“After the timeout that Mazzoleni called, there definitely was a different feel to the game,” Moore said. “I know for certain the Vermont coach told his team to settle down. It was a character move from both coaches to tell their players to act appropriately and settle down.”

Mazzoleni was equally impressed.

“Coach Gilligan did the right thing, as did I, which was to tell each team we wanted this thing to end in a positive manner without incident,” Mazzoleni said. “Both teams settled down and just played the last ten minutes.”

With his goaltender clearly upset and frustrated, Gilligan went a step further, replacing Conschafter with seven minutes to play and letting the senior leave the ice one final time to the cheers of the Vermont fans.

“I wanted to get him out of the traffic,” Gilligan said. “They were coming at us pretty hard. It was getting pretty emotional, and I didn’t want it to get embarrassing. I wanted to give him a breather.”

It was a class move.

In a series that could have gone horribly wrong in the final minutes, ending with an injury, a suspension or both, Mazzoleni and Gilligan did everything right when the referee was doing everything wrong.

—Staff writer Timothy Jackson can be reached at jackson2@fas.harvard.edu.