If, as conventional wisdom has it, teams live and die by their special teams in the playoffs, the Crimson is living it up.

Four power-play goals and a shorthanded tally gave the Harvard men's hockey team a 5-2 triumph over Brown in the second game of their ECAC quarterfinal series Saturday night at Bright Center.

Saturday's victory and a 6-2 triumph over the Bruins Friday gave Harvard a quarterfinal sweep and advanced it to the conference semifinals in the Boston Garden Friday. The top-seeded Crimson (24-4) will face seventh-seeded RPI (12-17-1) at 9 p.m. after third-seeded St. Lawrence (23-8) battles fourth-seeded Yale (15-11-2) in the first semifinal at 6 p.m.

Tickets for the semis, and the finals and consolation game the following night go on sale at the ticket office in the basement of Harvard Hall at 2 p.m. today.

The tournament champion will receive an automatic bid to the eight team NCAA Tournament which starts the following weekend. Altogether, four Eastern teams will advance, the ECAC and Hockey East tournament champions and two others.

In the first two years of Hockey East's existence, the two leagues have each been given one of the two Easten at-large bids.

Early Saturday night, the Crimson looked like its post-season might come to a premature end. The Bruins, making their first playoff appearance in nine years, burst out of the gate early and flattened the hosts.

When fourth-line center Mark Langton converted a Bruin three-on-two 4:43 into the game, Brown led 1-0 in goals and 6-0 in shots.

The game seemed like it was going to be a far cry from the opener in which the Crimson outshot the Bruins 14-4 in each of the first two periods.

Saturday the visitors threw 31 shots at senior netminder Dickie McEvoy. Although he was making his first-ever post-season appearance, McEvoy kept Brown at bay as Harvard struggled to recapture enough spark to put the pesky visitors and their loud cheering section out of contention.

"We weren't ready to play tonight," Harvard Coach Bill Cleary said. "We had to grind it out as a result."

After McEvoy's outstanding performance Clearysaid he had not decided whether or not he wouldcontinue to alternate McEvoy with junior JohnDevin in net.

Brown Coach Herb Hammond was happy about theway his team hung in against the Crimson.

"I thought we did a pretty good job of it,"Hammond said. "But talent catches up to you."

The physical aspects of the first game (42penalty minutes) did spill over to Saturday asreferee Wayne Houmiel handed out 66 minutes ofpenalties (including 10-minute misconducts to twoBrown players).