"It's kind of frustrating when you have chances and are not scoring," said Nielsen, who has had trouble converting numerous chances in recent games. "[Scoring a goal] sort of gives you inspiration."

Harvard gained momentum from Nielsen's goal and drew two power plays in the next five minutes. On the second power-play attempt, Martins fed Brian Farrell with a cross-ice pass, and Farrell one-timed it through Bracco's legs with 2:43 to go in the opening stanza.

The Crimson kept the offensive pressure going in the second period and Coughlin deflected Peter McGlaughlin's point shot 4:42 in the goal to give the Crimson a two-goal lead.

Harvard had numerous chances to put the game out of reach but it had trouble putting the puck on net and failed to get to many rebounds.

A couple a lazy Harvard penalties late in the second period brought Dartmough back to life and Mike Stacchi defelected a point shot past Tracy with just 50 seconds left before the second intermission.

"Dartmouth got a big goal there," Tomassoni said. "They came into the third period thinking they could knock us off."

In the third, the Big Green had extra jump in its skates compared with the sloppy and passive Crimson.

Dartmouth out-chanced Harvard and out-checked the Crimson, but Harvard was able to pick up its hitting game after falling behind.

"You got to be mentally tough," Tomassoni said. "Other teams pay attention to the polls and want to beat a top team."

The Crimson played a good 30 minutes last night but it must play a good 60 minutes tonight if it is to beat a solid Vermont squad.

When good teams smell blood, they almost always make the kill. HARVARD, 5-4 at Thompson Arena Harvard  2  1  1  --  5 Dartmouth  1    2  --  4

First Period

Dar--Bloom 3 (Logu, Geary) :45.

Har--Nielsen 4(Coughlin, Karmanos) 11:15.

Har--Farrell 20(McGlaughin, Cohagan) 17:17 power play.