In the battle between two ECAC giants, the Harvard men’s hockey team (5-11-3, 5-6-3 ECAC) came up just short in Friday night’s matchup against Princeton (8-10-2, 4-8-1), losing, 2-1, at Bright Hockey Center.

The loss snapped the Crimson’s four-game unbeaten streak.

“When you play a team like Princeton, they play a similar style to us where we play solid defensively and don’t give up much,” captain Alex Biega said. “When two teams like that come up together, it’s going to be a battle for the game.”

Harvard and the Tigers certainly kept things close and interesting until the very end. With Princeton leading with just over two minutes to play, Tigers defenseman Brad Schroeder was flagged for a hooking penalty, putting the Crimson on the power play for the rest of the game.

With less than a minute on the clock, Harvard pulled junior goaltender Ryan Carroll, giving itself a two-man advantage in a last-ditch attempt to send the game into overtime.

But Princeton goaltender Zane Kalemba, last year’s ECAC Player of the Year, held strong, stopping five blistering shots on goal in that last minute to give the Tigers their first win at Bright since the 2006-07 season.

“I thought Kalemba was very large in there,” said Harvard coach Ted Donato ’91. “He’s a guy that has shown in the past that he can stand on his head at times and I think he did in the third period.”

The Crimson held a narrow 35-34 advantage in shots on the game but outshot Princeton, 13-4, down the stretch.

After a slow start to the game, Harvard finally appeared regain the form that had propelled it to success in its last four games. But getting the puck past a resurgent Tigers defense, anchored by Kalemba, proved to be too tall an order for the Crimson.

“Princeton, in general, has been going through a little of what we’ve been going through in terms of having a down season,” Biega said. “But [Kalemba’s] obviously a very skilled goaltender, and he can obviously carry their team...but I still think we should have capitalized on more of our opportunities throughout the game.”

A crucial missed opportunity came early on for Harvard. About halfway through the first period, an attempt at goal by sophomore forward Alex Killorn managed to sneak its way behind Kalemba, but the puck hit the post and didn’t have the power to make its way across the line.

Less than three minutes later, the Tigers got one past Carroll to take a 1-0 lead.

Harvard evened the score five minutes into the second period, thanks to some nifty playmaking by freshman forward Louis Leblanc and a solid finish by classmate Conor Morrison.

Up a man on the power play, Leblanc skated down the left side before passing the puck backwards to an open Morrison, who placed it neatly behind Kalemba to even the score at one.

“Conor’s a very skilled player and...Louis came up and made a nice move on a defenseman and [we] scored off the rush,” Biega said. “We try to use those goals to our advantage and use our speed out wide.”

But the Crimson wasn’t able to build momentum off Morrison’s goal, as Princeton forward Marc Hagel fired a one-timer past Carroll to score his first goal of the season at the end of the second period. The last goal Hagel scored came in the Tigers’ win over Harvard at Hobey Baker Rink on Jan. 3, 2009.

Hagel’s tally proved to be the game-winner, as Kalemba fended off furious Crimson attempts at goal to seal the win for the visitors.

“Princeton’s a dangerous, a very proud team,” Donato said. “They don’t have the success they’ve had over the past couple of years without a lot of character guys.”

Harvard will take a break from ECAC action tonight as it travels across town to TD Garden to take on No. 14 Boston College in the Beanpot.

—Staff writer Lucy D. Chen can be reached at lucychen@fas.harvard.edu.