Harvard forward Steve Rolecek (center) gets the full attention of two Northeastern defensemen and Huskies’ goalie Adam Geragosian as the puck trickles into the left corner, finding the back of the net in last night’s Beanpot consolation game. The Crimson

BOSTON—With a 5-0 blanking of Northeastern at TD Banknorth Garden last night, the Harvard men’s hockey won its first Beanpot contest since 2003 and exorcised, at least a little, the demons that haunt the Crimson come tournament time every February.

The shutout came in the consolation game, thanks to last week’s 5-3 loss to Boston University in the opening round, but “I tried to present [last night’s game] to our group as a point of pride,” said Harvard coach Ted Donato ’91.

Though the string of eight consecutive first-round Beanpot defeats still stings, last night’s victory has current implications—a loss to the Huskies, who are now 2-20-6 on the season, could have been damaging as the regular season winds down.

Perhaps most significant was the success of the Crimson offense, which has struggled for the better part of the last two months.

“We went through a stretch where we weren’t scoring,” Donato said. ‘We knew that we weren’t going to score by shooting less.”

And so its last four games—three of which were wins—Harvard (14-9-2, 10-7-1 ECAC) has launched at least 40 shots per night, including against Northeastern.

Midway through the first period, the Crimson led the Huskies by a 19-1 margin, and junior Ryan Maki’s power-play strike from the left side put Harvard up 3:35 just into the frame.

But Northeastern goaltender Adam Geragosian kept his team in it through the first 20 minutes, falling on Alex Meintel’s chance from the right post during a 5-on-3 Crimson advantage and escaping the subsequent 5-on-4, which saw the puck squirt dangerously through the open slot.

“Geragosian did his part of the job,” said a deflated Greg Cronin, Northeastern’s head coach.

Cronin’s goalie had no such luck in the second frame. After a series of hit posts, missed pucks, and disconnected passes in the crease, the Crimson went up 2-0 when Steve Rolecek, skating by the left post, deflected in Nick Coskren’s shot 8:36.

Coskren scored a goal of his own 10 minutes later, stabbing at a rebound outside the crease. And less than a minute later, Harvard’s third line gave the Crimson a 4-0 edge as with a pretty 1-2-3 off the faceoff.

Paul Dufault won the draw and shipped the puck to Dave Watters, who fired across the slot to a wide-open Jon Pelle by the right post. Geragosian never had a chance to move across the crease.

Pelle roofed a Ryan Maki rebound to give the Crimson a 5-0 lead in the third period, and Harvard goaltender Justin Tobe made the shutout stand up with 24 total saves.

It was Tobe’s fifth start of the season—and first since early December—as the junior has served as John Daigneau’s backup this season.

But Daigneau was “a little banged up,” according to Donato, and Tobe had looked sharp in practice.

He kept Harvard in it through that first period, when only one of 19 pucks snuck by Geragosian. Tobe reaped the benefits later on, when the Crimson solved the Northeastern goalie and the Huskies’ offensive attack began to melt.

The Harvard bench knew its attack would pay off eventually. Just the other night, Donato said of the Crimson’s 5-4 victory over Princeton, “we had 57 shots and didn’t win until overtime.

“Eventually, the puck will start to find the back of the net.”

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