After all, Saturday night was Yale, and despite the lengthy history on Harvard’s side, the team didn’t want to make the same mistakes twice.

Harvard 4, Yale 1

And avoid those pitfalls the Crimson did. Right from the opening faceoff, the tone of the team was different. Harvard was hitting hard, passing cleanly and skating with speed up and down the ice.

And Yale matched its effort. Unlike Princeton, which clogged the middle and trapped relentlessly, the Bulldogs play an up-and-down style similar to the Crimson’s.

But though their styles were similar, Yale was not the Crimson’s equal.

Early in the first with the Bulldogs on a man advantage, Packard scored a short-handed goal, the result of an impressive individual effort.

Yale had only just set up in the Harvard end when the puck was cleared from the zone. Packard gave chase, outpacing the Bulldog defense and steaming into the Yale end. Bulldog goaltender Josh Gartner skated far out of the crease, gathered the puck and attempted a quick clear. Packard came in hard and at an angle, blocking the clearing attempt with his chest. The puck dribbled off his jersey and squirted out to his left, and Packard gathered it while Gartner scrambled to get back into position.

“I just fired it at the net,” Packard said. “I didn’t really see where it was going. It ended up going in.”

And it gave Harvard a 1-0 lead that the Crimson would maintain through the remainder of the first.

Later in the second, Harvard expanded its lead on the strength of goals by senior forward Tim Pettit and Welch that came a mere 38 seconds apart.

The final Crimson tally originated, again, off the stick of Packard. Skating fast on a two-on-one break, Packard advanced up the right side while junior linemate Tom Cavanagh paralleled him on the left. Yale defenseman Shawn Mole skated in between them, but as Packard skated in towards Gartner, Mole drifted over. Packard slipped a pass cross-ice and found Cavanagh, who found the net behind Gartner, giving Harvard a 4-0 lead.

Yale would mount a comeback, scoring amid a scrum in front not two minutes into the third. After that, play became more physical and both teams matched the other’s intensity over the final 18 minutes.

That left Yale three goals short, and in a near-crucial game Harvard salvaged a weekend split after the supremely disappointing Princeton loss.

“I think it might be a little early to call it a must-win,” Packard said. “But it was definitely very important for us, especially at home.”

While Mazzoleni, like Packard, wouldn’t classify the game against Yale as a must-win, he thought his team put forth a strong effort.

“It was important to play well, and play the type of game we’re going to have to play to be successful,” Mazzoleni said. “Right now we’re an average team. We’re 2-2-1—we’re an average team.”

—Staff writer Timothy M. McDonald can be reached at tmcdonal@fas.harvard.edu.