Junior Rence Coassin, shown here in earlier action, notched his first goal of the season in the second period at Quinnipiac on Saturday, a shorthanded tally that pulled Harvard within one goal of the host Bobcats at 4-3. Coassin also notched an assist in the game, which the Crimson lost, 5-4.

The Harvard men’s hockey team played two completely different games this weekend.

On Friday night at Princeton, assistant captain goaltender Kyle Richter only allowed one goal—often sufficient for a win.

On Saturday at Quinnipiac, the team tallied four scores, also normally boding well for victory.

But unfortunately for the Crimson (2-4-2, 2-4-2 ECAC), neither effort was enough, as the team lost the two contests by one goal each—mustering neither enough offense against the Tigers (4-4-0, 4-2-0) nor enough defense versus the Bobcats (7-4-1, 3-2-1) to pick up a conference win.

“Anytime you lose a game by a goal it’s tough, but from Friday to Saturday night was a pretty big transition,” sophomore Connor Morrison said. “Friday night was a big defensive battle; Saturday night turned into a run-and-gun game.”

QUINNIPIAC 5, HARVARD 4

After excellent goalie play on both sides Friday, Saturday night’s contest was a completely different story.

Despite scoring three times in just over four minutes late in the second period, the Crimson could not contain a high-powered Bobcat offense at TD Bank Sports Center and suffered its third consecutive loss.

Quinnipiac got on the board first when John Dunbar deflected a shot past Richter at 10:21 in the opening period on a power play. Harvard had entered the game as the nation’s best penalty-killing squad statistically.

Yuri Bouharevich put the Bobcats up, 2-0, just 40 seconds later, taking a pass after flying down the half boards and firing the puck off a Crimson defender and into the goal.

“In both games, I think we hit a little lull within the game, and I think our intensity level dropped for short periods of time,” Morrison said. “In this league, you have to play hard for 60 minutes, and we didn’t do that.”

But Harvard roared back to pull within one late in the period. After sophomore Marshall Everson was denied on a rebound attempt off a shot by sophomore Danny Biega, Morrison came in from the right to put Everson’s rebound away and make the score 2-1.

After Quinnipiac scored twice more—on a one-timer by Ben Arnt and a goal by Kellen Jones, who took a through-the-legs pass from brother Connor before firing on net—the Crimson fought back to tie things up.

Junior Colin Moore made it 4-2 when he put back a rebound of a shot by co-captain Michael Del Mauro, and a shorthanded goal from junior Rence Coassin pulled the Crimson within one.

“I think we stuck to the simple things [Saturday],” Morrison said. “We started getting pucks to the net...when you do that, bounces are going to go your way. Friday night, we weren’t necessarily getting bounces, guys weren’t in the right places.”