The Harvard men's hockey team overcame an early four-goal deficit and came away with a 7-6 victory over the University of New Hampshire Tuesday night at Bright Hockey Center.

The Crimson was down 4-0 after the first period and a 5-2 midway through the second, but scored four goals in the second period and then took control in the third.

Freshman forward Colin Blackwell scored the game-tying and go-ahead goals for Harvard (3-3-1, 2-3-1 ECAC) in the middle of the third period to put Harvard up 6-5 in this high-scoring affair. The Crimson withstood a late resurgence by UNH (5-6-2, 4-4-1, Hockey East) and hung on for the 7-6 win.

“It was quite a crazy game,” said Harvard coach Ted Donato '91. “Every puck that went towards the net had a chance of going in there for awhile. Being down 4-0 after the first, we just talked about giving ourselves a chance to be able to hold our heads high walking out of there.”

The first period just did not belong to the Crimson. The Wildcats came out strong and put two pucks in the net in just over five minutes. UNH freshman Grayson Downing capitalized on a rebound in from the right slot 83 seconds into the game and Kevin Goumas scored off a centering pass from Nick Sorkin on the power play.

“They had us on our heels early,” Donato said. “Even though they didn’t have to necessarily work so hard on a couple of their goals, you could really see their speed and skill.”

After a couple of soft goals, Donato decided to replace sophomore goalie Raphael Girard with freshman Steve Michalek. But this did not stop the UNH offense, as it was just one of those games where anything near the net had a chance of going in.

Downing scored another off a redirect and defenseman Trevor van Riemsdyk scored off a slap shot from the point. After four goals against in the first 12 minutes of the game, Donato called a timeout and the team seemed to settle down a bit after that.

And entering the second period, Harvard looked like a whole different squad. The team began to clamp down on the Wildcats fast-paced transition offense and earn some offensive-zone time for itself.

“We came into the first intermission, and a couple guys had their heads down,” Blackwell said. “But the older guys brought us back together and came together as a team and said hey, can’t get any worse than this.”

The Crimson’s first goal came early in the second on a power play goal from assistant captain Alex Killorn after a pass across the net from junior forward Marshall Everson.

“Once we got that first one the floodgates started opening, and we started to finally play like Harvard hockey,” Blackwell said.

A couple minutes later senior Eric Kroshus scored on a hard wrist shot from the left faceoff circle after a pass up along the boards from freshman defenseman Patrick McNally.

The comeback was delayed briefly by a shorthanded UNH goal by Goumas on a hard slap shot to the glove side after a broken-up pass.

“They might have gotten a little too comfortable,” Blackwell said. “But we already started coming back and we weren’t going to give up then so we just get kept fighting.”