forum has migrated to a new plaform, xenForo. Most of the function of the forum should work in familiar ways. Please note that you can switch between light and dark modes by clicking on the gear icon in the upper right of the main menu bar. We are hoping that this new platform will prove to be faster and more reliable. Please feel free to explore its features.
Harvard Crimson 2024-2025 - Will our Youth be Served?
- Thread starter Skate79
- Start date
I was wondering the same thing. Gaffney it seems has been out all season. Not sure what's going on there. Tough weekend on the road at RPI and Union even at full strength. Hoping for the best.
Good win last night in Troy especially considering we were shorthanded missing Alex Gaffney, Ryan Fine, and Ben McDonald. Gaffney in particular has been MIA this season which is too bad. We hit the trifecta with a shortie, a power play, and an even strength goal. Two of the goals came at the end of a period which is unusual. Casey Severo's goal was huge to seal the deal. On to Union.
Watching some of the Union game and it is 1-1 at the end of 1. On the recruiting front, if you are not fairly dominant in the BCHL, NAHL, AJHL, or OJHL, you aren’t going to be more than a role player at Harvard (goalies excluded to some extent). You have to be able to play in the USHL and I suppose Major Junior as well since those pipelines are now open.
I wonder what the thinking is for a recruit to come to Harvard for juniors, particularly when they could do another year of juniors to try and work their way up the totem pole. You see this year after year.
Succeeding in the USHL is no guarantee to have success at Harvard, but having mixed results in a lower league does seem to guarantee the role player / depth player status. As we look at recruits playing in these leagues, I hope they are reflecting on this before they come to Harvard too early.
I wonder what the thinking is for a recruit to come to Harvard for juniors, particularly when they could do another year of juniors to try and work their way up the totem pole. You see this year after year.
Succeeding in the USHL is no guarantee to have success at Harvard, but having mixed results in a lower league does seem to guarantee the role player / depth player status. As we look at recruits playing in these leagues, I hope they are reflecting on this before they come to Harvard too early.
Last edited:
Well. That sucked vs Union. I watched the first 2 periods and Harvard was the better team, but same old story. No finish. Just not enough higher end to finish in tight spaces.
the 2nd goal Harvard gave up was awful. Defenseman just watched his guy skate across the crease and bury the rebound after Charette made a nice save.
I did not see the 3rd period but looks like that was a blessing. Total wasted opportunity. But as Jerry said, “Help is on the way.”
I'm wondering about the effect of the Major Juniors and the decision to allow them to play college hockey. Does this help or hurt Harvard? I have to believe the number of Harvard players in the NHL will have some potential recruits thinking about Cambridge as a destination for at least two years. Unless Admissions decides to come down on the coaching staff for recruiting a bunch of one-and-dones.
Even though we were outplayed this weekend, we came away with a split which on this trip is fine by me. We're in 5th place in the ECAC. The two losses to Cornell hurt us in the standings as does the fact that they have two games in hand on us along with Union. So I'm thinking we may finish 7th barring some unforeseen collapse by teams in front of us or directly behind us.
Time for the team to finish strong going into the postseason. We need to ramp up our offensive production and tighten up the D. Charrette looks like he'll play a majority of the games remaining. Aku having a down year so far.
Time for the team to finish strong going into the postseason. We need to ramp up our offensive production and tighten up the D. Charrette looks like he'll play a majority of the games remaining. Aku having a down year so far.
Last edited:
Some of my posts didn't make it over to the new platform. Oh well, almost no one reads the thread so it doesn't matter.
We suffered a terrible loss last night to the Tigers. We should have closed them out in the third period, but once again, we couldn't finish the job. This reinforces Teddy's style of playing not to lose.
We suffered a terrible loss last night to the Tigers. We should have closed them out in the third period, but once again, we couldn't finish the job. This reinforces Teddy's style of playing not to lose.
The game against Princeton was an embarassment. Princeton should have won going away and spent inordinate amounts of time cycling the puck in the Crimson zone at will. Here are my thoughts on Harvard:
1) Donato should convert Healey back to a forward. He is good for 2-3 horrendous give aways every single game
2) Morden needs to either put on 20 lbs or decide to use his body. He is pushed off the puck with ease and dominated in front of his own goalie. I will give St Louis some slack because he is smaller and a frosh, but did anyone see BU's first goal in the Beanpot and St Louis not taking the body and letting the forward get right to the next for an easy finish?
3) Why does our defense cede our blue line on demand? It's worse than our Southern Border
4) Charette has been great. He has had next to no chance on the goals he has given up due to an indifferent defense in front of him.
5) Harvard is majorly susceptible to aggressive forecheck; Lots of poor decision making and indecision which generally comes from panic or a lack of poise under pressure; An inability to skate the puck out or lack of cohesion on breakouts between the defenseman and the forwards.
Harvard has some talent coming in next year and we should see some forwards that get regular time today be on the outside looking in. At the very least, there will be a LOT more competition to be in the starting lineup/ The defense needs a complete overhaul. Everything from personnel, to pairings, to philosophy. I would not be surprised if they brought in some guys on D early to accelerate this evolution.
1) Donato should convert Healey back to a forward. He is good for 2-3 horrendous give aways every single game
2) Morden needs to either put on 20 lbs or decide to use his body. He is pushed off the puck with ease and dominated in front of his own goalie. I will give St Louis some slack because he is smaller and a frosh, but did anyone see BU's first goal in the Beanpot and St Louis not taking the body and letting the forward get right to the next for an easy finish?
3) Why does our defense cede our blue line on demand? It's worse than our Southern Border
4) Charette has been great. He has had next to no chance on the goals he has given up due to an indifferent defense in front of him.
5) Harvard is majorly susceptible to aggressive forecheck; Lots of poor decision making and indecision which generally comes from panic or a lack of poise under pressure; An inability to skate the puck out or lack of cohesion on breakouts between the defenseman and the forwards.
Harvard has some talent coming in next year and we should see some forwards that get regular time today be on the outside looking in. At the very least, there will be a LOT more competition to be in the starting lineup/ The defense needs a complete overhaul. Everything from personnel, to pairings, to philosophy. I would not be surprised if they brought in some guys on D early to accelerate this evolution.
I've been thinking the same thought about Healey. Why not use his offensive skills up front instead of exposing his weaknesses as a D-man night after night? You would think Gilroy would have brought this up to Teddy. Especially where they have multiple right-shot D.
I had a flashback to the Ohio State game in the NCAAs at Bridgeport. We can't defend or create enough chances at the offensive end to scare these teams. As you pointed out, the D needs a complete overhaul. BU simply overwhelmed us. Classless move by Jay Pandolfo to ask for an additional penalty with six minutes remaining in a 6-1 game when his team was going on the power play. File it away for the next time we play them when we have the horses to run up the score on them.
Last edited:
I agree with that, it was a little rubbing it in their face for no particular reason.
LastRowRegular
New member
But what leads you to believe that Ted D will actually take action and address these issues? Yes, it's a great education, but what about this program is attractive to an above average talent? What evidence is there for these past few years that coming to Harvard will make you a better hockey player? I feel like when we lost Coach Pearl, we lost a lot of coaching. The program seems to be floundering. I'll keep coming and hoping for the best, but it's mystifying. I've had to swear off attending the Beanpot for my sanity. Sorry for the rant.
Given what's remaining on the schedule, Harvard needs some help to at least move into sixth place. The North Country trip awaits this weekend, then the final home weekend of the season against Union and RPI with the final two games at Yale and Brown. Nothing comes easy for this team. Would like to see a better effort for the final six games especially in the D zone. Might be the worst D grouping we've had in a long time.
Coming away with a split in North Country isn't the worst. It's just the way they got shellacked by Clarkson today that has me bothered. Harvard simply can't beat a team with a winning record. I wanted to believe we would at least make it competitive against Clarkson. No such luck. Oh well, four to go. We need a sweep and some help to get us into sixth place. Dartmouth will either finish fifth or get the bye with a fourth or third-place finish. I'd like to see some consistency develop over these last four games.
Not sure how you start Aku in that game after Charette's performance on Friday. Aku continues to struggle with basic positioning (angles, how deep in crease) and getting square to shooter. I don't recall a goalie at Harvard getting beat so often to the short side. This may simply be a "play the seniors / upper classmen" scenario given where Harvard is. Giving up 6 goals on 26 shots is certainly an interesting stat line.
The reality is that injuries aside, Harvard is rolling out some guys who are not ready yet for D1 hockey. We know this. Any player who is not impactful in the BCHL, NAHL, or any other 2nd tier premier league, is not going to have a lot of success playing hockey at Harvard. We have consistently seen this over the years. So when you see a defenseman taking 3 penalties in a game for Harvard, who could not get ice time in the USHL and then was so/so in the BCHL, that performance is 100% predictable and should surprise no one. I know that Harvard is still reeling from the early departures of Farrell, Laferriere, and Coronato (last year and this year)....but it's tough to watch guys who simply are not ready. We have to temper our expectations.
Another frustrating loss last night. Giving up a goal with four seconds left in the period is inexcusable. Points to a season-long series of D zone breakdowns leading to killer goals against. Harvard simply doesn't have the skill to match up with winning teams despite their win over Colgate and Quinnipiac earlier this season. RPI's win over Dartmouth last night doesn't make me feel any better about tonight's game. Hoping that Senior Night will give the team a little extra emotional push.
The other thing I was thinking about is NCAA roster sizes for men's hockey. The new limit is 26 and if you look at Harvard's official roster this year, I count 29 on Harvard's roster. So that means that if the roster limitations took effect this year, 3 people would not be on it. Now of course, there are some people on the roster who don't play much in the way of games.
However, if we look towards next year. Harvard graduates 7 seniors. This gets them to a roster size of 22, which in theory, gives Harvard 4 spots to fill. However, Harvard has 7 recruits coming in next year. So unless I am misinterpreting the riles and how stringent the roster size it, 3 players will be "cut" or recruits will be asked to defer. I'd be curious as to how others are wading through this and what the impacts will be.
However, if we look towards next year. Harvard graduates 7 seniors. This gets them to a roster size of 22, which in theory, gives Harvard 4 spots to fill. However, Harvard has 7 recruits coming in next year. So unless I am misinterpreting the riles and how stringent the roster size it, 3 players will be "cut" or recruits will be asked to defer. I'd be curious as to how others are wading through this and what the impacts will be.
Or three players on the current roster may decide to enter the transfer portal. The days of having a JV team have long since passed so I would imagine that if a player like Ryan Fine or Salvatore Guzzo thought he might get bumped to the stands regularly due to one of the incoming frosh, they may pull the trigger on leaving Harvard. Similar to what John and Matt Fusco did when they realized their playing time would be nonexistent due to the plethora of right-shot D.