5) The power play struggled. Although Harvard scored two power-play goals, the team could not convert on two different two-man advantages.

Now look at the season-ending games against RPI.

1) RPI scored the first two goals Friday and the first goal Saturday, even though it was Harvard that dominated the early action of both games. Harvard tied the match at 1-1 Saturday, but RPI regained the lead in the third period.

2) Martins scored Harvard's only goal Saturday, and he set up both of Harvard's tallies Friday.

3) Harvard only took four penalties Saturday, but one of them was a 10-minute misconduct. Although it didn't affect man power, Harvard was forced to switch around its lines for that time.

Friday, the Crimson nullified four consecutive man-advantages by committing penalties.

4) After the Crimson tied the match Saturday, it scored what it thought would be the go-ahead tally, but the goal was waived off because a player had encroached the crease.

5) Harvard was 0-for-7 on the power play Saturday, including a two-man advantage late in the second period.

And occurrences like these surfaced in numerous games in between.

Three Periods

Harvard's season can be divided into three distinct periods. Harvard struggled early in its first 10 games, going 4-5-1.

In that stretch the Crimson went 3-3-1 at home, and the home record would not get better. Bright Hockey Center had been a place that teams feared to play in, but that wasn't the case this season. Harvard would finish 5-8-2 at Bright this season, after having lost only eight home games in its last six seasons combined.

In phase two Harvard hit the road for seven straight games and won six of those. The offense was clicking, as was the defense and goaltending. Included in that stretch were 5-2 and 9-2 wins at Alaska-Fairbanks and a 4-3 come-from-behind overtime victory over eventual league champions Clarkson.

Then came the rest of the season, starting after the exam period. Harvard went only 4-8-1 through February and early March.

The Crimson just couldn't buy a goal in most of those losses--there were defeats where Harvard had many great chances but hit a hot goalie (Princeton--February 3, RPI--March 11) and games where the effort was lacking (Dartmouth--February 17 and Union--February 25.)