Shown here in a previous contest, junior defenseman Danny Biega scored the only goal for the Harvard men's hockey team in a 7-1 loss at Yale on Saturday night. With the score, Biega's eighth on the year, the junior now has 28 points in the 2011-12 season, best among ECAC defensemen.

Fresh off breaking an NCAA record for ties in a single season the night before, the Harvard men’s hockey team  suffered a loss instead on Saturday night, falling, 7-1, to Yale at a packed Ingalls Rink in New Haven, Conn.

The Bulldogs jumped out to an early 3-0 lead in the first and never looked back, earning its largest margin of victory over Harvard since another 7-1 victory back in 1998.

“[We’re] pretty disappointed,” sophomore goalie Raphael Girard said. “You can’t just show up to a game and think you’re going to win pretty easily. You win as a team, you lose as a team. Everybody made mistakes—it was just a tough game overall for us.”

The Crimson committed 15 penalties in Saturday night’s contest, leading to three Bulldog (12-13-2, 9-10-1 ECAC) power-play goals.

In its last road matchup of the regular season, Harvard (8-8-11, 6-5-9) dropped to fifth place in the ECAC standings with two games remaining. Only four points separate the current third and sixth-place teams in the league.

Harvard was able to cut the deficit to two early in the second period, as junior defenseman Danny Biega scored his eighth goal on a long wrist shot, giving him 28 points on the year, tops for defenseman in the ECAC. Biega ranks third nationally among defeseman with 1.04 points per game.

But the Crimson was not able to build much momentum after this goal, as Harvard gave up four more goals in a physical and emotional game on senior night in New Haven.

“When you’re on the road, the other team feeds off the crowd,” Girard said. “The crowd was electric down there…. It gave a lot of momentum to the opposing team.”

Yale opened the scoring 8:46 into the first, as a failed clear attempt by the visitors allowed Brian O’Neill to gather the puck and find Antoine Laganiere, who beat Crimson freshman goaltender Steve Michalek for the score.

Less than two minutes later, Bulldog forward Andrew Miller was able to redirect a Kenny Agostino pass for his sixth goal of the year.

Capping the scoring for the first frame, Agostino gave Yale the first of their three breakaway goals on the night.

“They’re a really good transition team, and we got some turnovers so they fed off that,” Girard said.

“We kind of hung our goalies out to dry a little bit,” Ford added. “And their players made some good shots and were able to get some goals.”

The Crimson has overcome leads of this size before, so the early deficit may not have been insurmountable. But after Yale quickly responded to Biega’s second period goal, it was difficult to regain momentum in front of a hostile crowd.

After killing the potent Harvard power play, the Bulldogs soon scored on another breakaway, as Charles Brocket beat the Crimson defender and sent the puck up to Kevin Limbert on the breakaway.

“After that we dug ourselves too big of a hole,” sophomore defenseman Dan Ford said. “We kind of lost a lot of momentum there.”

Despite outshooting Yale 14-9, Harvard gave up four power plays to the Bulldogs off of six penalties in the second period that hindered any momentum the team could muster.

“It was a hard-fought, physical game,” Ford said. “Some [penalties] were tough calls, some were [from] frustration. They just added up for us, and Yale took advantage.”

The Bulldogs were also able to kill a five-minute penalty after Chad Ziegler was whistled for a game misconduct for a contact to the head.

“When you kill a penalty like that, it gives you a lot of momentum,” Girard said. “We just couldn’t get any pucks bouncing our way. It was pretty frustrating.”

Yale added two late power-play goals as well, finishing off the lopsided affair.

Limbert netted his second on the night off a rebound and Anthony Day scored on a one-timer.

The Bulldogs outshot the Crimson overall, 37-26, including a 12-3 advantage in the opening frame.

Yale goalie Nick Maricic was able to stop 25 Harvard shots while Raphael Girard, who replaced Michalek midway through the second, saved 19 of 21.

—Staff writer David Mazza can be reached at damazza@college.harvard.edu.