Despite its lack of offensive fireworks, the game was another classic contest in the repertoire of great games in this historic rivalry.

Having been a part of Harvard-Cornell clashes as both a player and a coach, the energy and intensity of those games is something Schafer appreciates regardless of the game’s final outcome.

“These two teams never seem to let the media, the fans, anybody down with how hard they compete against each other,” Schafer said.

Harvard 4, Colgate 2

With the two teams evenly matched for much of the first two periods, the Crimson finally pulled away from Colgate in the third, largely on the strength of two great individual efforts from junior center Tom Cavanagh and Grumet-Morris.

Cavanagh tallied his second and third goals of the night in the final frame, while Grumet-Morris came up with several big stops to seal the Harvard win.

The Crimson and the Raiders traded goals over the first two periods, with Colgate notching one power-play goal and Harvard scoring two, one from Cavanagh that deflected off the skates of Colgate’s Joey Mormina and into the net and the other off a tip in front of the net by sophomore forward Dan Murphy.

“Penalties clearly hurt us tonight,” Colgate coach Stan Moore said. “We spent a lot of manpower to kill off a lot of penalties.”

The highlight of the night—and the eventual game-winner—came on Cavanagh’s second goal at 9:19 of the third. Skating along the right-side boards in the Raiders’ zone, Cavanagh had senior winger Dennis Packard on his left and three Colgate defenders in front of him. His beautiful skating split the defenders and he flicked a swift shot by Colgate netminder Steve Silverthorn, giving Harvard the 3-2 lead.

“We had a little hiccup on a two-on-three that led to a Harvard goal,” Moore said.

With all due respect to Moore, Cavanagh’s goal was as pretty a play as can be seen in college hockey, and the eventual game-winning goal was due more to a supreme individual effort than to a defensive-zone miscue.

But Cavanagh’s third-period contributions were only important because of the outstanding play of Grumet-Morris. Despite allowing goals in the first and second period, Grumet-Morris kept Harvard in the game. The most prominent example came off of an unlucky bounce of the puck, as Colgate’s Kyle Wilson—emerging from the penalty box—had the puck drop into his lap just outside the Harvard zone.

“Unfortunately, [Doyle] just picked it up right as the penalty expired and dumped it to the neutral zone,” Grumet-Morris said. “I was just trying to get out there and challenge him, because he didn’t have as much speed as I think he wanted. So he was going to have to take the shot, and luckily I was able to make the save.”

He made that save and 25 others to keep the Crimson around long enough for Cavanagh to put the game safely out of reach. And while Harvard may have felt that the game was a little closer than it should have been, the win against Colgate was a positive start to the road trip, according to Grumet-Morris.

“On the road, it’s a little uglier than it is at home, but it’s a good win,” he said.

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