He's Taylor-made in the clutch

When the stakes are high, Harvard senior is a perfect fit

In Harvard's biggest games, cocaptain Mike Taylor has his best outings, including scoring two goals in the ECAC quarterfinals. (DAVID SILVERMAN PHOTOGRAPHY)

The reality hit him like a two-hander upside the head just before Mike Taylor took the ice last Sunday night against Quinnipiac for the third game of the ECAC quarterfinals at Bright Center. "It was probably the most scared I've been before a game," Harvard's cocaptain confessed. "It's one thing to have your season on the line. It's another thing to have your college career on the line."

So Taylor went out and made sure he and his teammates would live to play another day, scoring two goals and setting up the third in the 3-1 victory that sent the third-seeded Crimson (16-12-4) to Albany, N.Y., for the seventh time in eight years for a semifinal date tonight against fifth-seeded archrival Cornell (18-13-3) at the Times Union Center.

"Mike's Mr. Clutch," testified David MacDonald, Taylor's fellow cocaptain and campus wingman. "The bigger the stakes, the better he plays."

Look at the three biggest games Harvard has played this season and the senior from Maple Grove, Minn., has had his fingerprints all over them. In the Beanpot final against Boston College, Taylor produced the goal that sent the game into overtime. In the regular-season finale at Cornell, he scored the shorthanded goal that got the Crimson up and away to a 3-1 victory, earned them a playoff bye, and sent the Big Red to Union for a first-round series.

Then last weekend, after Harvard played sloppily to allow Quinnipiac to even the series after taking an 11-0 hammering in the opener, Taylor scored another first-period shorthander to jump-start his colleagues. "When I saw that goal go in I thought, there's no way we're losing this game," said MacDonald.

Taylor, who came into the series with 24 points, emerged with 32 after getting three goals and five assists and running his scoring streak to 12 games. Harvard's record during that span? A non-coincidental 9-2-1. "As Mike went on his run," said MacDonald, "it became contagious."

Taylor's run matched the team's post-exams renaissance, which began in earnest with the 3-1 victory over Northeastern that put the Crimson into the Beanpot final for the first time in a decade. Until then, it had been an undulating season, to put it mildly. After a 6-2-1 start, which included triumphs over Cornell and Boston University, Harvard went into an 0-7-2 tailspin, which included a 7-2 home beatdown from Boston College.

It was the team's worst stretch in a dozen years and it prompted a flurry of team meetings and inspirational e-mails. "Through that losing streak we'd been talking, talking, talking as a team," said Taylor. "Finally, Doug and I said, enough."

The way forward (and upward) was about less gabbing and more goals. And while Harvard didn't win the Beanpot, its comeback from two goals down with less than nine minutes to play was a breakthrough. "That was the turning point," said Taylor, who had two goals and an assist that night. "We found out what our team had to offer."

And in case anybody in the Garden hadn't noticed Taylor before that, it was an impressive introduction. "He's been the best-kept secret in college hockey in the East," said coach Ted Donato.

They certainly knew him back home, where Taylor played on the Academy of Holy Angels' state champion squad when he was a sophomore and was a finalist for the Mr. Hockey Award that goes to the best high school player in Minnesota.

That got Taylor recruited by several WCHA schools - Minnesota, Minnesota-Duluth, and Colorado College - but it was Harvard that intrigued him. He'd practiced at Bright Center when Holy Angels came east to play Catholic Memorial and Mount St. Charles, the perennial Rhode Island power. "But I had no idea about Harvard hockey," he said.

But then-coach Mark Mazzoleni and his staff knew about Taylor and pursued him vigorously. While the idea of playing for Minnesota was alluring ("You grow up there and it's Gophers-Gophers-Gophers"), Taylor knew he'd be playing with the likes of Phil Kessel and Blake Wheeler and figured he'd see limited minutes.

"I'm realistic," he said. "I'm not a first-round draft pick. Minnesota said, 'We could have a place for you on the team, but we don't know how much money we can give you.' I wanted to go where I could play and where I felt comfortable and Harvard was the best fit. The campus is beautiful and how could you beat the education and the opportunity to play right off the bat?"

The opportunity came more quickly than Taylor expected when Charlie Johnson hurt his shoulder and Taylor found himself starting in the second game of the season at Lynah Rink, Cornell's notorious snake pit. "I've never been so nervous," he recalled. "I told myself, 'I'm just going to go as hard as I can and hit as many guys as I can.' Try to provide energy and stuff."

Taylor scored only two goals as a freshman but his first was huge - the winner at BU. Of his five sophomore goals, two were winners, including the only score at North Dakota. "Mike savors the big moment and the big game," said Donato.

He likes big buildings with big decibels, too. Lynah, with its squid-and-newspaper-tossing fans - "The atmosphere is awesome." Albany, with the ECAC title on the line. The Garden, where Harvard finally played in prime time on the second Monday.

Not that Taylor doesn't enjoy Bright, with its diamond-hard ice and cozy confines, where the Crimson haven't lost a playoff series in 13 years. He just didn't want to play the final game of his career there last weekend, which was a distinct possibility after the hosts dropped a 7-4 decision Saturday night.

"We weren't focused," said Taylor, after he and his teammates gave up four power-play goals, a shorthander, and an empty-netter. "It's the difference between talking and actually doing it. We just didn't come ready to play."

Everybody showed up on Sunday, most notably Taylor, who scored the first goal, the clincher with 5:15 to play, and had an empty-netter bounce off the post. "Thought I had it," said Taylor, who's never turned a collegiate hat trick. "I kind of had my stick in the air. A premature celebration."

By then, his teammates already had their ticket to Albany. If they win two, the Crimson get an automatic bid to the NCAAs, which they'd made five straight times until last year. After that, Taylor, who wasn't drafted, is open to suggestion.

"I don't have an agent and I haven't spoken to any teams," he said. "I'm just going to play this year out and then handle the rest after. I plan on trying to play next year somewhere. I don't want to get into the working force quite yet."

John Powers can be reached at jpowers@globe.com.