Know Your Enemy: Sacred Heart

Well, it's that time of year again. Each summer, Without a Peer passes the time by taking a look at the opponents on the men's schedule in the upcoming season - one per week. We kick off this year's Know Your Enemy series with a non-conference opponent that RPI handled pretty easily last season on the last day of 2012 - which was certainly good news, considering how long it took this team to register a win last year.

Sacred Heart
Nickname: Pioneers
Location: Fairfield, CT
Founded: 1963
Conference: Atlantic Hockey
National Championships: 0
Last NCAA Appearance: None
Last Frozen Four: None
Coach: C.J. Marottolo (5th year)
2012-13 Record: 2-30-4 (2-21-4 AHA, 12th place)
Series: RPI leads, 4-2-0
First Game: January 24, 2004 (Troy, NY)
Last RPI win: December 31, 2012 (Troy, NY)
Last SHU win: November 17, 2006 (Troy, NY)

2013-14 games: October 12, 2013 (Bridgeport, CT); October 19, 2013 (Troy, NY)

Key players: F Chad Filteau, sr.; D Will Rayner, sr.; G Andrew Bodnarchuk, jr.; F Chad Barthelmess, jr.; F Nick Curry, jr.; F Drew George, jr.; F Brian Sheehan, jr.; D Jacob Brightbill, so.; D Josh Phillips, so.; D Matthew Solomon, so.; F Justin Danforth, fr.; F Spencer Graboski, fr.; F Coltyn Hansen, fr.; D David Iacono, fr.

Previous KYE installment:

• 2012-13

As bad as 2011-12 was for the Pioneers, 2012-13 was even worse. By every calculation out there, Sacred Heart was either the worst team in the nation last season or the next-to-worst team (Alabama-Huntsville, in their last season as an independent, was the same way). Sacred Heart was 0-26-2 to start the season last year, not picking up their first win of the year until February 19 in a 7-3 victory over Holy Cross, a win which somehow touched off a three-game unbeaten streak that came hot on the heels of 17-game losing streak and the aforementioned 28-game winless streak (which was really 29 going back to the 2011-12 season).

The Pioneers weren't just beaten regularly between October and February, it was frequently by wide margins. SHU lost by three or more goals on 23 occasions overall last season, including 13 times in a row between December and their first win in February. Two years ago, it happened 17 times overall. In the last two years, the Pioneers have a total record of 8-58-7. The Engineers had more wins last year (18) than Sacred Heart has in the last three (14).

That should be enough to underscore just how bad the Pioneers were last season. Heading into February, there was some talk as to whether SHU would even win a single game, and it wasn't idle thought. They finished the season dead last in the nation in defense by almost a full goal per game with a stupefying 5.06 team GAA, and the offense wasn't much better, clocking in 50th out of 59 teams.

So that makes two years in a row that Sacred Heart has been the worst team in the nation with a conference to call its own. But what does the future have in store? There really can't be anywhere to go but up for the Pioneers at this point, but how quickly can they do it? The freshman class doesn't really engender a great deal of optimism, but SHU can at least take heart that in the last two seasons of misery, the class that will be juniors in the upcoming season has been their best group of players for the most part. It's never easy counting on freshmen or sophomores to carry your team, but if there's a glimmer of hope, it's in the fact that the team's best players are gaining experience, even if that experience has generally been loss after loss.

It's worth pointing out that Sacred Heart is 0-15-3 in the month of October since an October 27, 2009 victory over American International, the last time they won in the season's opening month - and both of RPI's games against SHU will be in October (incidentally, they had a 20-win season that year). The games are on consecutive weekends, and the first one represents RPI's first road game against the Pioneers, though it will take place in Bridgeport rather than their usual tiny rink in Milford. It's technically closer to Sacred Heart's campus, but it's unlikely that the RPI contingent of fans would have fit into the usual rink.

It should go without saying - the more experienced core notwithstanding, these are two games the Engineers must win to get the season started on the right track. Anything less is pretty much a disaster. RPI will be heavy favorites in these games, and they should be good confidence builders heading into a non-conference schedule that is almost entirely made up of top squads.

The Art of War

So it is said that if you know your enemies and know yourself, you can win a hundred battles without a single loss. 

If you only know yourself, but not your opponent, you may win or may lose. 

If you know neither yourself nor your enemy, you will always endanger yourself.

--Sun Tzu

Without a Peer returns to life on Wednesday.

Hibernation Mode: Active

In case you haven't already noticed, we're into our usual April/May slumber here at WaP. We push posts 10 months a year around here, which surpasses a lot of other blogs which basically just operate from September as the season ramps up until March or April when their team's season ends.

We try to stay on top of all news RPI, most news ECAC, and the big news on the national level. In order to keep the batteries charged, we typically don't post much from the end of the Frozen Four until late May unless something huge happens.

Now that Seth Appert has another contract extension and is definitely staying for what we hope should be a very exciting 2013-14 season for the Engineers, it's time for hibernation. While yearly renovations get underway on the secret underwater lair, we're going to be incommunicado here for the next few weeks, as per usual.

We'll still have updates on Twitter - and, if you're not following us there yet, get with the program - as they are warranted. Unless a post is warranted sometime in the next month or so, we'll see you again on May 22 as we crank up our yearly summer cooler series, "Know Your Enemy," a weekly look at the RPI men's 2013-14 opponents. From time to time during the summer, we'll have other stuff as it comes up.

2013: The Year of the Nerd

On August 6, 2012, an ECAC Hockey alum - RPI's Kobie Boykins, a forward on the team in the mid-1990's - was part of the team at NASA that landed the groundbreaking rover Curiosity on Mars.

It was another tale of ECAC alums doing what ECAC alums do - those that don't go on to play in the NHL (and even many who do) go on to become movers and shakers in fields from finance to industry, from science to small business.

But that's not to say that the league doesn't have its history of getting things done on the ice. We waxed eloquent over the summer at the addition of Adam Oates to the Hockey Hall of Fame, the announcement coming on the same day he was named head coach of the Washington Capitals.

That legacy, some said, was a relic of a bygone era. The ECAC, it was told, had been lapped by the power conferences, and was an afterthought on the national stage. Routinely written off, even as this tournament got underway. Even as the Frozen Four got underway with half the participants being members of the conference.

Today, the afterthoughts are... everyone else.

Quinnipiac and Yale place the conference in its brightest spotlight since the Hockey East split tomorrow night as they do battle to determine which of them will win the conference's first national championship since 1989, but this season, the ECAC went far, far beyond these two schools from southern Connecticut.

(And we proudly mention that we semi "called" Quinnipiac being good this year, pointing out just how stacked they were at pretty much every facet and how many seniors they had. True to Quinnipiac fashion, they just had to find a way to surpass even those expectations - something they've done in every season they've been in the ECAC. They did that during the regular season alone, and now they've kicked it up to a new level.)

In addition to winning the national championship, the conference also was responsible for the dethroning of last year's national champions, via a 5-1 demolition by the conference champions, Union.

We're never afraid to toot our own horn here at WaP - if the Bulldogs win tomorrow night, RPI will have defeated the eventual national champions twice this season, by a combined score of 10-2 (we've mentioned it a bit on Twitter, where more than a few people yesterday proclaimed that RPI was the best team in the conference at the end of the season). The Engineers finished in 2nd place in the conference, and despite an upset in the first round, were still in the national tournament picture until a wild finish to the conference tournaments bumped them out.

Brown was in that picture too, by their own doing. They gutted out a hard-fought series with the Engineers to give themselves a shot, and put themselves on the cusp with a masterful performance against that same team that you just saw humiliate the WCHA regular-season champs on the biggest stage of all.

Dartmouth had a tremendous first-half of the season in which they looked unstoppable. St. Lawrence had a tremendous second-half of the season in which they too looked unstoppable at times. And we haven't even talked about the league's perennial beasts - it wasn't Cornell's finest season by any stretch of the imagination, but they certainly finished strong.

Guess what? That's more than half the league mentioned just right there.

The last month has made this season property of the ECAC - the league will finish with an incredible 8-2 record in the NCAAs, with the only two losses coming at the hands of a fellow league member. The power conferences, they tried to take down Quinnipiac, Yale, and Union, and they went 0-for-6 for their troubles.

Now they can sit back and watch the newest hot rivalry in the ECAC take center stage, and put on a show. Yale has the tools to do this again next year (they'll have questions in net, but what else is new), while Quinnipiac's senior-heavy roster means they're more than likely going to have to take care of business this weekend.

Given how thoroughly these teams dominated their semifinal matchups last night (Yale was the aggressor for 59 minutes against a fantastic UML team, which underscores how good the River Hawks are that the game made it to overtime), we are in for a treat tomorrow night.

All you Hockey East, WCHA, NCHC, and Big Ten fans can tune in if you like. They're bound to put on a show for you. And if you don't like what you're seeing... then you don't like hockey.

EZAC, eh?

How you like us now?

EZAC!

So there it was, Easter night, and suddenly it dawned on me.

The national championship game could be a rematch of the ECAC consolation game.

Yeah. We're not in Kansas anymore, are we?

A couple of times this season, I've pooh-poohed some of the more excited suggestions about what the ECAC could accomplish on the national level. So far, I've been proven about right - three NCAA bids was about what I expected. So what is it to say that the ECAC now has two teams in the Frozen Four for the first time since 1983, and just a year removed from ending a nine-year drought without even a single team in the ultimate event of the college hockey season?

Some would say it was nothing but luck. Those people will point to the fact that Yale essentially backed into the tournament after failing miserably in Atlantic City (scoring a grand total of zero goals in two games), that Union could well have been out of the NCAAs themselves if they hadn't won the ECAC title (probably true), and that Quinnipiac had a lousy February and (of course) was never a deserving #1.

Ask Minnesota, North Dakota, and Boston College about what kind of year the ECAC had. Those three powerhouse programs can boast a single split regular-season title (the Gophers, with St. Cloud State earning the #1 seed in the conference tournament) between them while two ECAC teams do battle in Pittsburgh for the opportunity to claim the league's first national championship since 1989.

While I was trying to calm down the overly optimistic expectations of four or five bids, I also pointed to the upward trend the league has been experiencing in the last couple of years as a legitimate source of optimism, and this is certainly another sign of growth. In 2011, we saw the league picking up three bids for the first time in several years. In 2012, it was a Frozen Four berth. Now, it's both, plus an extra spot in the Frozen Four.

Now, we don't need to have Quinnipiac and Yale win tomorrow to make this a successful season for the league, and there are plenty of additional steps that need to be taken before we can really pound our chests. And, as I also brought up earlier this season, the ECAC is set to pretty much overtake the "new" WCHA starting next season in terms of stature.

So, what are the chances of an ECAC champion this weekend? I'd go with... fair. It sounds pessimistic to say that with half the teams being from the ECAC, but it's about as far as I'd be willing to go. UMass-Lowell, on their current seven-game win streak, has given up either one goal or none at all in six of those games. That's a defense that's dialed in. St. Cloud State played exceptionally well in the WCHA, and settled for a #4 seed based almost entirely upon non-conference stumbles against UNH, RPI, and Northern Michigan, plus a loss to Wisconsin in the WCHA tournament. They're good.

That's not to say that Yale and Quinnipiac don't have things going for them as well. The Bobcats may be as dialed in on offense as UML is on defense, and a matchup between the Q and the River Hawks could be very exciting - as could the actual Yale-UML matchup provided that the Bulldogs get the offense they had in Grand Rapids rather than the one they had in Atlantic City.

Overall, though? This is a weekend to enjoy if you're a college hockey fan. It's the Frozen Four, of course, and that's cause every year. But this year? It's an even bigger celebration of what makes college hockey special. It's borne out of Union beating Boston College and St. Cloud State beating Notre Dame. Name another sport where that result would be even remotely possible.

When the casual college sports fan looks at the Frozen Four and says "who the hell are these guys?", you can take pride when you say - these are four damn good college hockey teams, and they proved it.

Things To Do In Denver When You're Red

12 consecutive 20-win seasons. Six consecutive NCAA tournament appearances. Back to back national championship wins in 2004 and 2005. Three MacNaughton Cup titles for winning the WCHA regular season title. Four Broadmoor Trophy reigns as WCHA champions. A Hobey Baker Award winner. Just one losing record in 19 seasons.

Not enough for George Gwozdecky to keep his job at the University of Denver.

Now, the haters are going to point out that, while the Pioneers have consistently made the tournament, they haven't advanced to the Frozen Four since winning it all in 2005, and have won just one NCAA tournament game since then (beating Western Michigan in two overtimes in 2011 at Green Bay - the regional that included the Engineers). So, perhaps the bar is just that high in Denver.

Even still... the resume in the first paragraph is pretty impressive. Apparently, the powers that be at DU want national titles and won't be satisfied with anything less. That has to be daunting for whoever it is that might replace the truly legendary Gwozdecky at Magness Arena.

Denver is certainly a high-profile opening - not the most high-profile opening we've seen this year, but the BU opening was open for about 40 seconds before they named David Quinn as Jack Parker's replacement.

So who is it? Denver's associate head coach, Steve Miller is almost certainly not it - he's been Gwozdecky's top lieutenant for all 19 years that he's been in Denver. You don't show that kind of loyalty for that long only to take the guy's job when he gets canned. The other assistant, David Lassonde, has been an assistant coach in college hockey since 1989, including 14 years at New Hampshire before spending the last two seasons at Denver. He could be a solid candidate.

Protégés are all over the rumor mill. Air Force associate head coach Mike Corbett is a former DU defenseman who played for Gwozdecky, he's been with the Falcons (conveniently, right there in Colorado) for 10 seasons. Derek Lalonde was an assistant in Denver under Gwozdecky from 2006 to 2011, when he took over the Green Bay Gamblers of the USHL and won a league championship in his first season.

Among the other names that have cropped up are two other Gwozdecky protégés - Miami head coach Enrico Blasi, who played for Gwozdecky in Miami between 1990 and 1994 and who was an assistant in Denver from 1996 to 1999 before taking the top job at his alma mater, and St. Cloud State head coach Bob Motzko, who served under Gwozdecky at both Miami and Denver before eventually taking the top spot at his alma mater.

Neither of these candidates seem likely based on what they have accomplished or are accomplishing in their current positions. Blasi has taken Miami to heights that even his predecessor did not achieve while he was in Ohio (namely, NCAA tournament victories to go with 9 NCAA tournament apperances in 10 years, including two Frozen Fours and very nearly a national championship in 2009). And I don't know if you've been reading the news lately, but Motzko's Huskies just reached the Frozen Four for the first time in school history, quite an accomplishment for a much maligned program that until Motzko took the reins, was a punchline for the number of times they'd tried and failed to win even one NCAA tournament game.

Throw in the fact that both of these gentlemen would be facing their former teams in the NCHC next year, and it's a good bet we won't see either of them in Denver next year.

But there's one other well known Gwozdecky protégé out there that people are talking about - in fact, he was the first name the Denver Post, among other outlets, brought up: RPI's Seth Appert.

As most RPI fans known, Appert was an assistant in Denver from 1999 through 2006, when he came to Troy as RPI's 9th head coach in the modern era, and he was considered an instrumental recruiter for the program during the Pioneers reign as back-to-back national champions. He's not currently at his alma mater like Blasi and Motzko, and he hasn't yet placed RPI on the same level that either of those men have done at their respective schools.

He refused comment when the Daily Gazette's Ken Schott asked him if he would be a candidate. Don't read too much into the refusal to say no - the question was asked mere minutes from the time Gwozdecky's firing was made public. That isn't enough time to consider anything, either way.

It has long been suspected that Appert might only consider leaving RPI for two places - Denver, his long-time home, and Ferris State, his alma mater. That's probably not entirely true, but it does make the Denver opening more intriguing from an RPI fan's perspective.

But don't count on a vacancy in Troy this summer. Why? A couple of reasons. First, alumni reaction to the firing at Denver has been almost universally negative. Whoever comes in now is going to have to deal with a fanbase that will have very little patience. Second, DU's interest could be tepid at best - who would fire a person and then hire someone that learned from him? It would be a different story, for sure, if Gwozdecky had resigned. Third, Gwozdecky's resume is going to be difficult to top. Fourth, the loyalty factor has to come into play: reports say that Gwozdecky's protégés tend to maintain a very close relationship with the man. Like Miller, who would want to be the one to succeed him?

Is it possible that Seth Appert could leave? Yes. Is it likely? Probably not.

Regardless, it will be very interesting to see how everything plays out, especially with the conference realignment about to strike the balance in college hockey.

We'll be keeping a close eye here as well, in part because the Pioneers will be coming to Troy next season as one of the non-conference opponents. Stay tuned.

Luck of the Draw

Tunnel vision is rarely a good thing. It may keep you focused on what's important, but you miss all the stuff around the edges that can have an impact on that which is important.

It's been about a week and a half since RPI's unexpected end to their season (and a little under a week since that was made official by a string of bizarre results across the nation), and the frustration has some people getting upset with the prolongation of the team's struggle to reach the ECAC semifinals. The drought now sits at 11 straight without making an appearance in either Albany or Atlantic City, and it's in no small part due to three home playoff series in the last four years that the Engineers were unable to win.

If you've got tunnel vision, the answer is simple. RPI simply can't get over the hump, and it's the coach's fault.

Here's the problem with that line of thinking - each series is different, even if the end result is the same.

And yet, as different as those series were, there's one thing about them that needs to be pointed out: what happened afterwards.

You see, tunnel vision ignores the input of the other team in how things turn out, and in all three cases, that other team was pretty clearly doing OK.

In 2010, RPI dropped a three-game series to Brown. The Engineers weren't huge favorites to advance to Albany that season, but for the first time in several years it didn't seem like something that would have been a shock if it had happened. As the home team, they were favored to beat a Brown team that had gone 3-10-3 since New Year's. They dropped Game 1, came back strong in Game 2, and lost a comeback attempt in Game 3 by one goal, 3-2.

What happened after that? Well, Brown went on to play against the #1 seed in the ECAC, Yale. They went down to Ingalls Rink and defeated the best team in the league in three games, eventually claiming 3rd place in Albany.

In 2011, RPI dropped a three-game series to last place Colgate. Despite a rough stretch late in the season that cost the Engineers a crack at a first-round bye, optimism was high that RPI could at least dispatch a Colgate team suffering a horrendous season to earn the right to take on a Cornell team that they'd tied in the standings. Again, as the home team, they were favored over a Colgate squad that had failed to register a victory in each of their first 15 league games. They dropped Game 1, came back strong in Game 2, and took Game 3 to two overtimes before falling.

What happened after that? Colgate went to the #1 seed in the ECAC the following week, taking on Union. They defeated the best team in the league in three games and earned the right to head to Atlantic City despite  not picking up their first league win until February.

This season, RPI dropped a three-game series to Brown once again, with the major difference being that this time, it was in the quarterfinal round thanks to a torrid end to the season for the Engineers. This time it was Atlantic City or bust, and even though Brown certainly had some things going for them, RPI was still the solid favorite. They dropped game one, came back strong in Game 2, and lost a comeback attempt in Game 3 by one goal, 3-2. (Whoa. Deja vu.)

What happened after that? Brown went to Atlantic City to take on the #1 seed in the ECAC, Quinnipiac. They not only beat the best team in the league - and for much of the season, the nation - they did it going away, with four goals in a little over 35 minutes for a 4-0 victory.

So before you become obsessed with the tunnel vision look, remember these two very important items.

1) RPI did not roll over for these teams. In each case, the Game 1 loss resulted in a fired-up, big victory in Game 2, eventually creating an all-out war in Game 3 that RPI came up just short in each time.

2) Each of the teams the Engineers faced went on to take on the top seed in the tournament afterwards, and defeated them - in other words, it wasn't just some fluke.

After pointing out item 2 on Twitter last week, I got a response (the seriousness of which I am unsure of) which claimed that 2010 Brown, 2011 Colgate, and 2013 Brown found success against the #1 seeds because they were energized after beating RPI, who played poorly.

I honestly don't know what to say to that. Beating a team that's playing poorly all it takes to get up and beat the best team in the league, or perhaps the best team played poorly too?

At any rate, understand that there's no RPI fan who isn't disappointed by what we've seen in the last four years in terms of playoff hockey in Troy - but sometimes, you just end up with a team that is figuring things out at the right time, and you make little mistakes. For instance, Game 1 was not good for RPI, and the team made little errors early in Game 3 that ended up costing them the game and the series.

But let's not blow this into something it's not. It would be one thing if RPI was just playing poorly and getting run by losers. It's another thing to simply have the bad luck to run into a number of teams willing and, more importantly, able to turn their seasons around at the end.

Put this a different way - RPI finds some bounce of the puck against Colgate in 2011 that allows them to score during some part of the 30 minutes of overtime that was played in Game 3, and there's not much of a link anymore, is there?

Time to suck it up and go back at it next season... which is shaping up to be a fun one if we can meet potential.