Junior winger DENNIS PACKARD (22) scored a hat trick on Friday night in the Crimson’s 4-2 win over visiting Vermont. It was Packard’s first hat trick since playing pee wee hockey.

Going into the weekend series against Vermont, Harvard coach Mark Mazzoleni identified the Catamounts’ frenetic pace and its success on the power play as two possible pitfalls for his team.

“Vermont can score goals on the power play,” Mazzoleni said before the series began. “You can control Vermont when they’re not on the power play.”

Despite the Crimson’s 4-2 win in Friday night’s contest, Mazzoleni had plenty to be unhappy about after the game: 12 penalties, accounting for 24 minutes and eight man-advantages for Vermont.

“I didn’t like the penalties; I didn’t like the penalties at all,” Mazzoleni said.

He liked the results of those penalties even less—two third-period goals that allowed Vermont to pull within one with over 10 minutes remaining.

“We had them in a 3-0 situation and we allowed them to get back by being undisciplined,” Mazzoleni said. “You just can’t do that.”

In the pivotal third period, Harvard was whistled six times, including calls for too many men on the ice, hitting from behind and diving.

“The penalties we took allowed them to get back into the game,” Moore said.

Game two was another story all together.

“Oh, we had a talking-to, believe me,” Mazzoleni said. “But I thought our guys responded extremely well. We executed everything we had to do tonight.”

In addition to executing on offense throughout the course of the second game, the Crimson was able to keep its composure on defense as well, avoiding costly mistakes that made game one tighter than it needed to be.

Although Harvard was whistled for seven penalties in the game, no Crimson player was sent to the bin in the third when play got very chippy and there were extracurriculars following nearly every whistle.

“I didn’t think [our penalties] were at all undisciplined penalties,” Mazzoleni said. “I thought our kids played extremely hard.”

Mazzoleni’s comments found agreement across the ice from Vermont coach Mike Gilligan.

“They came out hard tonight, harder than they did last night,” Gilligan said. “They played a lot better than they did last night. If Harvard plays like that against Cornell, they could steal the show.”