Cronin thrown for loss
Coach disappointed with Huskies' effort
Greg Cronin offered anger. He offered disappointment. He offered apologies.
After the sky-high expectations of his Northeastern hockey team were shattered in a flurry of goals in the first seven minutes of last night's opening Beanpot game against Harvard, the Huskies coach offered the awful truth.
"I'm going to be honest with you - they shocked us," said Cronin after his team lost, 3-1, ending any hope of Northeastern's first Beanpot title since 1988. "They headed down to our end and sustained a presence."
With three goals in the first 7:02 of the game, the Crimson (8-10-3) sent a quick message to the 14th-ranked Huskies (12-9-3), who entered the tournament determined to end the drought.
"Hockey is a game of one-on-one battles, and it was evident right from the start of the game that Harvard wanted to win the puck battles more than NU did," Cronin said. "They took to the net at will and basically smashed it down our throat. They played a very, very smart game."
Smart and, especially for Northeastern first-line defenseman Louis Liotti, frustrating.
"It seemed like they wanted it more tonight," Liotti said. "They went off the boards really quick, and down low they're really good. They cycled the puck hard and it was tough for us to contain them. It seemed like they just kept the pressure on us."
Just 2:06 in, Paul Dufault finished off a Jon Pelle attempt in front of the net for a 1-0 lead.
Just over four minutes later, captain Mike Taylor whacked at the puck and eventually pushed the second goal past Northeastern netminder Brad Thiessen. Thirty-three seconds later, Doug Rogers backhanded home the Crimson's final tally.
"All of them originated behind the net," Thiessen said. "They were able to get second and third chances in. They went to [the puck] real hard right away."
Cronin couldn't help but nitpick his defense.
"I don't care what level of hockey you're playing at - you can't give up multiple shots within 10 feet of the paint," he said.
Junior captain Joe Vitale, who showed some sign of life for NU on the offensive end, said it all happened too quickly.
"We were just shocked," Vitale said. "It seemed like we blinked an eye and it was 3-0. You try to stay with it, but that does something to a team. It put a dagger right in our heart. We put ourselves in too big of a hole to recover. I have to give all the credit to those Harvard kids."
Harvard's underrated status had to be a driving factor in its victory, according to Cronin.
"It's funny, you read the newspaper the last couple of days and everybody is talking about NU, BU, and BC," Cronin said. "Nobody's talking about Harvard. If I'm [Harvard coach] Teddy Donato, I'm reminding my players that Harvard is the 'other' school in the tournament right now."
Cronin could only offer his regrets to the large contingent of NU students in attendance - 3,000 strong.
"As someone who's representing Northeastern, I want to apologize to our fans that waited in line for six hours to come out and watch this game," the coach said. "We didn't give them a whole lot to get excited about. I want to apologize to them." 