ALBANY, N.Y.—Happy Birthday, Jimmy Howard. But weren’t you supposed to be the one receiving gifts, not coughing them up?

Maine’s star netminder—who turned 20 on March 26, the day of the NCAA East Regional Semifinal—had little time to celebrate, coming under heavy fire from Harvard’s feisty forward lines during the opening minutes of the first period. The Crimson whipped 17 shots at Howard during that initial frame, preventing the sophomore from settling in between the pipes.

For the opening 15:42, though, the much-hyped Howard lived up to his billing as the nation’s top goaltender, preternaturally snagging slapshots ripped high to his glove side; with shoulders squared to the puck as it moved cross-ice, he left little room for a rebound and even less to sneak the puck across the line.

But when Harvard’s power-play unit skated its first shift, that technical precision quickly collapsed under the scrutiny of five shots launched in quick succession. With Crimson skaters angling for position at Howard’s doorstep, the Black Bears’ bulwark allowed soft shots to trickle free for second and third opportunities.

As the man advantage passed its midway point, freshman Kevin Du lifted a rebound off the doorstep and sent it behind the net to sophomore Charlie Johnson, who redirected the puck to freshman Dylan Reese at the right circle. Reese’s one-timer snuck over Howard’s far shoulder, and the meltdown was on.

The goal was just the ninth Howard had allowed in more than 700 minutes of action—all of them coming on the power play—but he was clearly unsteady, pacing uneasily in his crease in an attempt to reclaim his confidence after the tally.

But the suddenly fidgety Howard could hardly stand still, let alone reel in a loose puck. On the Crimson’s next scoring opportunity, Brendan Bernakevitch poked home his own rebound to extend the Harvard lead to two while ending Howard’s even-strength shutout streak, active since Dec. 5.

“We got traffic to the net,” Crimson coach Mark Mazzoleni said. “No goaltender handles all his rebounds and I thought we were able to get our stick, if you want to call it, in the paint and create second-chance opportunities. And we scored on them.”

Howard would never recover, allowing two more power-play goals and several additional rebounds before being pulled for the first time in his career at the conclusion of the second period.

The four goals allowed equaled his worst performance of the season, against Boston College on Nov. 7, and the total for his last seven games.

PENALTY KILLED

While it was Bernakevitch’s even-strength tally that rattled the normally-unflappable Howard, the Crimson’s potent power-play unit brought Maine to the brink of defeat, converting on three of four opportunities.

“I thought we were very well prepared for them,” Mazzoleni said. “We attacked them the way we wanted to.”

From its first chance late in the first period—capped by Reese’s goal—through its fourth opportunity three-quarters of the way into the second, Harvard crisply worked the puck through the Black Bears zone despite the best efforts of Maine’s speedy defenders to breach the passing lanes.

Those carefully crafted passes yielded ample time for Crimson sharpshooters at the point to pick and choose their moments, rather than rushing to simply throw anything they could manage on net. Though none of the resulting efforts found the twine, the attempts handcuffed Howard on more than one occasion, creating scramble opportunities in the crease.