Packard’s point-blank shot from atop the crease was turned aside by Marsters. Amidst traffic, the rebound squirted out to Marsters’ left, directly to Murphy.

“We had good puck movement [on the power play],” Murphy said. “I didn’t really do anything. I was just in front of the net and tapped it in.”

But Murphy’s power-play goal was the only really positive play on the night for the Crimson.

“We got a lot of traffic to the net last night [against Union]; we had that in spurts tonight,” Crimson captain Kenny Smith said. “You can’t have it half the time. You can’t have it a quarter of the time. You’ve got to do it all the time.”

“Last night was a real positive,” he continued. “We came out tonight and we were only able to get it going in spurts and you can’t win a game like that.”

And Harvard’s defensive difficulties continued after Murphy’s goal.

After a great check in the neutral zone by Lannon, Wojdyla poked the puck away from him and across the blue line into the Harvard end.

Lannon had skated up from his spot on right defense to deliver the check on Wojdyla and right wing Tyler Kolarik hadn’t had time to back him up when the puck was poked through. MacDonald and Barnes skated in on a two-on-one and MacDonald wristed a hard shot over Grumet-Morris’ left shoulder that hit the post and went in.

The Engineers added an insurance goal with less than three minutes to play when Tommy Green stripped Harvard senior defenseman Blair Barlow deep in the Crimson end and put a point-blank shot by Grumet-Morris to seal the 4-1 win.

Harvard 3, Union 2

SCHENECTADY, N.Y.—If “defensive miscue” were the watchwords against RPI, “offensive pressure during crunch time” was the dominant principle when the Crimson faced off against former assistant coach Leaman.

Union goaltender Kris Mayotte did everything he could to shut Harvard down, stopping 27 shots in the first two periods as his team clung to a 1-0 lead.

The Dutchmen (7-9-3, 2-5-1 ECAC) got their first goal on a power play near the end of the first period off the stick of Matt Vagvolgyi, and their second goal came on the power play as well.

In the third, Union went up a man when senior forward Tim Pettit was whistled off for holding. With the power play winding down, Olivier Bouchard’s shot at 4:37 from atop the crease went by Grumet-Morris to give Union a 2-0 lead, but it also set the stage for the Crimson’s furious comeback.

For the game’s final minutes, the puck rarely left the Union end as Harvard dominated play, shooting 23 times in that period alone on Mayotte and finally marking the scoreboard at 7:24 on a shot in the high slot from Hafner.