* * *

Harvard’s infractions did more than simply give Brown the offensive edge and, eventually, its second goal. They killed the Crimson’s already-sputtering offense. When a team with a relatively impotent offense outshoots you, 9-8, in the first period, it should indicate concern. When it does the same by a tally of 10-3 in the second, you can be officially declared in an offensive slump. The team’s penalty problems, then, hurt not only the defense but also the offense, which was struggling to generate scoring chances even when it had five men on the ice.

“Danis is a very good goalie,” Grumet-Morris said. “Twenty shots didn’t get it done.”

Nor will it ever, especially when Danis got clear looks at all but two of the pucks heading his way.

* * *

None of this criticism is meant to say that the Crimson lacked effort. It simply lacked execution.

“We just had no rhythm, we had no crispness to our game whatsoever,” Mazzoleni said.

Very true. Harvard took too many penalties, and it took them at astoundingly inopportune times. It failed to generate quality scoring chances, rarely screening Danis and failing to charge hard for the few rebounds that did come off his pads. And only in the third period could it clearly be seen who the faster, stronger and more talented team was. By that point, and with Danis in net, it was too late.

“We didn’t have it,” Mazzoleni said. “It wasn’t that our kids didn’t try. I don’t know if it was nerves, [being] anxious…”

I’m not sure, either.

It’s important not to be too pessimistic, nor to over-emphasize the importance of one game. One loss, even in the season-opener, only counts as one loss.

Before traveling to Vermont and Dartmouth, Harvard has a week to find whatever it was missing on Saturday night. But if it can’t find it by then, Crimson hockey fans might want to look up every now and again to make sure the sky is firmly in place overheard.

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