After Vermont forward Ryan Miller was able to slip a goal by Harvard sophomore Dov Grumet-Morris in the waning moments of the second, Vermont made an effort to stage a comeback in the last period of regulation.

The game, however, was never really in doubt. A late Catamount goal with 34 seconds left in the game served only to soften the blow on the scoresheet. Harvard outworked and outclassed Vermont, their domination evident in the 30-shot differential.

“Their forwards were too strong for our forwards,” Vermont coach Mike Mulligan said. “They cycled it, we couldn’t pin them to the boards.”

Mazzoleni was encouraged by the Harvard effort.

“I thought we did a lot of things that we needed to do,” Mazzoleni said. “I thought we did good things mixing it up on our forecheck. We pressured at times [and] we jammed the neutral zone at times so we weren’t predictable. We pressured the puck well, got into their shot lanes and really kept things to the perimeter.”

Harvard 5, Dartmouth 2

The much-anticipated Harvard offense slumbered through its first four periods of hockey before awakening. But once senior center Brett Nowak notched the first goal of the season in the second period against Dartmouth Friday, the floodgates were open to an offensive outpouring.

The Crimson exploded for three second-period goals to take a 3-1 lead and then added two more with Dartmouth threatening in the game’s final seconds to gain its first win of the season, 5-2.

“We wore them down maybe a little bit and they were probably a little frustrated by the end of the game,” Moore said. “There are a lot of skilled guys on our team right now. That’s why we have such high expectations of ourselves. Last week [at Brown] wasn’t ideal, but we learned our lesson. We have to compete every night to get a win despite our talent level.”

The victory was much closer than the final score indicated.

After being blanked by Brown last week, Harvard came out strong in the first period, as the Crimsson was able to sustain pressure in the Big Green’s end, and generate quality scoring opportunities.

But despite playing well, Harvard trailed 1-0 after giving up a power-play goal to Dartmouth center Mike Ouellette at the 7:31 mark.

Dartmouth goalie Nick Boucher made that goal stand up early on, showing the same kind of dominance Brown’s goalie Yann Danis displayed over Harvard last week.

But Nowak ended Boucher’s shutout—and Harvard’s scoring drought—seven minutes into the second period, tallying on a wrister off a centering pass from freshman Charlie Johnson.

After allowing the goal, Dartmouth (1-3-0, 0-2-0) seemed to lose some composure, icing the puck several times with ill-advised passes. This only served to awaken the Harvard attack.