With the score knotted at three, the teams skated relatively evenly for the last six minutes of regulation and through the five minutes of overtime.

Cavanagh, near the mid-mark in the first had given Harvard a 2-1 lead after poking home a loose puck, but the Golden Knights tied the score in the second on a beautiful move by Jay Latulippe, who faked a shot to Grumet-Morris’s left and then glided across the crease and stuffed the puck into the net on Grumet-Morris’s right.

St. Cloud State 6, Harvard 4

While Latulippe’s tying goal in the second period was a spectacular individual play, neither the Golden Knights nor the Huskies saw the best performance of Grumet-Morris, the Crimson’s most consistent contributor for late November and December.

St. Cloud coach Craig Dahl said that he thought Harvard’s goaltender “might have been off” during Friday night’s game when he allowed five goals on only 40 shots.

“Maybe it was fortunate for us we caught him on an off night,” Dahl said.

And while it is certainly true that Saturday’s game was not the junior’s best, Mazzoleni though that Grumet-Morris wasn’t the only problem the Crimson encountered.

“You can’t fault Dov; he’s been very, very good,” Mazzoleni said.

The same could not be said for both teams’ performances coming off an extended holiday layoff, and the play seemed to reflect that, according to Dahl.

“The goalies were a little rusty, there were a couple of clunkers that went in, there were some tips, and all that stuff,” he said.

Where Dahl saw rust on both sides of the ice, Mazzoleni saw the Crimson’s failure to execute.

“It was an up and down game, and when we had to answer the call in the third period, we didn’t get it done,” Mazzoleni said.

The “call” came early on in the third period; both Harvard and the Huskies emerged after the second intermission with three goals. Welch put the Crimson up 4-3 after he fired a hard and accurate shot from the left boards that passed perfectly between St. Cloud goaltender Adam Coole’s left shoulder and the cross-bar.

That lead—Harvard’s third of the game after going up 1-0 and 2-1—didn’t last long. Just over two minutes later, St. Cloud’s Andy Lundbohm scored amidst a mess of bodies around Grumet-Morris to tie the score. The Huskies’ Justin Fletcher then added the game-winning goal at 11:22 with a hard shot he fired from between the face-off circles; Grumet-Morris was in position to make the stop but could not, and the puck dribbled between his legs to give the Huskies a 5-4 lead.

“We let prosperity go right through our hands,” Mazzoleni said.

Or through the pads, in the case of Fletcher’s goal. St. Cloud added an empty-net insurance goal with seven seconds remaining, and ended the Crimson’s thoughts of an upset.

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