“He got a lucky bounce,” Grumet-Morris said, “but it’s part of the game. We got a good bounce on our second goal, so it evens out.”

Though the waning minutes saw a somewhat revitalized Harvard squad, the team never again found the back of the net. The Bears’ Rowan ended his start—the third of his career and just his fourth overall appearance—with 22 saves.

“I think we kind of helped him on,” Crimson captain Noah Welch said after the game. “I don’t know how many big saves he made, but I don’t think he really made any. He’s obviously a good goalie, but I think we would have been more successful if we’d gotten certain pucks through.”

For his part, though, Grumet-Morris mustered several crucial saves. He turned away Brian Ihnacak’s penalty shot in the first period with a painless pad save, and he sprawled on the ice to smother several shots. He ended the night with 25 saves.

The netminder was backed by solid defense for much of the night, including a penalty kill that went 10-for-11 and staved off more than three minutes of 5-on-3 Brown play. But all of that translated into few offensive breakthroughs.

“I thought our penalty kill was awesome tonight,” Welch said. “But our power play—we could have won the game many times, and we didn’t get it done.”

With the plethora of penalties now called in collegiate games, special teams is likely to play the deciding role in contests to come.

On Friday night, eight different Crimson players served time in the penalty box, including three different trips for Welch.

“I don’t think we were able to dictate the flow of the game like we were early in the game because of special teams,” Donato said of his team’s flurry of first- and second-period trips to the box. “We weren’t able to roll our lines and use all our bodies to our advantage. Our depth, I think, is a strength, and unfortunately, we were stuck using our penalty kills most of the night.”

With all the whistles, the coach said, “We end up in a special teams game, and anything can happen in that type of game.”

—Staff writer Rebecca A. Seesel can be reached at seesel@fas.harvard.edu.