It all came so easily for the Harvard men’s hockey the night before, but in the second game of the best-of-three series with Quinnipiac on Saturday night, it was all the Crimson could do just to survive.

Plagued by a rash of penalties and a reinvigorated Bobcats squad that continually held its lead just out of reach, Harvard (15-12-4, 12-7-3 ECAC) suffered a frustrating 7-4 setback at the Bright Hockey Center that made an 11-0 loss seem almost preferable.

It was apparent from the game’s opening minutes that this would not be a replaying of Friday night’s 11-0 Crimson blowout. After sophomore Alex Biega missed a chance to keep the puck in the Quinnipiac zone on the game’s opening possession, the Bobcats (20-14-4, 9-9-4) took it the other way and maintained consistent pressure until Jamie Bates finally broke through for the game’s opening score, netting a rebound from the right side at 2:43.

“We needed the first goal tonight, there was no question,” Bobcats coach Rand Pecknold said of his team’s effort to recover from Friday night. “We needed the confidence from that.”

Quinnipiac extended its first lead of the series later in the period. Goaltender Bud Fisher deflected a Harvard shot into the air and then batted it forward to his attackers, setting his offense up for the second of its four power-play scores at 8:10.

“I don’t think it was a great surprise: we took a lot of needless penalties,” Crimson coach Ted Donato ’91 said of the difference between the first two games of the series. “There’s not a lot of secrets to that, or X’s and O’s, it’s more about the discipline to stay out of the box.”

Five minutes later, Harvard broke through with a hard-fought goal of its own.

Jostling with a Bobcats defender for the puck next to the right post, senior Dave Watters managed to kick it out to freshman Pier-Olivier Michaud in the slot, who delivered a wrister to Fisher’s left side to bring the Crimson to within one. It was Michaud’s fourth goal of the season.

Following another rebound goal from Quinnipiac, Harvard received a golden opportunity to go into the first intermission with the score still manageable. Two quick Bobcat penalties left Harvard with 1:51 worth of 5-on-3 play to work with. 45 seconds later, co-captain Mike Taylor slid a pass across the goalmouth to senior Jon Pelle waiting at the left post, who found Fisher’s five-hole to bring the score to 3-2.

Quinnipiac, however, was able widen its lead in the second period, adding two quick scores in the frame’s first three minutes to rob the Crimson of its momentum.

“I thought there were times where we were able to right the ship a little bit, but they kept coming and kept making plays,” Donato said.

Senior forward Alex Meintel was able to retaliate on a rebound at 11:44 to bring the score back to a more manageable 5-3 Bobcats edge, but Quinnipiac responded as the period wound down with its best play of the night.

When Harvard coughed up the puck at the Bobcats blue line on the power play, Quinnipiac’s Eric Lampe took it the other way, deking his way past backstop Kyle Richter on the breakaway and tucking the puck inside the left post to run the score to 6-3.

“I’ll be honest: I think we had a lot of guys that didn’t have great games tonight. Kyle was one of them,” Donato said. “We have a great amount of respect for what he does for us, but all the way from the net out to every guy on the bench, we have to play better.”

The third frame saw the Crimson cut down on the penalties and return to its Friday-night form, but, as it had been all game, the Bobcat lead was just barely too much to overcome. A period of steady Harvard pressure—capped by a 4-on-3 score from Meintel—brought Harvard to within two at 12:25, but the Crimson never closed the gap. A Quinnipiac empty-netter by Andrew Meyer—who banked the puck off the boards at the 19:33 mark—finally put things out of reach for good.

“In the third, we had plenty of chances to close the gap, and we weren’t able to execute,” co-captain Dave MacDonald said. “It definitely bodes well for tomorrow, the way we played in the third, but it [was] too little too late.”

—Staff writer Daniel J. Rubin-Wills can be reached at drubin@fas.harvard.edu.