“This kind of win can be a springboard for us.”

But it wasn’t. The next night, Harvard played with little emotion and lost to Rensselaer, 4-1. It had 22 shots on goal, less than half Friday’s total. Three times, Crimson defenders had their pockets picked, leading directly to goals. And Grumet-Morris didn’t have one of his better games.

So there you have it: a riveting comeback win, followed by a fall-flat-on-their-faces defeat.

“It’s been Mr. Hyde of Harvard, a real Dr. Jekyll-and-Mr. Hyde thing,” Mazzoleni said Saturday. “The hardest thing for us has been to put two nights together.”

Friday, Harvard showed what it can do. Denied time and time again by goaltender Kris Mayotte, the Crimson skaters persisted—and eventually triumphed.

The Pettit of old (47 points last season) returned. He skated well, played sound defense and sacrificed his body for a key blocked shot in the third period. He made a tremendous play to assist on Cavanagh’s game-tying goal, then swatted in the game-winner from the doorstep with 61 seconds left.

After scoring only one goal in his first 12 games, Pettit extended his goal-scoring streak to four games.

And he wasn’t the only one to step up. Senior Blair Barlow, who has shuttled between forward and defense all year, was very steady on the blue line. Sophomore forward Dan Murphy had three shots on goal in one of his best games at Harvard.

Kolarik was in the thick of it, too. He hasn’t scored a goal since Dec. 13, but was beaming after he and his teammates produced their greatest comeback in more than two years.

“I feel like a proud father tonight,” he said.

But Kolarik’s grin didn’t survive Saturday night.

After such strong performances Friday, Pettit’s scoring streak ended with little fanfare, Hafner and Barlow committed damning turnovers that led to goals, Kolarik was again held off the board—and Mazzoleni couldn’t shed much light on the increasingly dark situation.

“We got outworked and outcompeted,” Mazzoleni said. “It’s that simple.”

So in the end, Friday’s emotional comeback merely delayed the questions one more night: How can you guys play so well sometimes and so crummy at others? Why haven’t you swept a weekend yet this year? What the heck is going on?

“I expected our team to come out and take the next step tonight,” Mazzoleni said Saturday, “but it’s been a hurdle we have yet been able to cross.”

What more could he say? His tactics were the same Friday as they were Saturday, outside of trying (largely unsuccessfully) to pinch along the wall as the night went on against Rensselaer. He played exactly the same lineup both nights, only it generated less than half the shots on goal and not nearly the same level of emotion.

One night after winning brilliantly, his team lost nondescriptly.

So goes this year’s Harvard Hockey Shuffle: One step forward, one step back.

—Staff writer Jon Paul Morosi can be reached at morosi@fas.harvard.edu.