Lederman scored next as Harvard skated with a man-advantage—this after the Crimson failed to convert on its initial 5-on-3—this time with a straight slapper from dead-center.

It was the forward’s third straight game with a goal.

He notched the game-tying score against Yale and the game-winner against Princeton this weekend—this after scoring just one in the rest of his collegiate career.

Harvard now held a lead, though a one-goal first-period advantage over the top team in the country is little comfort.

“We almost expect that their power play is going to be very dangerous,” Donato noted.

But last night, the Crimson smothered nearly every Eagles shot with a solid defensive effort and an absolutely stifling penalty kill.

On the latter, Harvard went 5-for-5, redeeming itself entirely from Saturday’s Princeton showing, in which the unit managed only 3-for-7. The Crimson never discarded its offensive aggressiveness, spending much of its man-down time pushing towards the BC net.

And it seemed that every time the Eagles made a run at Grumet-Morris, there was a Harvard stick just waiting to intercept the puck and send it sailing the length of the ice.

“We concentrated on doing our own jobs,” Grumet-Morris explained of the unit, “and that’s the most important thing, because in a penalty kill, you have less guys. You need to worry about your area and your specific job. When you start running around, that’s when your team starts to have trouble.

“I thought we did a very good job,” he added.

“A lot of credit goes to the coaching staff for preparing us well and bringing us back to the basics, back to what we were doing before Princeton.”

Of course, the outcome might have been drastically different if not for a dazzling performance by Grumet-Morris himself.

The score very well might have been knotted at two 15:06 into the second frame, when Harvard blueliner Dave MacDonald was called for tripping and the Eagles’ Dave Spina was awarded a penalty shot.

“That would certainly have given us a little more lift,” York said of the opportunity.

But just as he did against Brown several weekends ago, Grumet-Morris refused to budge.