60 Days. 60 Teams. 600 Words (or Less): Harvard

Harvard

2018-19 Record: 19-11-3 (13-7-2, T-3rd in ECAC)
Head Coach: Ted Donato, 16th Year
Top returning scorer: Reilly Walsh (12G-19A)
Top returning goaltender: Cameron Gornet (Sr.)

Put it on old Harvard to mix things up a little bit. The Crimson, of the four Beanpot schools, remain the last to appear in a Frozen Four. Ted Donato's team continues to be built in a way that works well in the current college hockey landscape, making it difficult to ignore the sound and the fury coming out of Bright Hockey Center.

Harvard enters 2019-20 with four NCAA Tournament appearances in five seasons. Reaching that consistency has been in no small part thanks to recent recruiting classes replenishing lost talent.

Five of the seven players with at least 20 points last season were underclassmen. All return. While not the multiple first-rounders of nearby schools, Donato has a mixture of players selected in the top 3-4 rounds with undrafted guys who can both develop into solid college players for Harvard.

What's Old: Players getting their NHL rights traded over the summer and then leaving early.

What's New: Seriously, this would be a different feature if it came out in early May rather than September. Harvard players seem to take some leftover lessons from Jimmy Vesey and control their futures. Both Adam Fox and John Marino pulled the "we're staying in school" move right up until the NHL teams who held their draft rights moved them to teams they wanted.

Without getting into a college thesis about the ethics or pro and cons of utilizing CBA labor rights (I only have 600 self-imposed words, okay?), the loss of both defenders will be felt. Fox led the nation in assists (insert your "how do you like them apples?" joke here) with 39 and was a Hobey Baker hat trick finalist. Marino is mobile with a more defensive edge, providing a balance to offensively-happy defensemen like Fox and Reilly Walsh.

Starting goaltender Michael Lackey also departed, a side effect of the Ivy League not having a redshirt year. He's now at Providence. Cameron Gornet played well (.915% save percentage) late in the season during Lackey's absence due to injury. He will get the first crack.

Of the Crimson's seven first-year players, three were drafted in June: Forward John Farinacci (76th to Arizona), defender Henry Thrum (101st to Anaheim) and forward Nick Abruzzese (124th to Toronto).

Closing Thoughts: It would not be a stretch to call Harvard, after losing to Massachusetts in the first round, a potential national title contender if both Fox and Marino returned. The Crimson worked through some early team struggles into a 12-3 stretch in January and February.

Keeping most of that team - especially a blue line that can score at will, finishing with the second-highest power play (28.3%) in the country - together would raise expectations.

Still, there's plenty to like even without a preseason Hobey Baker favorite. Donato's teams have been able to bounce back from losing key players this decade (Vesey, Kerfoot, Ryan Donato, etc). Harvard's D departures pave an opportunity for junior Walsh and sophomore Jack Rathbone to take the next step in their development. (Walsh, in particular, has the tools to be a No. 1 D and play in all situations.) The same can be said with returning forwards such as Jack Drury, Jack Badini, Casey Dornbach and Henry Bowlby.

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