Northeastern took a pragmatic approach going into last night’s 4-1 victory against Harvard in the Beanpot consolation game at the Garden.

Junior left winger Tyler McNeely scored two goals while freshman goalie Chris Rawlings made 27 saves to lift the Huskies (13-12-1), who are entering the stretch run to the Hockey East tournament.

“We tried to refocus after the BU game to making progress as a group, which I think we’ve done,” NU coach Greg Cronin said of the 2-1 opening-round loss to the Terriers. “I thought we had a lot of energy in the third period that was reinforced by our goaltending.”

The opening period took awhile to get going, and the sparse crowd didn’t help matters. Harvard (6-14-3) was presented an excellent scoring opportunity late in the period when NU senior right winger Chris Donovan (tripping) and junior defenseman Mike Hewkin (hitting from behind) were sent to the box 34 seconds apart.

The Huskies cleared the puck three times during the 5-on-3 and took a 1-0 lead with 14 seconds left in Hewkin’s sentence. Senior defenseman Jim Driscoll flipped the puck into the neutral zone along the left boards that inspired a foot race between McNeely and Harvard defenseman Chris Huxley. McNeely got the back, scooted around Huxley and beat Harvard goalie Ryan Carroll (30 saves) on the backhand at 17:53.

“I think the defenseman thought I was going to pull up and make a move, but I went wide on the goalie and put it in far side,” McNeely said.

Northeastern went up 2-0 on a nifty piece of work at 1:24 of the second period. Defenseman J.P. Maley made a sweet feed to Drew Daniels at the left point. Daniels unzipped a rocket that bounced off Carroll’s pad to the slot. Senior center Greg Costa one-timed a backhander that beat Carroll to the glove side.

Harvard scored its first goal of the 2010 Beanpot after losing, 6-0, to BC last week, at 11:15 of the second. Center Louis LeBlanc won the draw in the NU end and got the puck to Chad Morin, who relayed it across the blue line to Ryan Grimshaw. The sophomore let fly a slap shot that Conor Morrison tipped by Rawlings.

McNeely scored the insurance on the power play at 6:21 of the third. Kyle Kraemer fired a wrist shot from the high slot that McNeely tipped between Carroll’s pads for his second of the contest. Wade McLeod then potted an empty-netter for his 10th of the season.