Mazzoleni was absolutely correct on the game's overall significance. A few weeks ago, Harvard was contending for first place--a possibility explored in this column. The February schedule offered a make-or-break run of Cornell, the Beanpot, Dartmouth and Clarkson-St. Lawrence.

Before Saturday night, Harvard had decidely collapsed over that stretch. It lost all of those games, in worse fashion each time. After dropping a close game to a depleted Big Red squad, the Crimson was obliterated by No. 2 Boston College in the Beanpot, embarassed, 7-0, up at Dartmouth, blew four different leads against Northeastern and three more against Clarkson on Friday.

Harvard had fallen from first to fourth place in the ECAC, a mere point from falling out of home ice for the first round of the playoffs

It looked like Harvard's Mazzoleni Renassiance had taken a sharp turn back into the Dark Ages of the Ronn Tomassoni era.

Call it divine enlightenment, but the Crimson was born again on Saturday. After a scoreless first period, the Crimson bombarded SLU's Jeremy Symington with 17 shots in the second and was rewarded with a pair of goals. When junior Jeff Stonehouse deflected junior assistant captain Pete Capouch's rocket from the point at 10:56, Harvard was in firm control of the game.

But the Crimson seemed set to collapse again.

The Saints had a 43-second, two-man advantage to open the third period. With a 25.7-percent power play success rate, a goal appeared certain.