Two third period goals helped fifth-seeded Harvard complete its comeback and edge the No. 12 seed St. Lawrence University men's hockey team, 5-3, on Friday night in the first game of a best-of-three first-round ECAC Hockey playoff series in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Despite taking an early lead on Callum Cusinato's second goal of the season in the opening frame, the Saints found themselves down a goal at the end of both the first and second periods.

David Jankowski and Aleksi Peltonen scored in the second and third, respectively, to help the Saints battle back and tie the game twice, but Harvard's Austin Wong scored the eventual game winner at the 7:05 mark of the third and Jack Rathbone added an insurance tally for the Crimson with less than five minutes to play to put the game out of reach.

Jankowski and Jordan Steinmetz led the Saints with two points apiece on Friday night, while rookie netminder Francis Boisvert finished with 37 saves, including 15 through the first 20 minutes of play.

At 11:33 of the first period, Michael Laidley sprang Cusinato for a breakaway into the Harvard zone and he beat starting netminder Mitchell Gibson with a shot just under the blocker for a 1-0 St. Lawrence lead.

Less than a minute later, however, John Farinacci put back a rebound from the edge of the crease that snuck through five hole on Boisvert to tie the game at 1-1. At 14:15 of the first, Henry Bowlby gave Harvard its first lead of the game with a turnaround shot from the red line that snuck inside the far post to make it 2-1.

Early in the middle frame, Jankowski and the Saints cashed in on their first power-play chance of the game with quick puck movement around the perimeter before hitting the Waterdown, Ontario native for a shot from the slot blocker side on Gibson to pull even at 2-2.

With time winding down in the second, Harvard capitalized on a turnover as the Saints tried to exit the defensive zone and Casey Dornbach hit leading scorer Nick Abruzzese cutting to the net for a wrister that beat Boisvert on the glove side to give the Crimson a 3-2 lead heading into the third.

Two minutes and 48 seconds into the third, Peltonen and Steinmetz put pressure on Harvard and won a battle for a loose puck in the corner of the offensive zone, as Peltonen came away with it and backhanded a shot through the five hole as he cut across the crease for his fourth of the season to once again tie the game for St. Lawrence.

But at 7:05, Wong finished off a back-door pass from Jack Drury to put the Crimson in front for good. Rathbone concluded the scoring at 15:44 of the final frame.

St. Lawrence pulled Boisvert for the extra attacker late in the game, but struggled to generate chances.

Harvard outshot the Saints 42-18 in the win, with Gibson finishing with 15 saves.

With the loss, St. Lawrence drops to 4-26-5 overall while Harvard improves to 14-10-6.

The teams will face off for game two of the series on Saturday, March 7 at 7 p.m. at Harvard's Bright-Landry Hockey Center in Cambridge.