Harvard tied Michigan 3-3 Saturday night in the final game before both teams travel to holiday tournaments.
Michigan opened up the scoring as junior center John Shouneyia from behind the net centered a pass to Dave Wyzgowski, who put it past Harvard freshman goaltender Dov Grumet-Morris. Wyzgowski’s goal was his first of the season, a confidence booster after the freshman recovered from mononucleosis early in the season.
Harvard appeared to tie the game at 1-1 with 6:20 left in the first period on the power play. Center Tom Cavanagh centered a pass that deflected off left wing Tyler Kolarik’s stick and clanked off the crossbar. The puck then came down and hit center Dominic Moore’s skate and went into the net. Referees called off the goal.
Moore made up for it 54 seconds into the second period, when he tied the game for real. He then assisted on a Kolarik goal halfway through the period to give the Crimson a 2-1 advantage.
Michigan freshman forward Eric Nystrom tied the game on a nice pass from Shouneyia.
Shouneyia split two Harvard defenders and hit a crashing Nystrom who put it top shelf over Grumet-Morris.
Michigan can thank the Boston Bruins and Andy Hilbert for its third goal. The Bruins lured Hilbert into leaving the Wolverines this past August following his sophomore year. The star forward’s early exit left the Wolverines down one forward, so Michigan coach Red Berenson offered Charlie Henderson a walk-on spot on the team.
Henderson, who had received offers from other colleges but wanted to try to make the team at Michigan, tallied his first career goal in a Wolverine sweater to give the Wolverines a 3-2 lead 13:10 remaining in the game.
Harvard rebounded to score less tha three minutes later as Dave McCulloch sent a puck on net that deflected off the stick of Dennis Packard.
“I think our kids showed a lot of resiliency,” Harvard coach Mark Mazzoleni said.
Michigan controlled the overtime period, but couldn’t score. Freshman defenseman Eric Werner, who hasn’t been afraid of pinching in the zone, took the puck all the way down the right side, went around defenseman Dave McCulloch and centered it to Nystrom. But Nystrom couldn’t get a stick on it.
Freshman Milan Gajic skated in all alone on Grumet-Morris but couldn’t score. “I held my breath,” Mazzoleni said.
Michigan outshot the Crimson 38-23. Harvard was 3-for-6 on the power play, Michigan 0-for-3.
The Wolverines (10-5-2, 8-3-2 CCHA) next play in the Great Lakes Invitational with North Dakota, Michigan State and Michigan Tech Dec. 28-29. Up next for Harvard (5-4-2, 5-2-2 ECAC) is the Denver Cup with Denver, Bowling Green and UMass-Lowell, also Dec. 28-29.
Mark Francescutti can be reached at [email protected].
