“It’s the sign of a good team that can absorb an offensive chance and turn it around and score a goal right away,” Grumet-Morris said.

Harvard 7, Union 4

Harvard’s offense returned convincingly from a 3-0 loss to BU on Tuesday night, and the Crimson continued its streak of winning convincingly after a loss.

“It’s definitely important to bounce back and not get in the groove of losing,” Nowak said.

Nowak, Harvard’s second leading scorer, was instrumental in helping the Crimson to avoid that groove, scoring two goals and adding one assist in the 7-4 triumph over the Dutchman (5-5-3, 2-2-1).

The Crimson opened its scoring binge halfway through the first period when winger Rob Fried, following a Ryan Lannon blue-line slap shot, managed to poke home the loose puck in front of Union goaltender Kris Mayotte.

Many of the Crimson’s other six goals would follow a similar pattern, with shots from the point poked home off of rebounds or loose pucks in the crease.

One of the goals that was the exception to the rebound rule was the Crimson’s final score.

Nowak and Union’s Jason Kean got into a confrontation at the Dutchmen blue line, a tussle that ended with Nowak standing atop Kean and keeping him pinned down to the ice. No penalty was whistled on the play, much to Union’s frustration, and the puck trickled back towards the two players. Nowak scooped it up, skating in from the blue line on a breakaway before wristing a shot by Mayotte.

The Dutchmen were resilient in consistently cutting down Harvard’s early leads but eventually dropped their third straight to the Crimson.

“I thought our team battled back,” Union coach Kevin Sneddon ’92 said. “It just seemed like every time we made progress, they answered, which is the sign of a good hockey team. I certainly didn’t feel like it was a 7-4 game.”

After appearing on the ropes for the first period, the Dutchmen found their rhythm in the second, notching a power play goal at 2:41 of the middle frame. Center Glenn Sanders won the draw deep in the Harvard zone back to winger Brian Kerr, who blasted a quick shot that passed through Grumet-Morris’s legs.

Those kind of goals, coming off of a screen or off a faceoff, is something Harvard coach Mark Mazzoleni described as his team’s “Achilles’ Heel”.

“I don’t think [Grumet-Morris] could have stopped three of the goals,” Mazzoleni said. “We’ve got to do a better job on face-off situations and in front of our net, because you can’t stop what you can’t see, and I think he never saw three of their goals.”

Union narrowed the deficit to 5-3 by scoring three times in the second period but the game was effectively put out of reach by a pair of Harvard goals early in the third, including the controversial non-call on Nowak that led to the breakaway goal.