Stone also noted that the team has to work on forechecking.

“We were stepping to the puck too slow. I’d like to see us be able to regroup the puck in the neutral zone,” she said. “We’re good at that. We’ve always been good at that. We just haven’t had enough time practicing that.”

The Crimson started out slowly in the first period, losing more faceoffs than it won and not putting as many shots on goal as Dartmouth did.

“We tried to do too much early on,” Ruggiero said. “Obviously once we settled down, we were moving the puck better. First period, we were getting mauled because we couldn’t get the puck out of there.”

Ruggiero noted that the defense had trouble on the transitions.

“I think we had problems with our break-out,” she said. “We were trying to make the long bomb instead of the short easy pass. As coach would say, ‘hit the singles, not the home-runs.’”

The Crimson started to gel in the second period, which featured alternate shifts of power play and penalty kill for both teams.

“At one point I was thinking ‘Oh God.’ They were all over us,” Stone said. “And then all of a sudden we gained our composure and we started to come at them a little bit more and that was very encouraging.”

“We actually put the puck on their stick quite a few times to come in on some good scoring chances,” said sophomore Julie Chu. “We can’t give that up. They’re a good team and they’ll be able to capitalize on that.”

Sophomore Jennifer Raimondi put the Crimson on the board in the second period, pouncing on a rebound. Junior Nicole Corriero scored Harvard’s only goal in the final frame of action, needling the puck through the legs of Dartmouth goalie Christine Capuano.

The scrimmage also gave Harvard a chance to see where it stood next to the preseason No. 2 team in the nation.

“They’re good. They’re awfully good,” Stone said. “They’re quick, they’re talented, they’re big, they’re physical. They’re good.”

“But, we play, we hang right there with them,” she said. “We’re just as tough as they are. We can be just as big as they are. We can be just as quick. We can be just as talented. We need to do the little things well. We tried to do too many big things early tonight.”

This season will feature a much different style of play for the Crimson and other traditionally dominant teams, like Dartmouth, Minnesota-Duluth and Minnesota.

“It’s not going to be like last year for anybody,” Stone said. “There aren’t going to be these huge blowouts, they’re going to be squeakers.”

The Crimson has over two weeks before playing its season opener against Union in a two-day doubleheader Nov. 7 and 8.

“Everybody has gained some good young talent, and a lot of people have lost some seasoned ability too,” Stone said. “It will be an interesting year.”

—Staff writer John R. Hein can be reached at hein@fas.harvard.edu.