Ask anyone on the Harvard men’s hockey team what the squad needs to focus on to reap its full potential and the answer is always the same: string together the erratic sparks of brilliance for a full 60 minutes of solid play.

On Saturday, they settled for 59:40, holding on to beat former Crimson assistant Nate Leaman’s Union squad, 3-2, in the young coach’s first trip to Bright Hockey Center on the visiting bench.

Neither Leaman nor his Dutchmen (11-14-5, 5-10-3 ECAC) wasted time waxing nostalgic, taking the opening draw and crashing the Harvard net. With Union’s defenders adopting an offensive stance, five skaters buzzed all around junior goaltender Dov Grumet-Morris, who stopped the initial flurry of shots, but was unable to squeeze the puck for a stoppage of play.

With the Crimson (10-13-2, 8-9-1) unable to control the rebound or clear the puck, the Dutchmen bullied Grumet-Morris into surrendering one last rebound on the doorstep, which Jonathan Poirier pushed across the line just 20 seconds into the game to give Union a 1-0 lead.

“Yeah, we wanted to go after them,” Leaman said. “The last three games we lost the first period…I want to go out and I want to play Union hockey and Union hockey, to me, is going out and being aggressive and taking the pace to other teams, not sitting back and adjusting a lot.”

Roused from its slumber by the surprising early offensive, Harvard wasted little time responding, establishing a lasting presence in the Dutchmen zone just moments following the subsequent faceoff.

“Some of the things that you look for [after giving up an early goal] are the next three or four shifts after that,” said Grumet-Morris, who turned aside 17 shots in the win. “And I think right after that we attacked them, and we went right after them. And what we were able to do was establish a little bit of a presence, and we were able to focus on that instead of the goal.”

Positioned in the neutral zone as the Crimson applied pressure from goal line to goal line, senior forward Tyler Kolarik intercepted an errant Union pass and quickly transitioned to attack, with he and freshman Kevin Du closing on net with three defenders in position to cover. Kolarik attracted the first, who delivered a blow that sent the puck trickling towards the middle of the ice.

Du raced forward, extending his stick to control the puck as the remaining defenders attempted to converge on him. But Du staggered through the collapsing lane, recovering his balance with just netminder Kris Mayotte to beat. Feigning a shot from the top of the goalmouth, Du forced Mayotte to his knees, allowing Du to keep the puck a second longer before flipping it over the goaltender’s right shoulder to knot the game at one apiece.

But Harvard did not slink back into its comfortable malaise following the goal, harassing the Dutchmen puckhandlers well before they crossed center ice, generating several golden opportunities to score.

They cashed in twice more.

Crimson captain Kenny Smith, one night removed from being held out of the lineup by Harvard coach Mark Mazzoleni, snagged a loose puck off a faceoff and nimbly maneuvered his way through two defenders to open ice a hair inside the blue line. Skating right and with traffic to help obscure Mayotte’s view, Smith fired a shot back across his body and into the top left corner of the net, giving the Crimson a 2-1 lead at 11:54 in the first.

“The puck came back to me, and the guys held up their men well,” Smith said. “And I just was able to get to the middle of the ice and skate one way and try to put it the other way on the goalie. I don’t think it was too hard of a shot but I think it caught him off guard going against the grain there.”

Fifty-seven seconds later, Harvard was knocking at the door once again, as junior forward Brendan Bernakevitch sent a pass across ice to senior linemate Dennis Packard, who streaked towards the net. Packard tried the same fake Du had made use of on the Crimson’s first tally, but failed to control the puck in time to snap his backhand. But Packard swooped behind net with no defender to apply pressure, settling the puck before deftly tucking the puck inside the left post before Mayotte could recover his footing.

“They got us on our heels and were really stretching us out well,” Leaman said. “It took us awhile to regroup.”

In all the Crimson launched 12 of its 34 shots during the opening frame to set the game’s tone.

But Union broke Harvard’s stranglehold early in the second period, counterpunching with pressure to match the Crimson’s first period display.

With 2:35 gone by in the period, Joel Beal brought the Dutchmen within one, stepping in front of a pass at the red line and entering the Harvard zone along the boards to Grumet-Morris’ left before blasting a shot that snuck by the netminder on his stick side.

But the Crimson held firm, closing down the Union offense in front of Grumet-Morris for the final 37:35 with pounding physical play that overwhelmed the weary Dutchmen squad, which had earned an overtime tie against Yann Danis and Brown the night before and opened with three lines, not four.

“I kind of shortened the bench to go to three lines to try to combat their speed because they had so much speed against us by stretching us out,” Leaman said. “I think that hurt us in the end because we really got tired, and we were having trouble getting to the loose pucks.”

Rensselaer 3, Harvard 2

A twenty-second letdown against Union was manageable. Its 3:31 counterpart Friday night against RPI proved disastrous, as two late goals sent Harvard to a 3-2 defeat.

Despite doubling the Engineers’ shot output, 36-18, and dominating play throughout—surrendering just eight shots over the final 40 minutes—the Crimson was knocked back on its heels as RPI (16-11-2, 10-6-1) mounted its late-game surge.

“I thought if there was puck possession it would have been about 70 percent to 30 percent,” Mazzoleni said. “I give a lot of credit to [Marsters]. We couldn’t dent him.”

With just under four minutes to go, Harvard’s lead, while threatened, seemed secure. The Crimson had fallen back into a strong defensive posture to prevent odd-man rushes and appeared ready to hold on to the one-goal lead and two critical points in the race for a first-round bye in the upcoming ECAC playoffs.

But with the Engineers swarming the crease, Scott Basiuk sent a shot into the heavy traffic in front of Grumet-Morris. Though it left Basiuk’s stick with little zip and soaring off-target, the puck appeared to hit Packard’s skate, redirecting its path to the back of the net to draw the teams even at two.

Suddenly faced with the prospect of a split or worse on the critical weekend series, Harvard launched an all-out offensive on Nathan Marsters’ net, the best chance coming with just two minutes remaining.

Bernakevitch carried the puck into RPI’s zone along the right boards before running headlong into the Engineers’ defense. Adroitly sliding the puck between the first defender’s legs, Bernakevitch sped towards the net to avoid a second before quickly blasting a shot just over the top of the left corner in what proved to be the Crimson’s last best chance.

One minute later, the Engineers broke out of the neutral zone with a four-on-three rush, which Harvard appeared to contain by maintaining a line of defense at the circles. But Oren Eizenman dropped the puck back to Ryan Smith, positioned straight ahead of Grumet-Morris, who rocketed into the top shelf on Grumet-Morris’ glove side to retake the lead for RPI with just 54 seconds left.

“We need to play the full 60 minutes,” said senior forward Tyler Kolarik. “It’s been our problem all year and you could see what happens out there.You play 57 minutes and you don’t get the win.”

A frantic offensive charge featuring an extra attacker from the Crimson yielded nothing, as the Engineers twice cleared the zone to seal the victory.

RPI captured the early lead courtesy of its only shot in the second period, 1:20 into the frame.

With freshman defenseman Dylan Reese in the box for cross-checking, Basiuk blasted a one-timer from the blue line through a crowd in front and off Grumet-Morris’ padding into the net for the Engineers’ only goal on three power plays.

With the momentum, though not the lead, Harvard quickly equalized on a flawless one-two combination from Bernakevitch and senior Rob Fried as they broke in on the goal in a two-on-one. As both skated towards net, Bernakevitch received the pass from Fried and carried the puck in towards the left post, feigning a pass back to Fried before wristing a shot over Marsters’ shoulder for the goal at 11:29.

The Crimson continued to hold the edge as the third period passed the midway point, peppering Marsters with shots from all angles, stretching his defense thin. A penalty on Tommy Green for slashing at 7:51 sent RPI past the breaking point.

Harvard dominated the man-advantage, keeping the puck in the Engineers’ zone for the full duration of the penalty, bolstered by solid play at the blue line and aggressive play just outside the goal mouth, which forced three faceoffs during the stretch. The Crimson won each, and made sure shortly after the third that the next one would be at center ice.

Harvard moved the puck solidly outside the RPI defense, and pounced when one of the forwards lost his stick. Senior forward Tim Pettit fired the puck in on Marsters, and with only three Engineers to challenge, junior center Tom Cavanagh easily collected the puck and swung behind the goal. Kolarik crashed on net from Marsters’ left, and Cavanagh hit him in stride to set up the tally, as Kolarik dumped the puck into the right side of the net.

But that would be the last time Harvard held the momentum. RPI’s charge began shortly, with another disappointing Crimson collapse to follow shortly thereafter.

“We really didn’t get rattled when they went up 2-1 on that power play goal,” Engineers coach Dan Fridgen said. “There was 10 minutes left in the game and we turned the tempo up a little bit. That was great to see from a character perspective.”

Harvard next travels to Northern Country, taking on St. Lawrence and Clarkson in another high-stakes ECAC weekend.

—Staff writer Timothy J. McGinn can be reached at mcginn@fas.harvard.edu.