“Once Kerfoot got hurt, Moy seamlessly just started gelling with [Vesey and me],” Criscuolo said. “He’s found his niche at center with us. We trust each other, and we’re starting to learn where each other are on the ice.”

Harvard’s six-goal performance looked plausible early on after sophomore forward Luke Esposito got the scoring started 1:21 into the contest. But the reins fell off shortly afterwards.

After missing his last three games due to injury, Engineers’ forward Drew Melanson was effective in his return, notching the equalizer three minutes later. The freshman took a pass down low from captain Matt Neal and put it past Michalek for his team-leading eighth point of the year.

A barrage of RPI chances followed, and the Engineers finally jumped ahead at the 13:19 mark of the period courtesy of senior forward Zach Schroeder. The goal marked the first time the Crimson has surrendered multiple goals in the first frame all year.

That would be the last of the offense that RPI could generate, however, as Harvard grabbed control of the contest in the middle frame. Freshman forward Seb Lloyd later capped the scoring for the Crimson with less than ten minutes remaining, picking up the first collegiate goal of his career.

“This was an important game for us because we knew that in the league, we weren’t going to be able to get any points over the next two weekends,” Donato said. “We want to remain near the top of our league and challenge to win [it].”

—Staff writer Jake Meagher can be reached at jake.meagher@thecrimson.com.

—Crimson staff writer Jake Meagher can be reached at jake.meagher@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @MeagherTHC.