A glut of blown chances brought gasps from the crowd in the waning minutes of Friday night’s contest between the No. 10 Harvard men’s hockey team and Dartmouth, but it was Crimson sophomore Dylan Reese’s goal, with just 58 seconds remaining, that brought the 2,776 fans to their feet.

Harvard (14-5-2, 11-4-1 ECAC) had had no shortage of chances: less than five minutes remained in the fierce, 1-1 tie when sophomore Steve Mandes found himself in the slot, poised to knock the game-winner past Big Green goaltender Dan Yacey. The winger missed wide and left.

A minute later, freshman Dave Watters’ breakaway was smothered, and, shortly thereafter, his classmate Tyler Magura couldn’t convert a 2-on-1.

Then it was junior Charlie Johnson’s turn to be denied as he pressured Yacey, and following him was senior Andrew Lederman, who dislodged the net reaching for Johnson’s rebound.

The last few minutes of the Bright Hockey Center game were clearly the home team’s, and yet the score remained knotted.

But the key throughout the entire contest, according to Crimson coach Ted Donato ’91: “I think our guys persevered.”

And finally, Reese took a pass in the high slot and blasted it home, and Harvard went ahead for good.

“It really doesn’t matter who scores a goal like that,” said Reese, who now ranks fourth on his team with 12 points and leads the blueliners. “But it does feel good. To get a win like that, with one minute left, is great. Just a great feeling.”

And the Dartmouth skaters, who had easily controlled the early stages of the game, could only hang their heads.

The Big Green took the lead 12:35 in, when an unassisted Mike Ouellette beat Crimson goaltender Dov Grumet-Morris.

Ouellette had “tried to chip it into the middle,” Grumet-Morris later explained, “and it actually ended going off one of our skates or shinpads.”

But, the netminder added, “that was because of how hard they worked. They kept the puck in the zone and they did a very good job, and God knows we’ve gotten a few of those bounces over the course of the last five games, so they get credit for that goal. That wasn’t a mistake—that was a good job on their part.”

“We came out flat, and we knew it,” Reese said. “The first period, we just didn’t play our game.”

“I don’t know if we were looking ahead to [tonight’s] Beanpot or if guys just weren’t mentally prepared,” he added. “But it took us a period to get into this game, and you saw it in the first period. The power play wasn’t clicking, the forecheck wasn’t good, [and] defensive zone coverage wasn’t good.”

Somewhat uncharacteristically, Dartmouth earned four whistles in the opening frame, giving Harvard 4:49 of man-advantage play, 65 seconds of which were 5-on-3.