Harvard's men's hockey team knew that it could score, knew that it could play defense, and knew that it could dominate.

The only question going into Saturday night's game against Cornell at the Bright Hockey Center was whether the Crimson could stay focused playing a decidedly inferior Big Red team just 48 hours before the finals of the Beanpot Tournament.

The Crimson answered any questions about its mental toughness affirmatively on Saturday night, putting together a workmanlike 4-0 win.

Although Harvard did not put the game away until midway through the third period, the contest was one-sided affair from the opening face-off, and the Harvard's special teams took center stage in the dominating effort.

After controlling the action in the early stage of the game, the Crimson capitalized on its first power-play opportunity of the night just nine seconds after Cornell's center Mike Sancimino was directed off the ice for holding.

Crimson senior left-winger Chris Baird won the face-of, sliding the puck back to Derek Maguire, who sent a cross-ice pass to Steve Martins, who in turn, moved in and slapped a low shot through the pads of Big Red goalie Andy Bandurski. Martins' 15th goal of the season, assisted by Baird and Maguire at 5:20 of the first, gave the Crimson a 1-0 lead and proved to be the game-winner.

"Our power-play is really working." head coach Ronn Tomassoni said. "We've gotten all the rust off our power-play unit from the exambreak."

Mid-way into the second period the Crimson's power play unit struck again when martins scored his second of the night.

After Captain Sean McCann's shot from the left circle ricocheted off the right post behind Bandurski, Martins skated to the puck and lifted it into the net at 10:26 of the second. McCann and Baird were credited with assists on the goal.

Facing a two-goal deficit and feeling the game rapidly sipping away, the Big Red tried to increase the offensive pressure on Crimson sophomore net-minder Tripp Tracy.

The Crimson defense, though, proved inpenetrable, allowing the Big Red only 22 shots on goal, most of which were unscreened perimeter shots that Tracy cooly contained.

"I was very impressed by the quality of our defensive play tonight," Tracy said.

The Crimson penalty-killing unit also held the Big Red scoreless on six opportunities--often taking the initiative themselves and pressuring Cornell's defense.

With Crimson penalty-killers Tom Holmes and Martins fore-checking aggressively, the Big Red were out-shot on several occasions on their own power play.

"Tommy [Holmes] did a great job," Martins said of his line-mate. "Our penalty-killing really boosted team morale."