“We were able to withstand the penalties we took,” Mazzoleni said. “We come up with two very big goals in the third period off the power play. That was definitely the difference in the game.”

At 9:24 of the third, with Harvard on the power play, sophomore forward Tyler Kolarik tallied his fifth goal on the year, in the scramble a rebound in front of the net. The eventual game-winning goal came off the stick of Nowak, who notched his team-leading ninth goal with six minutes to play in the game.

Yale picked up a garbage goal from Higgins with 40 seconds to play, but at that point the outcome was all but decided.

“The atmosphere was pretty electric tonight,” Moore said.

After the game, both Harvard coaches and players stressed the importance of the win over Yale both because of the previous night’s loss to Princeton and the impending long exam break.

“That was a very big win for us after losing last night,” Mazzoleni said.

“Coming back and doing what we did tonight, shows how much character we have on this team,” Kolarik added.

Princeton 2, Harvard 1

In a game that Harvard dominated from wire-to-wire, Princeton (6-13-0, 5-7-0 ECAC) came away with the victory on the strength of excellent goaltending from Stathos and more than a few lucky bounces.

“We had our chances,” Mazzoleni said. “It was a great goaltending game for them and missed opportunities for us.”

Harvard (9-6-3, 8-3-2) indeed had its opportunities, posting 38 shots. In this area, Harvard’s domination of the game was most clear. By Mazzaoleni’s count, the Crimson generated 30 quality scoring chances, compared to nine by the Tigers. Princeton managed only 18 shots in the game.

Stathos, though, stymied the Crimson for the game’s first 50 minutes. Only at 12:41 of the third period did Harvard finally mark the scoreboard.

Working on the power play, Harvard captain Peter Capouch took a pass from junior forward Dominic Moore at the blue line and redirected it to sophomore forward Tim Pettit, who fired a shot from the right circle past Stathos for Harvard’s only goal.

The tally was Pettit’s eight of the year and his seventh on the power play. But Harvard would not get the better of Stathos again, and Princeton hung on.

Harvard next hosts an exhibition game on Saturday January 28th against the U.S. Junior National team.