It’s no surprise, then, that Allain remarked during the height of Deflate-Gate that he’d “deflate a puck if [he] could.”

“You can’t argue with [Belichick’s] success,” the former goaltender added.

You can’t argue with Allain’s success against the Crimson, either. Since ending the Bulldogs’ season with an 8-2 rout in Game 3 of the 2012 ECAC Quarterfinals, Harvard has gone 0-9-1 against Allain’s troops. Donato has only coached his squad to one win at Ingalls against Yale—a 5-3 victory in Jan. 2005 in his rookie season—and has yet to beat Allain in the venue.

This season, only Vesey has beaten sophomore goaltender Alex Lyon over three H-Y contests. After an evenly-played Bulldog win at the Bright-Landry, the Crimson’s forecheck looked stilted in a 4-1 handling at Madison Square Garden and a 3-0 shutout at Ingalls.

As Vesey suggested in Saturday’s post-game presser, the visitors can win this weekend if they can find a way to “out-offense” their opponent. Outside the head-to-head matchups, Harvard has consistently displayed more offensive firepower than its New Haven counterpart, yet has struggled at times to field much of an attack beyond its first line.

Blackwell’s line adds a new wrinkle that the Bulldogs haven’t seen yet. At some point, the dam must break. I see the Crimson breaking through at least once this weekend, but I’m not going to bet against Allain at the Whale.

Pick: Yale in three

—Staff writer Michael D. Ledecky can be reached at michael.ledecky@thecrimson.com. Follow him on Twitter @mdledecky.