A Harvard hockey fan might be surprised to learn that men from Yale really can skate and that Princeton is not, in fact, a hockey hotbed. Based on recent history, one would have assumed just the opposite.

Against the Bulldogs—generally considered an above average hockey team—the Crimson (2-2-1, 2-2-1 ECAC) has been dominant. Only once in the last quarter century has Yale managed to secure a win on Harvard’s home ice. In contrast, the Crimson hasn’t beaten the perennial cellar-dwelling Tigers at Bright Hockey Center for the last four years.

And so, perhaps, it was not surprising that Harvard crumbled against Princeton, extending its home winless streak to five years, but managed to save face on Saturday by defeating Yale.

Princeton 4, Harvard 2

History wins again. Before more than 2,000 fans at Bright on Friday night, the Crimson collapsed and Princeton (1-5-0, 1-3-0) skated out of Cambridge with a stunning, come-from-behind 4-2 win.

“There’s no excuse,” Harvard coach Mark Mazzoleni said. “We have a veteran team; no excuse for that. Absolutely none. These guys have gone through it. They should have the poise to put it away.”

With 15 minutes remaining in the third period, Harvard appeared primed for victory. Having scored two goals in the first period, it carried the shutout into the last frame, and it seemed as if the Crimson might finally break its home losing streak to Princeton.

Entering the night, the Tigers had a 3-0-1 record at the Bright Center in their last four tries.

“[Harvard is] an easy team to get yourself motivated to play against,” Princeton coach Len Quesnelle said. “It’s an easy program to come out here and play hard against.”

From the first drop of the puck, however, play was lackluster. Junior defenseman Noah Welch and sophomore forward Charlie Johnson tallied early goals against Princeton goalie Eric Leroux, but both Harvard and Princeton struggled on the attack afterwards.

In the first two periods, the two teams managed only 26 shots on goal and spent a large portion of their time skating back and forth in the neutral zone.

“I thought our puck movement was very, very poor,” Mazzoleni said. “When we got the puck, it was our man and no one moving to him to help support him. We turned the puck over because of that. [Princeton] play[s] a forechecking system where they keep the third man back, and we didn’t advance the puck.”

Both offenses played with a bit more vigor in the third period, taking almost as many shots on goal (24) as they had in the previous 40 minutes.

A crucial situation arose 4:04 into the final period, when freshman defenseman Dylan Reese was called for cross-checking. As Welch was already in the box for charging, the Tigers found themselves with a five-on-three advantage.

As has been the case more often than not for Princeton, nothing came from the power play. In fact, Harvard senior forward Dennis Packard narrowly missed scoring on a breakaway.

The Tigers squandered their power play, but the Crimson wasted an equally good scoring chance from the stick of Packard.

“If you can kill a penalty, especially a five-on-three, you can get some momentum out of that,” Crimson captain and defenseman Kenny Smith said. “We made a great play on the kill, but it just didn’t translate into any offense for us, unfortunately.”

A decisive swing of momentum accompanied the Crimson’s missed opportunity, and Princeton silenced the cheers of “Let’s go, Harvard,” with four goals in the last 13 minutes.

The Tigers’ first goal came from forward Kevin Westgarth, as he knocked in the puck after it slipped away on linemate Ian McNally’s charge to the net.

Westgarth beat Harvard sophomore goalie John Daigneau (16 saves) at 7:22.

“I thought that killing off [the five-on-three] was a big motivator, and I thought we’d only get stronger from there, but they just kept coming,” Daigneau said.

Princeton scored again 13:09 in, as Seamus Young took a pass directly off the faceoff and wristed it past Daigneau.

It was Tiger senior Sharam Fouladgar-Mercer, though, who clinched the game with less than five minutes remaining. The forward, who had compiled only 14 points in his entire collegiate career, drew Daigneau out of position and then flicked it five-hole.

“[Harvard] might have thought that they had us in the end,” Fouladgar-Mercer said. “But the [Princeton] guys just all came together.”

He added that the strong play of Leroux—who made 28 saves—drove the team.

The nail in the coffin came with less than half a minute remaining, as Mike Patton sent the puck across the ice and into an empty Harvard net, silencing the Crimson crowd.

“Personally, I feel like I need to win that game,” Daigneau said. “Or we as a team need to win that game.… [I] didn’t give the team what they needed tonight, for whatever reason.”

Mazzoleni explained the loss quite simply.

“You’ve got to get it done, and we didn’t get it done. Bottom line on it: I am very, very disappointed.”

He added that the team must “go back, watch the tape, make corrections and get this thing going.”

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.