Sunday, October 31, 2010

Women's Hockey - at St. Lawrence & Clarkson (29/30 Oct)

RPI opened ECAC league action this weekend in the North Country, taking on St. Lawrence and Clarkson teams who have struggled in the early going, despite high preseason expectations. The Engineers capitalized on the opportunity Friday night to earn the team’s first ever win over St. Lawrence by a 3-2 mark, before falling to Clarkson 2-1 Saturday afternoon to take two points from a North Country trip that has historically been very difficult.

St. Lawrence

Smelker/Vandegrift/Horton
Sanders/Dunlop/Harrison
Padmore/O’Keefe/Jakubowski
Guillemette/Stapleton/Mankey

Le Donne/Vadner
Castignetti/Daniels
Letuligasenoa/Marzario

Van der Bliek

With St. Lawrence coming into the weekend with a 1-4-1 record and a 4-game winless streak, the Saints looked like a prime target for RPI and the Engineers set out to make the most of it. The game started on a weird note, with SLU starting the game shorthanded after receiving a bench minor for being late to pregame warm-ups. Although RPI couldn’t capitalize on the unusual opportunity, it set the tone of the first period which would see the Engineers outshoot the Saints by a 12-8 margin. It was Andie Le Donne who would first find the back of the net just past the midpoint of the first period, firing a slapshot through traffic from the point past SLU goalie Maxie Weisz to give RPI a 1-0 first period lead.

SLU tied the game early in the second period when Ally Bero punched home a rebound on a scrum in front of Sonja van der Bliek. Though van der Bliek made the initial save on a shot by Kayla Sullivan, she was unable to get control of the rebound and Bero had the opportunity to poke it over the goal line. Although SLU pressured RPI throughout the second period, holding the Engineers without a shot on goal in the first half of the period, RPI would regain the lead at 12:54 of the second when Kristen Jakubowski scored her first career goal on a slapshot that deflected off a SLU defender in front of the net. Lady Luck was smiling on RPI later in the period as a SLU penalty set up Taylor Horton to fire another shot toward the net which was also tipped by a SLU defender to expand the RPI lead to 3-1.

St. Lawrence dominated much of the third period as the Engineers took five consecutive penalties in under ten minutes. SLU’s coach took a somewhat unconventional approach by pulling the goalie with over five minutes left in the game, but the decision allowed SLU to completely control the late game, finally converting a shot at 19:27 when Kelly Sabatine got one past van der Bliek to make it 3-2. A clutch faceoff win on the ensuing draw allowed RPI to get the puck into the SLU end and hold it there until the final buzzer to hang on for the 3-2 victory.

Each team finished the game with 31 shots and a single power play goal. Van der Bliek had a solid 13 third period saves to keep the Saints from tying the game and Jakubowski had the team high of five shots in the game.

Clarkson

Smelker/Vandegrift/Horton
Sanders/Dunlop/Harrison
Padmore/O’Keefe/Jakubowski
Guillemette/Stapleton/Mankey
Letuligasenoa

Le Donne/Vadner
Castignetti/Marzario
Daniels

Van der Bliek

Clarkson entered Saturday’s game looking to break a 4-game winless streak against RPI, and they played the right game to make that happen. With Andie Le Donne in the penalty box for checking, Clarkson capitalized on its first power play of the night, holding the puck and cycling in the RPI zone for nearly a minute until Hailey Wood found a lane to the net and took a shot which was deflected just enough on the way in to beat van der Bliek for a 1-0 Clarkson lead.

RPI answered in the third period on the last of three consecutive Clarkson penalties, Sierra Vadner took a shot much the same as Wood’s in the first period which found its way to the back of the Clarkson net to tie the game at one. Through the first two periods the play was relatively even, with the teams tied in shots, nearly even on penalties, and each notching a goal on the power play. The third period, however, was all Clarkson as the Golden Knights turned up the pressure in an attempt to secure the win.

Early in the third period, Clarkson forward Juana Baribeau drew a crowd of RPI defenders near the Engineer blue line and was able to sneak a pass to teammate Danielle Skirrow, who skated in on van der Bliek and beat the RPI goalie with a few slick moves and a top-shelf backhand shot. RPI would pull van der Bliek for the extra attacker in the final minute, but did not generate any solid chances, nearly giving up an empty net goal which was only avoided thanks to an Engineer defenseman taking the Clarkson shot to her midsection to prevent the goal. Clarkson had a decisive 15-4 shot advantage in the final frame.

RPI returns to Houston Field House next weekend for ECAC games against Princeton (Friday, 7pm) and Quinnipiac (Saturday, 4pm). Friday’s game will not be carried on WRPI, while Saturday’s will be joined in progess at the conclusion of the football game. As usual, Without a Peer will live tweet updates from the Field House at http://www.twitter.com/without_a_peer.

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RPI at St. Lawrence
ECAC Hockey Game – Appleton Arena (Canton, NY)
10/29/10 – 7:00pm
RPI 2, SLU 1

BOX SCORES:
RECAPS:
RECORD: 2-4-2 (1-0-0 ECAC)

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RPI at Clarkson
ECAC Hockey Game – Cheel Arena (Potsdam, NY)
10/30/10 – 4:00pm
Clarkson 2, RPI 1

BOX SCORES:
RECAPS:
RECORD: 2-5-2 (1-1-0 ECAC)

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Upcoming Games

Nov. 5 – Princeton (7pm)
Nov. 6 – Quinnipiac (4pm)
Nov. 12 – at Yale (7pm)
Nov. 13 – at Brown (4pm)
Nov. 19 – Niagara (7pm)
Nov. 20 – Niagara (2pm)

Saturday, October 30, 2010

Prepare For War

A three-part pump-up for you today to get you in the mood for tonight's matchup in Lake Placid.

First, the venue.

The Engineers return to the Olympic Center - now Herb Brooks Arena - for the first time since 2002. It's a place that cannot fail to give you a chill up your spine or goosebumps on your arms, just walking in.



And of course, we all know the reason why.



RPI faces a rival grown up enough to have earned its own hate week (catch our twitter feed over the last week if you missed it). Last year, RPI and Union faced each other four times, playing what were basically four 1-goal affairs - the Dutchmen got an empty-netter in the final game of the set. As one of the senior Engineers (who will remain anonymous) told me earlier this year about Union, "they hate us, we hate them, it's pretty simple."

This one is the skirmish for pride. In two weeks, it counts. It's time to prepare for battle in the Capital District's own version of the Cold War.

Friday, October 29, 2010

Squinting at a Small Sample

It's hard to analyze big matchups early in the season statistically, because the sample sizes are so small. The teams and their opponents just haven't played enough games against enough varied types of teams to establish definitive trends on why some teams have big numbers and why other teams don't (incidentally, that's one of the reasons why the Pairwise Rankings are useless until mid-January at the earliest).

There's only one thing that's clear - both of these teams have had relatively easy schedules thus far, with most of the easy teams coming at home, where both teams are unbeaten. The four teams Union has beaten have a combined record in other games of 1-8-5 (.250), while RPI's three wins have come over teams with a combined record in other games of 0-6-4 (.200).

Both teams have some gaudy numbers - Union on pretty much everything, RPI on defense and the penalty kill. So is that it? Does Union's offense give them the edge? It might. Let's look at the numbers and see if there are signs of overperformance against the weak schedules both teams have had.

Overperformance?
Offense
Union is tops in the nation in offense. 37 goals in 7 games translates to 5.29 per game. The flip side, of course, is that the teams they've played are among the worst in defense.

* Sacred Heart (played twice, 9 and 7 goals) - 52nd (last) in the nation on defense, with a team GAA of 5.75 in 4 games (half of their games against Union)
* RIT (7 goals) - 48th in the nation on defense, team GAA 4.60 in 5 games
* Alaska-Anchorage (4 goals) and Niagara (6 goals) - tied for 40th in the nation on defense, team GAAs at 4.00, UAA with 6 games, Niagara with 4.

Those are the wins. In the blemishes, they faced Alaska (tied for 3rd on defense with Union at 2.00) and UConn (39th, 3.75). In those games, they scored 1 and 3 goals respectively, their worst offensive outputs of the season.

Defense
It's the same thing for the Engineers. RPI enters tomorrow's game with the 2nd best defense in the nation - 1.67 team GAA in 6 games. But... look at the opponents.

* Bentley - 52nd (last) in the nation on offense, with a team goals per game rate of 1.50 in 4 games (all against ECAC opponents, RPI shut them out)
* Northeastern (2 goals) - 50th in the nation on offense, team GPG 1.80 in 5 games
* RIT (1 goal) - 40th in the nation on offense, team GPG 2.20 in 5 games
* Colorado College (played twice, 2 goals both times) - 37th in the nation on offense, team GPG 2.33 in 6 games
* Niagara (3 goals) - tied for 31st in the nation on offense, team GPG 2.50 in 4 games (half against RPI/Union)

That's the entire season for RPI so far. None of their opponents is scoring 3 goals per game, which is usually a benchmark for a solid scoring club.

Union's just behind RPI in 3rd on defense, but theirs is the same story here as well. We've already touched on RIT (2 goals) and Niagara (1 goal), but look also at Sacred Heart (51st, 1.75), Alaska (43rd, 2.00), UConn (T-31st, 2.50), and Alaska-Anchorage (T-27th with RPI, 2.67).

The bottom line? In a combined 13 games, neither RPI nor Union has faced a team in the top half of the nation in scoring. That changes for RPI tomorrow.

But the question is - are Union and RPI's defenses putting up big numbers because they're playing weak teams, or are their opponents' offensive numbers terrible because they're playing solid defenses? The sample size really isn't big enough at this point to be able to distinguish between the two. The reality is more likely in the middle - both teams have good defenses that are being made to look better by the caliber of the opponents.

Underperformance?
So it appears that Union's offense and defense are probably overperforming, at least to some extent, as is RPI's defense. That's not to say that those elements are not that good, they just may not be as good as they appear on paper, since none of them have been challenged to any major degree this year (or in the case of Union's offense, when challenged by what appears to be solid defense, they shrunk significantly).

But what about the RPI offense? It's still struggling to reach the golden mark of 3.00 GPG. But check out two of the defenses the Engineers have been up against this year, which account for half of the games:

* Northeastern - 2.00 GAA (tied for 3rd with Union)
* Colorado College - 2.17 GAA (9th)

That might explain the 5 goals they scored in those three games to some extent. The offense naturally did better against the 33rd, 40th, and 48th rated defenses at home. So it might be safe to say that the RPI offense is underperforming. Union's strong defense probably won't help that the way the last few opponents did.

Special teams?
Honestly, it's too early to get a feel for whether special teams are over- or underperforming. That's because special teams are a win/lose proposition. One team is going to be successful, while the other team will fail. It's pretty black and white. Thus, the sample size really isn't big enough to get a good look at whether Union's top rated power play (41.2%) is a product of lousy penalty killing (SHU, UAA, and RIT all in the 10 worst penalty kill ratings in the nation) or vice versa. The same goes for RPI's 9th ranked penalty kill (88.1%). The Engineers have faced some lousy power plays (all but RIT rated in the lower half nationally).

Suffice it to say that Union probably has a pretty good power play and RPI probably has a pretty good penalty kill. Especially given the Engineers' proclivity for taking penalties (tops in the ECAC, what else is new), this is going to be a key matchup, with the winner having a huge edge overall. Union faced UConn's 4th rated PK last night, going 1-for-3. They seem to know what they're doing. Is that Ben Barr's doing? We're just going to go ahead and assume so.

Analysis
Neither of these teams are realistically among the top 20 in the nation despite both being ranked this week. They've been skating by on what has been largely inferior teams, and each are facing probably their second most difficult team of the year (RPI having seen CC, Union having played Alaska). Both teams play their games on NHL sized rinks and have a pair of games this season on the Olympic sheet, so the bigger ice is probably a wash. If there's one advantage to be had on the larger surface, it's RPI's speed and up-tempo, WCHA style play. The larger ice surface will make it difficult for Union's defense to gum up the neutral zone - which is one reason why games out west (where there are a lot more Olympic sheets) are more run-and-gun. That could mitigate the offensive advantage that the Dutchmen appear to have.

Choosing a winner in this game is crazy. It's going to be Keith Kincaid vs. Allen York, the split preseason favorites for the Dryden Award, and the Union power play against the RPI penalty kill. Whoever wins those battles, wins the game. Goals are likely to be at a premium throughout, so scoring first is key, and if a team reaches the three-goal mark, they're going to be in pretty good shape.

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Upcoming Podcast: Adam Wodon

Yes, once again we're broadcasting on Thursday this week. It's partially because the only men's game of the week is on Saturday, but also because our guest was unavailable on Wednesday.

Adam Wodon doesn't need much introduction. We talked to him two months ago as part of our "Media Pitstop" series, and we'll shoot the breeze about how the season has started off around the nation and talk about the big RPI-Union weekend. Both teams have beaten up on some lesser competition, but what will Lake Placid bring for the travel partners who look to be heavyweights in the ECAC this season?

With any luck, WaP women's correspondent Gary Russinko will join us as well to talk about the Engineers' first win coming in upset fashion, along with their grueling non-conference schedule and how well they are prepared to face the ECAC schedule, which begins this weekend in the North Country. Gary's still tentative, as his availability is sometimes known only hour-to-hour, but at any rate we'll break down the women's season thus far and talk about Clarkson and St. Lawrence.

Last week, we had an interesting discussion with USCHO's Chris Lerch about RIT. You can listen to it below - and use the player below to listen to our podcast live on Thursday night at 8pm.

Listen to internet radio with Without a Peer on Blog Talk Radio

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

What the... ??

You may have noticed that we didn't include links to the USCHO recaps in the link dump that comes at the end of the weekend wraps. There's a reason for that. In the case of the Niagara game, there just wasn't one. But in the case of the RIT game... wow. It was so god-awful that I had to spare the casual reader from encountering it. It was so bad, in fact, that it requires a fisking... but I'll try to minimize the exposure. If you really want to see it, here it is. We are not responsible for seizures or strokes caused by reading this moronic screed.

Let's start at the top. Holy paragraphic headlines, Batman.

RPI continues to roll; tops cross-state engineering rival RIT in front of surprisingly large crowd

Buh? Yes that's 15 words (16 if you include "cross" and "state" as being separate) in a headline. Now, in the internet age, short headlines aren't necessarily a requirement - headlines have always been meant to be concise in print to grab a reader's attention - but this is really a bridge too far. That's almost the first sentence right there. A better answer would have been to leave it as "RPI continues to roll," and if you HAD to, make a sub-head with the rest of it.

It gets worse, though.

We won't reprint all of it, but in a game recap, the author manages to spend the first SEVEN paragraphs talking about attendance at Houston Field House and the fact that the Yankees were playing Texas in Game 6 of the ALCS at the same time.

At some point, the reader has to start asking himself... is this a game recap, or a commentary on crowd size?

The author does include the score relatively early on, but only in passing and in the THIRD paragraph.

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute defeated the Rochester Institute of Technology 4–1 and joined Union, who defeated Niagara, in making it a sweep for two ECAC clubs from the capital district over two Atlantic Hockey sides from western New York on Friday.

Uh... first, why is the Union game relevant here? If someone wants to learn about the Union game, they can check out Dan Greene's recap, or even better, pick up the Gazette in the morning and read King Ken's words of wisdom. Second... "Capital District," of course, is a proper noun.

From there, it's more inane commentary on how many people were in the stands. This should have been either part of a sidebar commentary, or part of its own article. If someone's looking for information about the game, they have to read down quite a ways to get to it. I fell asleep in the fifth paragraph or so.

As an addendum, RIT's Chris Lerch - who was at the game broadcasting for WITR-FM - commented on the article that he thought the Field House looked "half full." But we can at least understand where he's coming from on that one. He was standing up on the catwalk during the game, and the only part of the stands you can see from that vantage point is the south side, AKA the library side, which was maybe only 3/4 full and dead as a doornail as is their norm. The north side, which was packed on Friday night, isn't visible from the catwalk. With no band on the non-existent stage to the east and the colorless construction zone (with no seating yet) filling up the west, Mr. Lerch can absolutely be excused for thinking that the Field House looked empty, especially considering that A) he had just broadcast a game from a building with 10,000 people in it the previous week and B) RIT's rink is so small and their tickets so coveted that they tend to jam it completely full (and more so) every night.

But the author of this piece, presumably sitting in the press box, didn't have that problem.

Seth Appert is actually the one who segues into actually talking about the game through his own words, but then the author drops this one:

One of those collisions was started by Chase Polacek only three and a half minutes into the game when he threw a monster hip-check on Jeff Smith right in front of his own bench, charging his teammates and the student section up in the process.

Or John Kennedy. One of the two. They're easy to mix-up, of course. One's a defenseman, one's a forward. One's 6'0" 205, the other's 5'8" 190. One's known for big hits, one's known for scoring goals. One is black, one is white. Oh, I know! They're both seniors. That must have been it.

The next thing to talk about, naturally, was this:

Polacek later continued his pursuit of a second consecutive nomination as a Hobey Baker finalist when he assisted on Rensselaer’s third goal at 15:46 of the second.

Um... what happened to the other two goals? They must not have been terribly important. But I'm glad to know that the Hobey Baker committee is going to say "boy, remember that assist he had against RIT in October? That was a big step right there." That's about as dumb as trying to sneak weed into a courthouse.

The main offensive story of the night

Not mentioned until the 12th paragraph...

was RPI freshman Brock Higgs breaking through and scoring his first two collegiate goals, each breaking a tie to put RPI ahead.

Yes, the first, of course, breaking that all so rare 0-0 tie in the first period.

The author actually does a decent job describing the goals of the game, but it got worse otherwise.

RIT coach Wayne Wilson was unhappy enough with his team’s performance to have them doing calisthenics drills in the public corridor outside their locker room as soon as they had shed their gear.

Yeah, because anyone who's ever milled about five minutes after a game has never seen a team, win, lose, or draw, doing calisthenics drills in the hallways. Wilson was obviously punishing them. Or maybe they had a game the next night and needed to make sure they weren't cramped up for it. That seems possible too, I don't know.

For those who are thinking and saying that RIT is not playing with the swagger and confidence of a program coming off its first Frozen Four appearance, remember that the Tigers started their 2009-10 campaign with five straight losses before dropping only six more the rest of the regular season.

Who is "thinking or saying" this instead of saying "where's the game recap?"

The author finishes... sort of... with the words of Coach Appert.

I haven’t made any decisions on that over the next couple of [non-conference] games, but at some point with what Bryce means to our program, he deserves an opportunity to get

And that's it! Good night from Houston Field House!

This guy is a "contributing editor." Scary.

Monday, October 25, 2010

Men's Hockey - RIT and Niagara (22/23 Oct)

We mentioned last week that the first full home weekend of the season was a "must-win" for the Engineers if they were going to have a shot at presenting themselves as being legitimate contenders in the ECAC. Mission accomplished. RPI played a sound, physical game in taking down RIT 4-1 on Friday before jumping out against Niagara and refusing to fold despite playing a poor third, getting the game winner in overtime, 4-3.

RIT
Lee/Polacek/Helfrich
Angers-Goulet/Malchuk/Brutlag
Rabbani/Higgs/O'Grady
Tinordi/Rogic/Halpern

Bergin/Foss
Kennedy/Dolan
Leboeuf/Bailen

York

RIT is still trying to figure out what they're doing in net - for the RPI game, they decided to go with senior Jan Ropponen, a Finn who has seen minimal action between the pipes in his previous three seasons in Rochester.

RPI came out flying against the Tigers, who played in the Frozen Four last season. From the opening puck drop, the Engineers played aggressively, especially when it came to the forecheck and the physical aspects of the game, with John Kennedy and Matt Tinordi especially dishing out the big hits all over the ice.

Brock Higgs got the scoring started on the power play about 13 minutes into the game, notching the first goal of his college career to put RPI up 1-0. That lead would be short-lived, however. With Jeff Foss in the box for interference, RIT's Cameron Burt fooled Allen York into moving to defend a pass near the net, when actually, Burt had sort of just let the puck continue toward the net off the back of his stick without much of a shot. The puck slipped through York's pads and in to make it 1-1.

The Engineers kept the pressure up in the second period, continuing to work hard physically and on the forecheck. When Tyler Helfrich was called on a questionable tripping call to negate an RPI power play, the hard work paid off on the ensuing 4-on-4. Higgs scored his second of the night four minutes into the 2nd period, giving the Engineers a 2-1 lead. Later in the period, Helfrich would earn his 3rd of the season to give RPI a two-goal cushion. Ropponen faced a blitz of shots in the second period from the aggressive Engineers, making 16 saves on 18 shots.

Seth Appert was less impressed with RPI's play in the third period, but the Engineers still managed to find success. Bryan Brutlag made it 4-1 early in the period for his 2nd goal of the year, but it was one of only 4 shots on the period as RPI started to coast. The defense held up, killing a pair of penalties in the third to finish the night 5-for-6 on the kill, but the team didn't seem overly interested in keeping the pedal down. It didn't much matter, as Allen York stood tall, stopping 9 shots in the period to drop his GAA even farther as RPI won, 4-1.

Niagara
Angers-Goulet/Malchuk/Brutlag
Lee/Polacek/Helfrich
Rabbani/Higgs/O'Grady
Tinordi/Rogic/Halpern

Bergin/Foss
Kennedy/Dolan
Koudys/Bailen

York

A night after getting throttled by Union, Niagara came out and decided to take shots at Allen York early and often. The Engineers didn't play especially well in the first period, in sharp contrast to the previous night's opening frame. Where York made 24 saves all night against RIT, he was forced to make 16 saves in the first period alone to keep the Purple Eagles off the board.

Despite the slow start, RPI still managed the first goal. 12 minutes into the game, the Engineers crashed the net, and Alex Angers-Goulet scored his first of the season, banging away at the puck until it went in to put RPI up 1-0. Josh Rabbani joined the scoring near the end of the period, scoring his first of the year putting back a rebound into an open net to give the Engineers a 2-0 lead heading into the first intermission, despite a generally poor period otherwise.

The RPI power play had three opportunities to break the game open in the second period, but Niagara's Carsen Chubak took his turn to stand on his head, making 17 saves in the period to keep it a 2-0 game.

A roughing penalty to Angers-Goulet gave Niagara the power play early in the 3rd period, and the Purps converted for a goal just a few seconds after Goulet left the box, cutting the RPI lead in half. The goal sparked the Engineers in the immediate aftermath, and Chase Polacek scored about two minutes later to bring the lead back to two at 3-1. In previous years, we'd seen two goal leads evaporate quickly after giving up goals in the 3rd period, and after Polacek's goal, it appeared that had been mitigated to some degree.

But then, discipline became a problem for the Engineers, and the penalty kill, which hadn't been as sharp as usual all night long, started to break down. Foss was in the box when Marc Zanette scored to make it 3-2, and then Rabbani took a penalty shortly after the ensuing faceoff, eventually leading to a Marc Zanette goal that came just two minutes after his brother's, tying the game at three.

In other years, that might have been about it for the Engineers - they would have completely packed it in and either settled for a tie or lost the game late or in overtime. When Matt Tinordi took yet another penalty shortly after the Purps tied the game, it appeared they were doomed for a bad result. But the penalty kill finally came through again, and the Engineers came out aggressive for the overtime. Captain John Kennedy took an opportunistic shot from the top of the faceoff circle that came free to Marty O'Grady in front. O'Grady dished it off to Brock Higgs, who was wide open on the left side of the net, and Higgs shoveled it in for his third goal of the weekend to give RPI a 4-3 overtime victory - their third win in a row to extend their overall unbeaten streak to five games.

Veteran teams find ways to win games when they don't have their best stuff, and they did that on Saturday. At various times this weekend, RPI played with a suffocating forecheck, with brutal force physically, with impressive finishing touch, and with tough defense emanating from both the goal and the blueline. If they find a way to put all of that together regularly, the sky is the limit.

Other junk - On the heels of the 2nd longest active unbeaten streak in the nation, the Engineers are now nationally ranked. Barely. RPI received 57 votes in this week's USCHO.com poll, tying them with Minnesota for 20th in the nation. The Engineers become the 4th team in the ECAC to be nationally ranked, also ranked are #5 Yale (no change, idle), #14 Cornell (down one, won a pair of exhibition games), and #16 Union (up two, beat Niagara and RIT). Also ranked are #6 Boston University (up two, 2 first place votes), and #19 Colorado College (no change). Also receiving votes were Quinnipiac (10) and Northeastern (3).

Patrick Cullen and Greg Burgdoerfer have not played in three consecutive games, and they could be facing extended periods of time in the stands if the lines, as presently constituted, continue to click as well as they have. The fourth line of Tinordi/Rogic/Halpern were impressive as a checking line all night on Friday, especially Tinordi and Halpern. The Polacek line has been impressive all year, and the Malchuk line is seeing good results as well. The revelation this week was with the Higgs line, especially Higgs himself, although Rabbani and O'Grady had outstanding offensive showings this weekend as well. C.J. Lee was the only top-three line forward without a point this weekend, but he was dangerous as well.

The RIT goal ended 22 consecutive penalty kills for the Engineers, but the PK unit is still among the best in the nation. They have converted 37 of 42 penalty kill opportunities (RPI is tops in the nation in penalty kill chances). The difficult third period against Niagara pushed the Engineers below 90%, but they are still 9th in the nation on the penalty kill.

Allen York has keyed a big defensive front. The Engineers currently have the 2nd best defense in the nation, trailing only Boston College, having given up only 10 goals in six games, a rate of 1.67 GAA. York has a personal GAA of 1.62 (with the difference coming in times when he was off for a sixth skater), 5th in the nation. His 370:38 between the pipes remains tops in the nation. He has 166 saves on 176 shots, for a save percentage of .943, which is 4th best in the nation.

The next test for RPI is big - local rivals Union on the big sheet in Lake Placid. Both teams have played two games on Olympic sized ice this year (RPI in Colorado, Union in Alaska), and both teams boast one of the best goaltenders in the nation, and likely the top two goaltenders in the league. Union has displayed that its offense has the potential to be potent, as they have beaten up on a slew of marginal teams. This matchup will come down to York vs. Kinkaid, and may the best team win.

RIT at RPI
Nonconference Game - Houston Field House (Troy, NY)
10/22/10 - 7:00pm

RESULT: RPI 4, RIT 1

BOX SCORES
RECAPS
VIDEO
RECORD: 2-1-2 (0-0-0 ECAC)

Reale Deals
1. F Brock Higgs, 2 G
2. G Allen York, 24 saves
3. F Marty O'Grady, 2 A

Niagara at RPI
Nonconference Game - Houston Field House (Troy, NY)
10/23/10 - 7:00pm

RESULT: RPI 4, Niagara 3 (OT)

BOX SCORES
RECAPS
VIDEO
RECORD: 3-1-2 (0-0-0 ECAC)

Reale Deals
1. F Brock Higgs, 1 G, 1 A
2. D John Kennedy, 2 A
3. F Chase Polacek, 1 G

Upcoming games
30 Oct - vs. #16 Union (Lake Placid, NY)
05 Nov - at Dartmouth
06 Nov - at Harvard
12 Nov - at #16 Union
13 Nov - #16 Union (Black Saturday)

Sunday, October 24, 2010

Women's Hockey - at Providence & Northeastern (22/24 Oct)

RPI took to the road this weekend for a pair of games against tough Hockey East opponents in Providence and Northeastern, who had between them lost just two games out of twelve played. After a weak start Friday night in Providence, the Engineers fought back to a 3-2 overtime win, before being soundly outplayed in Boston Sunday afternoon against Northeastern in a 5-1 loss.

Providence

Smelker/Vandegrift/Horton
Dunlop/Harrison/O’Keefe
Sanders/Padmore/Jakubowski
Letuligasenoa/Guillemette/Mankey

Le Donne/Vadner
Castignetti/Daniels
Stapleton/Marzario

Van der Bliek

Providence came into Friday’s game riding a five-game winning streak, including a 5-0 win over Clarkson and a 6-1 win over St. Lawrence – both games in which the Friars were thoroughly outshot by their opponents. The Friars have received solid goaltending from Genevieve Lacasse, who surrendered just five goals in the five games leading up to Friday’s tilt. The game marked the first time RPI and Providence met in women’s hockey , though the schools’ men’s programs have a history with each other – RPI having defeated Providence to win the 1985 national championship.

The early game was all Providence, who outshot the Engineers 11-4, and Abby Gauthier poked home a rebound to give Providence a 1-0 lead just past the midpoint of the period. The Friars had the benefit of four power plays in the period as well, but the Engineer penalty kill held strong and kept Providence from notching any additional goals.

Providence made a move to build on their first period momentum when Kate Bacon scored on a 2-on-1 just 44 seconds into the second period, but RPI made a stronger showing in the period, notching 10 shots to six for Providence, but goals eluded the Engineer offense and the score remained 2-0 entering the second intermission.

The third period saw RPI get its opportunity to capitalize as Jordan Smelker fed a wide open Alisa Harrison for an easy goal at 0:44 of the third, and just 59 seconds later, Toni Sanders was in the right place at the right time as the puck popped out of a scrum in front of the net onto her stick for an easy goal to tie the game at 1:47. Kristen Jakubowski was awarded an assist on the play, which marked her first career point – a well-deserved reward as Jakubowski’s play has been much improved this season. The teams traded penalties through the rest of regulation, but the game headed for overtime tied at two.

At 2:12 of the extra frame, Taylor Horton and Jill Vandegrift broke in on a 2-on-1 and Vandegrift fed the puck to Horton who shot it off Lacasse and into the back of the net, giving RPI the first win in the series between the Engineers and Friars.

Northeastern

Smelker/Vandegrift/Horton
Dunlop/Harrison/O’Keefe
Sanders/Padmore/Jakubowski
Letuligasenoa/Guillemette/Mankey

Le Donne/Vadner
Castignetti/Daniels
Stapleton/Marzario

Van der Bliek (1st/2nd periods)
Ramelot (3rd period)

When RPI took the ice in Boston on Sunday, it looked as though the Engineers had given all they had on Friday and had nothing left in the tank. To be fair, Northeastern is an extremely skilled and fast team, which contributed to this appearance, but the Engineers lacked the crisp passing and strong penalty killing that had helped them compete in their several previous games.

Northeastern picked up an early lead on a goal from Casey Pickett which hit van der Bliek’s pads and tricked over the goal line in seeming slow motion. The Huskies would extend the lead to 2-0 late in the period when Katie Daniels was whistled for body checking after standing up a Northeastern forward at the blue line. Rachel Llanes redirected a shot by Julia Marty between van der Bliek’s pads to notch the goal.

The second period looked better for the Engineers despite several penalties, however a blatant dive by a Northeastern skater late in the period drew an RPI penalty and led to a Northeastern goal just nine seconds into the ensuing power play, making the score 3-0 with just 13 seconds left in the period.

Katie MacSorley made it 4-0 for the Huskies at 6:45 of the third when Claire Santostefano fed a perfect pass from behind the net to MacSorely who had an easy tap-in for the goal. Taylor Horton broke Northeastern’s shutout bid at 11:30 as she fired a shot from the point which deflected off a Northeastern defender, but the Engineers couldn’t build any momentum off the goal. Julia Marty gave the Huskies their fifth goal at 19:55 and sent the Engineers back to Troy with a 5-1 loss in the record books.

RPI opens ECAC play next weekend on the road at SLU and Clarkson. Both teams are off to surprisingly tough starts, with the Saints going 1-4-1 and the Golden Knights going 1-6-1 in the opening stretch. Clarkson has had particular trouble finding offense, being shutout three times already this season, while SLU has lost several close games in the recent going. If RPI can regroup from a tough loss against Northeastern, they could face the North Country trip at a prime time to sneak some points from a pair of teams who more than likely are going to see things turn around before we get too deep into the ECAC schedule. Clarkson and SLU can be expected to come out firing though, looking to put the early non-conference games behind them and set things straight in the games that matter.

Neither game will be broadcast by WRPI next weekend, however SLU and Clarkson both have pay-per-view video available through America One (formerly B2). Without a Peer will tweet updates during the games, but at limited intervals as online live stats will allow.

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RPI at Providence
Non-Conference Game – Schneider Arena (Providence, RI)
10/22/10 – 7:00pm
RPI 3, Providence 2 (OT)

BOX SCORES:
RECAPS:
RECORD: 1-3-2 (0-0-0 ECAC)

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RPI at Northeastern
Non-Conference Game – Matthews Arena (Boston, MA)
10/24/10 – 1:00pm
Northeastern 5, RPI 1

BOX SCORES:
RECAPS:
RECORD: 1-4-2 (0-0-0 ECAC)

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Upcoming Games

Oct. 29 – at SLU (7pm)
Oct. 30 – at Clarkson (4pm)
Nov. 5 – Princeton (7pm)
Nov. 6 – Quinnipiac (4pm)
Nov. 12 – at Yale (7pm)
Nov. 13 – at Brown (4pm)

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WOMEN’S HOCKEY

The Engineers went 1-1-0 last week, defeating Providence (3-2 OT) before losing at Northeastern (5-1). Sophomore Taylor Horton (St. Thomas, ON) had a goal in each contest, including the game-winner over the Friars. Rensselaer is back on the ice this weekend as it opens its ECAC Hockey schedule at North Country rivals St. Lawrence and Clarkson on Friday (7pm) and Saturday (4pm), respectively. Both games can be seen via pay-per-view at http://www.b2tv.com/partner_members.asp?id=27.

Saturday, October 23, 2010

It's a Win-Win

What's that you say? You haven't seen any stupid photoshops yet and you're getting worried?

Well, have no fear.

Taylor Horton scored a clutch overtime goal for the Engineers in overtime, scoring the ladies' first win of the season in dramatic fashion with a 3-2 upset victory at Providence. Meanwhile, Brock Higgs really punched the accelerator for the Engineers, scoring the first goal of the game (and the first of his career) in the first period, then scoring the game winning goal in the second period to lead the men to a 4-1 victory over RIT. On top of that, his folks won the 50/50 raffle. Some guys have all the luck.


Friday, October 22, 2010

Tough Weekend, We Can't Deny

Think these Atlantic Hockey weekends are a joke? Think again. Atlantic Hockey is improving yearly. Tonight's opponent, RIT, beat Denver and New Hampshire last year in the NCAA tournament, not in some throwaway game. Niagara, the Saturday night opponent? RPI hasn't beaten them in the last four tries, going back to 1997, the first time the two teams met. Still, this is a weekend the Engineers need to sweep - or at the very least, continue to have consistently decent outings - if they're going to be contenders in the ECAC.

The women continue their grueling opening schedule, still in search of their first win. They start off against 5-1-0 Providence tonight - the Friars have already shredded Clarkson 5-0 this season, so... yeah, another tough one. Sunday afternoon brings 3-1-1 Northeastern, but the Huskies did need overtime to beat Union... time will tell.

In the meantime, it's time to get psyched up for another weekend of great hockey. Here's a cover version of the best song ever released on an album of the same name by a band of the same name. The covering band is metal outfit Five Finger Death Punch, who toured Iraq earlier this year, so this pumpup doubles as a salute to our armed forces as we get ready to exercise one of our fundamental rights in a week or so. But for now... it's three days of what should be some great, great hockey.

Thursday, October 21, 2010

While We Still Can...

The men are two weeks in and the women are three weeks in, so it's almost time to add the Ivy League to the mix. Dartmouth and Princeton have already hosted exhibitions this week, while Cornell hosts one tonight on the men's side. On the women's side, four of the Ivies (all but Dartmouth and Harvard) play their first non-conference games this weekend.

Later in the season, this kind of analysis will get kind of impossible, but early on, here's quick glance at how the ECAC teams are doing thus far, just to give you an idea of how things are shaping up early for the non-Ivies.

Men
Clarkson (2-2-0)
10/8: lost to Nebraska-Omaha 8-0
10/9: beat St. Cloud State 6-2
10/15: beat Bowling Green 4-0
10/16: lost to Bowling Green 3-0
This weekend: vs. Bentley (2)

Colgate (1-0-0)
10/9: beat Army 3-1
This weekend: at Lake Superior State (2)


Quinnipiac (2-1-0)
10/8: beat Ohio State 2-1
10/9: lost to Ohio State 4-0
10/15: beat Bentley 3-2
This weekend: vs. Holy Cross

St. Lawrence (0-2-2)
10/8: tied Minnesota State 5-5
10/9: tied Minnesota State 1-1
10/15: lost to Ferris State 4-2
10/16: lost to Ferris State 3-0
This weekend: vs. Western Michigan (2)

Union (3-1-0)
10/8: beat Sacred Heart 9-0
10/9: beat Sacred Heart 7-3
10/15: lost to Alaska 2-1
10/16: beat Alaska-Anchorage 4-3
This weekend: vs. Niagara, vs. RIT

Women
Clarkson (1-4-1)
10/1: lost to Minnesota, 5-0
10/2: lost to Minnesota, 3-0
10/9: lost to UConn, 3-1
10/10: lost to Providence, 5-0
10/15: tied St. Lawrence (non-conference), 1-1
10/16: beat St. Lawrence (non-conference), 3-2
This weekend: at New Hampshire, at Boston University

Colgate (2-2-0)
10/8: lost to Boston College, 4-0
10/9: beat New Hampshire, 1-0
10/15: beat UConn, 5-3
10/16: lost to Providence, 2-1
This weekend: vs. Wayne State (2)

Quinnipiac (5-1-0)
10/1: beat Niagara, 3-0
10/2: beat Niagara, 3-1
10/9: beat Northeastern, 4-0
10/10: beat Sacred Heart, 5-0
10/15: beat Maine, 4-2
10/16: lost to Maine, 4-2
This weekend: vs. Boston College

St. Lawrence (1-2-1)
10/9: lost to Providence, 6-1
10/10: beat UConn, 3-2
10/15: tied Clarkson (non-conference), 1-1
10/16: lost to Clarkson (non-conference), 3-2
This weekend: at Boston University, at New Hampshire

Union (1-3-0)
10/2: lost to Northeastern, 3-2
10/9: lost to Boston University, 6-2
10/15: beat Sacred Heart, 5-0
10/16: lost to New Hampshire, 4-1
This weekend: at Syracuse (2)

Brown: at Boston College
Cornell: vs. Robert Morris (2)
Princeton: at Northeastern, at Providence
Yale: at Vermont (2)

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Upcoming Podcast: Chris Lerch

Well, less than a week after saying we were going to settle into having podcasts every week on Wednesdays at 8pm... yeah, about that...

Wednesday at 8 will be the usual time for our broadcasts, but occasionally, things will come up in life (and sometimes, with our guests) that will require a little flexibility. So this week, we'll be broadcasting at 8pm on Thursday, October 21st instead.

Our guest this week is long-time RIT radio man Chris Lerch. For 15 years, Lerch has been broadcasting Tigers hockey on WITR-FM (89.7, Henrietta) and is an RIT alum himself, so he knows his stuff when it comes to talking about the Tigers. With RIT riding a wave of excitement following their Frozen Four appearance and a big night in front of a huge crowd at Blue Cross Arena last weekend, we'll ask him about their outlook and what to expect from the Tigers on Friday. Chris also covers Atlantic Hockey as a whole for USCHO.com, so we'll touch on issues in the conference, including Niagara (our opponent on Saturday) and Robert Morris entering the league and the early season expectations.

As always, we'll run down the highlights and lowlights of the past weekend for the Engineers and take a look around the nation as well.

Last week, we talked to WRPI's Tim Heiman and newly inducted RPI Athletic Hall of Fame member Cindy Acropolis. Check it out below.

Listen to internet radio with Without a Peer on Blog Talk Radio

Monday, October 18, 2010

Men's Hockey - at Northeastern, Bentley (15/16 Oct)

A week after a successful (if not materially successful) trip to Colorado, the RPI season rolled on with the only away/home weekend of the season with another interesting matchup in Boston before heading home for reunion weekend and an early evening game to kick off the Houston Field House schedule. It was a "three point weekend" for the Engineers, as they earned a tie for the second consecutive game against Northeastern, 2-2, before beating Bentley 3-0 on Saturday night.

Northeastern
Helfrich/Polacek/Lee
Angers-Goulet/Malchuk/Brutlag
Cullen/Higgs/O'Grady
Rabbani/Rogic/Burgdoerfer

Bergin/Foss
Koudys/Kennedy
Leboeuf/Bailen

York

The Northeastern Huskies came into the season with fairly high expectations in Hockey East, with the coaches of the league believing they can finish somewhere in the middle of the table as one of the best teams outside of the league's traditional "Big Four" of BC, BU, UNH, and Maine. Given the Engineers' similar aspirations (picked fifth in the ECAC), this promised to be a game of very evenly matched teams, and it played out that way for the most part.

Penalties were an issue for both teams in Colorado, and it was no different in this game, especially in the first period as the Engineers and Huskies both took 5 minor penalties in the first 20 minutes with three power plays each. RPI would score on their third chance on the man advantage, taking their first lead of the season as Bryan Brutlag scored from Tyler Helfrich and Nick Bailen on a two-man advantage that was brilliantly executed. But three minutes later, on a delayed penalty to Greg Burgdoerfer, Northeastern scored after an extended 6x5 opportunity to tie the score, and then went on the power play to boot thanks to the new rule requiring penalties to be assessed even after goals on delayed calls.

Northeastern came out firing in the second period, earning an even strength goal on a blast from the point by 6'7" behemoth Jamie Oleksiak to put the Huskies up 2-1. From there, penalties continued to rule the day. Burgdoerfer took his third penalty of the night less than a minute after the Husky goal, which would pretty much end his night as he didn't see the ice much after that. The chippiness started getting nasty shortly thereafter, as Northeastern's Zak Stone was issued five for a hit from behind and a game misconduct for a hit that left Alex Angers-Goulet prone on the ice for a few minutes. That long power play was mitigated shortly thereafter by a too many men call on RPI (served by Johnny Rogic who, along with Burgdoerfer, became scarce after the first period). A second penalty to NU a minute later eventually gave the Engineers a long 5x3 power play, but unlike their first period opportunity, they were unable to convert.

After a questionable "instigating" call on Brutlag (who apparently was managing to instigate from being flat on the ice, where he was put at the end of the play), the Engineers were the beneficiary of a questionable call on Northeastern, and they capitalized on the ensuing power play as Chase Polacek scored from a pretty extreme angle, almost on the goal line, for his first goal of the year to tie the game at two.

The referees looked as though they wanted to swallow the whistle in the 3rd period, but early on Northeastern's Randy Guzior made a dangerous play, checking Brutlag into the RPI bench from behind, and he earned the 2nd major penalty of the night for Northeastern. But as on the first major, the Engineers squandered the opportunity with penalties of their own, actually giving the Huskies a 4x3 power play after penalties to Marty O'Grady and Jeff Foss. All told, both teams were assessed a total of 13 penalties, although the Huskies ended up with far more in minutes thanks to the two majors. Neither team scored for the duration of the penalties, and after that, the whistles were put away.

The goaltenders put on a show in the third period, with Allen York making a total of 7 saves, while Northeastern's Chris Rawlings made 9 of his own. The Engineers got a late power play on a blatant hooking call, but it was evened up about a minute later with a tripping call against Helfrich. Neither team was able to break the deadlock, though RPI did manage 3 shots in the overtime period. Overall, an evenly played game marred by lots of penalties, but an even tie with neither team really having much to be disappointed with in the result.

Bentley
Lee/Polacek/Helfrich
Angers-Goulet/Malchuk/Brutlag
Rabbani/Higgs/O'Grady
Tinordi and Halpern

Koudys/Kennedy
Bergin/Foss
Leboeuf/Bailen
Dolan

York

The next night, Seth Appert came out with an interesting combination of 7 defensemen (the entirety of the RPI defensive corps) and 11 forwards, leaving Bo Dolan as an extra defenseman and only three centers - Polacek, Malchuk, and Higgs - dressed with Matt Tinordi seeing his first action as an Engineer. Rogic and Burgdoerfer, who did not see action in the second half against Northeastern, were in the stands, as was Patrick Cullen, who had not in three games been the force RPI partisans had hoped he would be.

Once again, it was penalties, penalties, penalties in the first period, especially for RPI. Four penalties gave Bentley two 5x3 chances of a minute or more, but the Engineers stood firm down two men. The Falcons were aggressive both on and off the power play, putting 8 shots on Allen York in the first period. The penalty killing necessitated a focus on defense in the first period, and the Engineers did not score on 7 shots.

A late penalty to Bentley in the first period carried over into the second, and on the fresh ice, it was Chase Polacek scoring his second of the weekend to put RPI on the board on the man advantage. The Engineers' penalties suddenly dried up for the remainder of the game, as they took only one penalty in both the 2nd and 3rd period, but now it was the Falcons' turn to take a slew of penalties. Tyler Helfrich converted on another opportunity midway through the 2nd period to make it 2-0, and after missing a wide-open net on Friday and again earlier in the game on Saturday, C.J. Lee finally got the proverbial monkey off his back, scoring early in the 3rd period for his first collegiate goal to make it 3-0.

Meanwhile, Allen York was lights out. Bentley fed him a steady diet of shots all game long, but the junior netminder was up to the task. 8 more shots in the 2nd period and 7 in the 3rd gave him a 23-save shutout, the third of his career. It was also the 20th victory of his career.

Bentley is a team that has potential to be outstanding within Atlantic Hockey in the near future, but they are young and were definitely a team RPI needed to beat. The Engineers are now 1-1-2 on the season. They executed well against the Falcons, getting a good combination of offense and defense, where they needed more offense in the first three games they played but were very much in those games thanks to their defense.

Next on the docket are RIT and Niagara, two teams both looking for their first wins of the season in a psuedo-travel partner weekend as both teams also face Union in Schenectady. These are also games the Engineers should win if they hope to make splashes in the ECAC this season, developing that finishing touch on offense while maintaining a solid defensive front. The combination, applied within the ECAC, would make them a very dangerous team to play.

Other junk - RPI gained votes in the weekly USCHO.com poll, earning 27, up from 13 last week, tying them with Ferris State for the unofficial #23 in the nation. Ranked ECAC teams this week are #5 Yale (no change, idle), #13 Cornell (down one, idle), and #18 Union (down two, lost to #14 Alaska and beat Alaska-Anchorage). Also ranked are #8 Boston University (up two) and #19 Colorado College (down one). Also receiving votes were Colgate (25), RIT (10), and Quinnipiac (2).

The RPI penalty kill has been incredibly effective, even despite its frequent use. That's obviously not something that they should be relying on as often as they have been, but it's good to know it's there. The Engineers are 27 for 29 on the penalty kill, a 93.1% rate that has them ranked 6th in the nation on the kill. Only Boston College (23/23, 100%) and Notre Dame (21/22, 95.5%) have a better kill percentage with 20 or more penalty kill opportunities, and only Michigan (26/30, 86.7%) has had more opportunities overall.

Of course, the Engineers have had plenty of power play chances too, and their combined 57 special teams chances in just four games is tops in the nation, only Maine and Wisconsin with 53 each also have more than 50.

Allen York has a shutout streak of 90:36 heading into this weekend's games, which goes back to 4:24 of the 2nd period in Boston. His 1.45 GAA is 8th in the nation, his .947 save percentage is 9th, and his 248:32 of time in net is more than any other goaltender thus far this season. He has been nothing short of superb for the Engineers in all four of their games thus far.

The Lee/Polacek/Helfrich combination has been pretty sensational - Polacek does what he does, but Lee and Helfrich are not squandering their opportunities playing with the team's star, as they are helping drive the Engineers' efforts on offense. Although the goals haven't been there for the most part, the Angers-Goulet/Malchuk/Brutlag combination is also showing signs of life. If they can start producing, that would go a long way toward being the "answer" to the Pirri and D'Amigo departures.

An interesting tidbit from Saturday night's game - former Engineer C.J. Hanafin '05 is now an ECAC linesman, and he worked the Bentley game in that capacity.

Four RPI home games will now be broadcast on Time Warner Cable in the Albany area, with two of them being picked up for broadcast across North America on the NHL Network. This Saturday's game against Niagara and the January 29 game against Yale will be available exclusively on TW3, while the December 11 game against BU and the February 12 game against Cornell will air on NHL Network. The latter two games will now start at 3:30pm to accommodate the NHL Network's schedule. Tim Heiman '10 and Kevin Broad '07 will be on the call for all four games.

RPI at Northeastern
Nonconference Game - Matthews Arena (Boston, MA)
10/15/10 - 7:00pm

RESULT: RPI 2, Northeastern 2

BOX SCORES
RECAPS

RECORD: 0-1-2 (0-0-0 ECAC)

Reale Deals
1. G Allen York, 26 saves
2. F Chase Polacek, 1 G
3. F Bryan Brutlag, 1 G

Bentley at RPI
Nonconference Game - Houston Field House (Troy, NY)
10/16/10 - 5:00pm

RESULT: RPI 3, Bentley 0

BOX SCORES
RECAPS

RECORD: 1-1-2 (0-0-0 ECAC)

Reale Deals
1. F Tyler Helfrich, 1 G, 2 A
2. G Allen York, SO, 23 saves
3. F Chase Polacek, 1 G, 2 A

Upcoming games
22 Oct - RIT
23 Oct - Niagara
30 Oct - vs. #18 Union (Lake Placid, NY)
05 Nov - at Dartmouth
06 Nov - at Harvard

Sunday, October 17, 2010

Women's Hockey - New Hampshire (15 Oct)

RPI had just a single game this weekend, as they played the New Hampshire Wildcats at Houson Field House on Friday night. A close game, which was tied at one, two, and three, saw UNH take the lead for the last time late in the third period. Despite a late RPI power play and extra attacker, New Hampshire held onto the one goal lead late in the game to leave Troy with a 4-3 victory.

New Hampshire

Smelker/Vandegrift/Harrison
Padmore/Dunlop/Horton
Sanders/Jakubowski/O’Keefe
Letuligasenoa/Guillemette /Mankey

Le Donne/Vadner
Castignetti/Marzario
Daniel/Stapleton

Van der Bliek

The first period started out in New Hampshire’s favor, as freshman Nicole Gifford put a puck past Sonja van der Bliek in the early going to give UNH a 1-0 lead just 4:25 into the game. The Engineers peppered the UNH net with shots, recording 11 in the frame to UNH’s six, but it wasn’t until the final two minutes of the period that RPI would find the back of the net. Jordan Smelker took a pass from Katie Daniels and snuck a shot over the glove of UNH netminder Kayley Herman to tie the game at one, at 18:27. Just 55 seconds later, Kendra Dunlop intercepted a UNH pass during a line change and skated in one-on-one, beating her defender and scoring at 19:22 to give the Engineers a lead heading into the locker room.

The momentum didn’t carry through the intermission for the Engineers, as Courtney Birchard lobbed a shot in from the far side of the faceoff dot which snuck past van der Bliek only 1:15 into the second period to tie the game at two. The second period saw UNH pick up the pace and put 11 shots of their own on goal, and one of those at the 10:25 mark beat van der Bliek to give the Wildcats their one goal lead back, 3-2. Jill Vandegrift tied the game once again for the Engineers five minutes later after taking a pass from Daniels and skating down the right side to send a shot past Herman to make it 3-3.

New Hampshire scored again near the midpoint of the third period to take a 4-3 lead, and that one would stand despite RPI’s late power play opportunity and extra attacker. The Engineers only managed three shots on goal during the 34-second 6-on-4 advantage and Herman stopped each to hang on for the win.

Smelker led the Engineers in shots on goal with six, while Vandegrift and Dunlop each finished with five. Total shots in the game ended up in a near dead heat, with RPI tallying 30 to UNH’s 29.

RPI hits the road next weekend for a pair of games against Hockey East opponents. The Engineers will face off against Providence at 7pm Friday at Schneider Arena before traveling to Boston’s Matthews Arena for a Sunday afternoon game against the Northeastern Huskies at 1pm. Providence should prove a difficult test for RPI, as the Friars have already defeated SLU (6-1), Clarkson (5-0), and Colgate (2-1) on the way to their current 5-1 record. Northeastern has had more mixed results thusfar, squeaking out a 3-2 overtime win over Union and losing 4-0 to Quinnipiac as part of their current 3-1-1 record.

Neither game will be carried on WRPI next weekend, however Providence will have subscription audio available while Northeastern will have streaming audio and subscription video available as well. I will be live tweeting updates from Matthews Arena for Sunday’s game on the Without a Peer twitter feed, http://www.twitter.com/without_a_peer.

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RPI vs. New Hampshire
Non-Conference Game – Houston Field House (Troy, NY)
10/15/10 – 7:00pm
UNH 4, RPI 3

BOX SCORES:

RECAPS:

RECORD: 0-3-2 (0-0-0 ECAC)

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Upcoming Games

Oct. 22 – at Providence (7pm)
Oct. 24 – at Northeastern (1pm)
Oct. 29 – at SLU (7pm)
Oct. 30 – at Clarkson (4pm)
Nov. 5 – Princeton (7pm)
Nov. 6 – Quinnipiac (4pm)

Saturday, October 16, 2010

Trial and Error

As both the men and the women continue to search for their first win of the season - and not for lack of trying - we're starting to see how some of our new toys here on the site are being used.

First, the good: listenership continues to rise for our weekly podcasts. Hearing you loud and clear on our internet radio show, you like the podcasts. Hopefully, we'll be able to continue to bring you commentary from interesting and relevant guests on a weekly basis, every Wednesday night (schedule permitting).

Now, the bad: we were rather excited about offering a free chatroom environment for RPI fans who couldn't make it out to the game, but after the first few showings, it's apparent that our excitement wasn't quite reflected by our readers. Maybe it's because they're all already at the game! But for whatever reason, our live chats during the games just haven't been used enough to justify spending our donors' funds on them. We want to make sure our fantastic donors are getting as much bang for their buck as they can.

But fret not! Our first moderated chat is right around the corner in just a couple of weeks. Who would you like to see as a guest for readers to submit questions to? Do you have any ideas for new innovations you'd like to see at WaP? Leave us a comment by clicking on the comment box below.

Friday, October 15, 2010

Northeastern/UNH In-Game Chat

Since the men's and women's games are going to be simultaneous, you can follow along with both of them right here at Without a Peer!


Homecoming

It's homecoming week at RPI, which means there'll be plenty of alumni in attendance, especially from classes ending in 0 or 5, since they have reunion this weekend. It's a great weekend of hockey on tap in Troy, as the women take on New Hampshire on Friday night while the men face Bentley on Saturday night.

For the men, there's also tonight's matchup at Northeastern. We'll have the chat interface up at 5 tonight, and it'll be Perry Laskaris and Tom Reale with the call on WRPI.

Don't forget that the Bentley game starts at 5pm, not the usual 7pm. If you show up at 7, the game's either going to be over or almost over, and then you're going to utter a string of expletives. No one wants to see that.

Pump it up.

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Upcoming Podcast: Cindy Acropolis, Tim Heiman

This is homecoming weekend at the Institute, and the annual induction ceremony for the RPI Athletic Hall of Fame is this Sunday. Among the inductees is Cindy (Acropolis) Toye of the class of 2000, who will become the second member of the Hall of Fame from the women's hockey program. Cindy will join us early in the podcast (tomorrow night at 8pm, as usual!) to discuss her induction and the evolution of women's hockey at RPI.

Long time RPI fans heard a familiar voice on the air last week in Colorado College - recent grad and regular play-by-play man Tim Heiman returned to the radio to call the Engineers' games in the Centennial State. We'll catch up with Tim and talk about the CC series he just saw, along with the upcoming weekend at Northeastern and the home opener against Bentley.

We'll also discuss the women's home series last weekend against Vermont and touch on the tough Friday night matchup with one of the usual powers of Hockey East in New Hampshire. The standard breakdown of last week's big games will also be on tap.

We had a snafu during our podcast last week - a messup here at the secret underwater lair that led us to not be able to hear our guest, Joe Paisley, of the Colorado Springs Gazette even though he was on the air. That snafu has been corrected and we look forward to a relatively error-free broadcast this week (we tried to get Joe for this week, but with CC heading to Alaska he's got a lot on his plate, unfortunately). Catch our podcast live on Wednesday, October 13 at 8pm by clicking "Listen to Without a Peer" in the upper right-hand corner of the site.

Our interview with Seth Appert went swimmingly, however, and the first half-hour of last week's broadcast went without a hitch. You can catch last week's broadcast on demand by pushing play on the player below.

Listen to internet radio with Without a Peer on Blog Talk Radio

Monday, October 11, 2010

Men's Hockey - at Colorado College (8/9 Oct)

There are varying levels of success in a given weekend. A team can sometimes escape a really bad weekend with four points, the points being a silver lining in an otherwise poor showing. Other times, a team can play very well and not come out with many points, the lack of points being a downside in an otherwise great weekend. For RPI's first weekend of the regular season, the latter situation applied, in this case occurring largely thanks to a few bad breaks and a few tough bounces. The Engineers went to Colorado for a weekend series with the Tigers of Colorado College, dropping the first game 2-1 before coming back to tie on Saturday, 2-2.

Friday
Angers-Goulet/Malchuk/Brutlag
Helfrich/Polacek/O'Grady
Cullen/Higgs/Lee
Halpern/Rogic/Burgdoerfer

Bergin/Foss
Leboeuf/Kennedy
Bailen/Dolan

York

The tone was set early on Friday as freshman Guy Leboeuf took a checking from behind penalty just 57 seconds into the game, the first of 20 minor penalties that would be called on the evening - that's one every three minutes. RPI escaped the first penalty kill, and had a long 5-on-3 chance shortly thereafter that went nowhere. Practically back-to-back penalty kills after penalties to Johnny Rogic and Joel Malchuk later in the period produced CC's first goal as first-round draft pick Jaden Schwartz notched his first career goal in his first period of college hockey play, beating Allen York to make it 1-0.

A CC penalty late in the first period led to RPI's first goal of the season, but not in the typical power play fashion. Nick Bailen unleashed a laser of a slapshot from just behind the blue line as the Engineers moved to assume the attacking zone, and the shot eluded Tiger goaltender Joe Howe, giving Bailen his first goal as an Engineer, unassisted, and making the score 1-1 heading into the second period.

The second period was marred by penalties - both teams had three power play opportunities while 11 penalties were called over the course of the 20 minutes. Most disappointing for the Engineers, a second long 5-on-3 opportunity arose midway through the period, but they simply could not finish, and the period ended 1-1. The goaltenders put on a show in the period, with Howe stopping 15 shots while York made 12 saves of his own.

The march to the penalty box resulted in a second CC goal midway through the third period. An early penalty to Malchuk and a later penalty to Bailen gave the Tigers the first two power play chances of the third period, and they delivered halfway through the Bailen penalty when Rylan Schwartz, Jaden's older brother, collected his first of a year by scoring on a rebound over York, who was still on the ice from the previous save.

The Engineers didn't quit, and they appeared to have tied the score after a flurry in front of Howe during a late power play opportunity. The goal was disallowed on the ice and the decision held up after a review - the referee ruling that the whistle had been intended to have blown before the puck ended up in the net. RPI wouldn't get another one past Howe, struggling to maintain control of the puck with York pulled late in the game. They wouldn't give up the empty netter, but fell 2-1 regardless.

All in all, it wasn't a bad game for RPI. They outshot the home team 31-27, got a great game out of Allen York, and was pretty tight defensively for the most part, not giving up too many good scoring chances at even strength and successfully taking care of 6 of 8 penalty kills on the night. The high number of penalties was a problem, but it was a problem for both teams. To be fair to the referees, there weren't a great number of questionable calls on Friday night.

Saturday
Angers-Goulet/Malchuk/Brutlag
Helfrich/Polacek/O'Grady
Cullen/Higgs/Lee
Rabbani/Rogic/Burgdoerfer

Koudys/Kennedy
Bergin/Foss
Bailen/Dolan

York

As opposed to Friday night's game, Saturday night started off as an unmitigated disaster for the Engineers, as the first 20 minutes were utterly dominated by Colorado College. While York was peppered with 13 shots in the first period, RPI managed only a single shot on goal against Joe Howe. The defense held for the first half of the period, but the floodgates opened when Rylan Schwartz notched his second goal of the weekend at 11:40, and the Tigers would score again on a good bounce their way just over a minute later to make it 2-0.

RPI, meanwhile, looked helpless. Down two goals, they had three terrible power play showings, two late in the first and one right at the beginning of the second period. After the conclusion of that third power play, the Engineers still had only one shot for the entire game to that point.

The penalties started popping back up after the third power play failure. During the second, RPI would hand Colorado College five consecutive power play chances in the middle stanza, including a long 5-on-3 chance late in the period. Fortunately, the penalty kill stood up to the heavy scrutiny, keeping the Engineers in the game when they needed it most. Offensively, RPI improved to 6 shots in the second period, but it still looked like a tall task to come back, still down 2-0 after two periods. York was the backbone, rebounding from a couple of tough breaks in the first to finish the first 40 minutes with 21 saves.

RPI came out for the sixth period of the weekend on the big ice at high altitude as the more aggressive of the teams, something the Tigers surely aren't used to dealing with, which really displays the Engineers' outstanding conditioning. The aggressiveness paid off early in the period, when RPI, finally given a fourth chance on the power play, converted to get on the board as Tyler Helfrich, who had been a nuisance for the Tigers all weekend long, made the break through to bring the Engineers within a goal with most of the third period left to play.

Then, it was CC's turn to march to the penalty box. The Tigers took three consecutive penalties during the middle part of the third, and the Engineers hungrily searched for the tying goal, putting up good showings on all three advantages, but finding Howe a tough nut to crack, as the CC sophomore stood on his head during the penalty kills to keep his team on top.

It was another long shot that would elude Howe to tie things up late in the period. Very similar to Bailen's blast the previous night, Mike Bergin uncorked a big shot from just outside the blue line that found the back of the net, knotting the game at two despite all of the rough patches the Engineers endured through the first two periods.

Hungry to take the lead, RPI maintained pressure. A few minutes later, C.J. Lee, who had a great night offensively for the Engineers, got a mini breakaway on Howe but could not pull the trigger, and after being hauled down, he picked up a retaliatory roughing call that gave CC the opportunity to have a late power play. The Engineers bent during the ensuing penalty kill, but did not break, and the game went into overtime.

After some dominant play from CC early in the extra period, the Engineers got a two-on-one break the other way that ended with a pass to Chase Polacek. Despite an open net, Polacek couldn't corral the pass, having to switch to his backhand instead of blasting it into the net. He instead moved behind the net and lost the puck, where he was blasted into the boards. Much like Lee's penalty, Polacek swung at the player that had put him on the ice, earning himself a foolish roughing call with two minutes left that had RPI playing for the tie instead of the win. The penalty kill, as it had been all night, held up late, and the game ended in a 2-2 tie. RPI was 7-for-7 on the penalty kill on Saturday, and 13-for-15 on the weekend.

Other junk - The Engineers still managed to earn 13 votes in this week's USCHO.com poll despite the "one-point" weekend in Colorado. The Tigers, for their part, moved up two positions to #18. Among ECAC teams, the idle Ivies had some movement due to the misfortunes of teams around them - St. Cloud State's upset loss to Clarkson saw the Huskies move down considerably, boosting Yale up one to #5. Meanwhile, BU's title win in the Icebreaker had them moving up to #10, dropping Cornell down one to #12. Union's near-total home white-washing of Sacred Heart earned them a three-slot raise to #16. Other teams on the RPI schedule this year earning votes were RIT (37, dropped out after losing to St. Cloud State and Nebraska-Omaha), Colgate (21, beat Army), St. Lawrence (3, tied Minnesota State twice) and Quinnipiac (2, split with Ohio State).

Notably, in three games (one being the UNB exhibition), three of RPI's four goals have been scored by defensemen - two by Mike Bergin and one by Nick Bailen.

Next up for RPI is an away/home weekend, starting off in Boston against Northeastern and finishing up at home against Bentley. The Huskies were 0-2 last weekend, losing to Hockey East cellar-dwellers Providence before dropping a 2-0 decision at home to #1 Boston College. So in that sense, both teams on Friday will be playing easier competition than their last game. Bentley does not begin play until next weekend and will be entering the Field House after a game at Quinnipiac.

RPI at #20 Colorado College
Nonconference Game - World Arena (Colorado Springs, CO)
10/8/10 - 9:30pm

RESULT: Colorado College 2, RPI 1

BOX SCORES
RECAPS

RECORD: 0-1-0 (0-0-0 ECAC)

Reale Deals
1. D Nick Bailen, 1 G
2. G Allen York, 25 saves
3. F Bryan Brutlag, 5 shots


RPI at #20 Colorado College
Nonconference Game - World Arena (Colorado Springs, CO)
10/9/10 - 9:00pm

RESULT: RPI 2, Colorado College 2

BOX SCORES
RECAPS
RECORD: 0-1-1 (0-0-0 ECAC)

Reale Deals
1. G Allen York, 34 saves
2. F Tyler Helfrich, 1 G
3. D Mike Bergin, 1 G

Upcoming games
15 Oct - at Northeastern
16 Oct - Bentley
22 Oct - RIT
23 Oct - Niagara
30 Oct - vs. #16 Union (Lake Placid, NY)

Sunday, October 10, 2010

Women's Hockey - Vermont (8/9 Oct)

The Engineers returned to the familiar confines of Houston Field House this weekend for a pair of games against the Catamounts of the University of Vermont. The series marked the first time the teams have played since January 2006 (in RPI’s first Division I season), a game which UVM won 4-3. This weekend, despite outplaying UVM much of the time, penalty troubles and defensive lapses forced the Engineers to walk away with a pair of ties, 3-3 on Friday and 1-1 on Saturday.

Friday

Padmore/Dunlop/Horton
Smelker/Vandegrift/Harrison
Sanders/Jakubowski/O’Keefe
Letuligasenoa/Guillemette/Mankey/Stapleton

Castignetti/Marzario
Le Donne/Daniels
Vadner

Van der Bliek

The Engineers got off to a strong start on Friday, controlling play through most of the early game, however it was Vermont who would strike first, taking a 1-0 lead as a defensive lapse allowed Teddy Fortin to break in on Sonja van der Bliek and put the puck in the back of the net. The lead didn’t stand for long as a body checking call on UVM’s Kelly Dineen gave RPI the chance it needed for the equalizer, and Kendra Dunlop forced home a rebound to knot the score at one at 14:27 of the first.

It looked like the score would stand through the end of the period, with the teams playing a lot of back and forth hockey without great chances either way, but another defensive breakdown let UVM’s Celeste Doucet in all alone against van der Bliek, and just like that UVM took a 2-1 advantage into the locker room.

Three straight Vermont penalties in the early second period gave RPI the chance to knot the score, but the Engineers couldn’t find the tying goal despite holding a 13-6 shot advantage in the frame. Instead, it was UVM who found the net again, opening up a 3-1 lead on a controversial goal. Breanne Sundquist sent a shot in on net which looked to roll along the crossbar and back out without entering the net. The goal judge and fans believed the puck never went in, however the referee ruled it a goal and the Catamounts took a 3-1 lead into the third period.

Jill Vandegrift gave the Engineers just the spark they needed in the third period, firing a slapshot past goalie Roxanne Douville from the faceoff dot just 12 seconds into the frame to close the gap to 3-2. A hooking call against UVM’s Kailey Nash at 6:21 handed RPI a chance to tie the game, and they made short work of it. Just eight seconds after the ensuing faceoff, Katie Daniels fired a rocket slapshot from the point which beat Douville to tie the game at three. A period of back-and-forth penalties gave both teams chances to take the lead – the Engineers pressured UVM relentlessly but couldn’t get the game winner through the rest of the third or the five-minute overtime. Shots on goal in the game were a lopsided 39-20 in favor of RPI, with a couple of defensive lapses costing the Engineers what could otherwise have been a solid home win.

Saturday

Padmore/Dunlop/Horton
Smelker/Vandegrift/Harrison
Sanders/Jakubowski/O’Keefe
Letuligasenoa/Guillemette/Stapleton/Mankey

Le Donne/Daniels
Castignetti/Marzario
Vadner

Ramelot

If possible for there to be a more lopsided tie game than happened Friday, Saturday saw the Engineers have an even stronger advantage throughout the game, while still skating away with the same end result. The Engineers piled on a whopping 41 shots on goal to UVM’s 19, but the Engineers got in penalty trouble to allow Vermont its only goal. Laura Guillemette was sent off for tripping late in the first period, and Celeste Doucet scored her second goal of the weekend to give the Catamounts a 1-0 lead at 16:36.

With RPI holding an advantage through much of the second period, UVM coach Tim Bothwell called his timeout with 3:37 left in the second after an icing call, to regroup and give his players a rest as they were not allowed to change on the icing. The timeout did not have the intended effect, as RPI controlled play for the next 30 seconds after the ensuing faceoff before Vadner took a slapshot from the point and Jordan Smelker smacked home the rebound to tie the score at one.

Vermont appeared to take the lead around the midpoint of the third period as the puck rolled, in seeming slow-motion, past Shannon Ramelot into the RPI net. Ramelot immediately jumped up and started shaking her glove at the officials, Coach Burke called them over for discussion, and after the officials conferred with one another the goal was ruled to have gone in the net off a Vermont player’s hand, and was thus waved off.

RPI had chances on the power play late in the third period as well as with a minute left in overtime, but once again they could not put the puck home, and the game went in the books as a 1-1 tie. All in all it had to be a disappointing weekend for RPI, who played well enough to win both games but simply couldn’t bury enough chances to pull out the wins. Jordan Smelker had another good weekend with a strong physical presence and Saturday’s only RPI goal, while Kristen Jakubowski, who spent most of last season filling in for other players, has started to come into her own light making several very good plays over the course of the weekend. Jill Vandegrift was also very noticeable against Vermont, creating space and scoring opportunities for herself, even when outnumbered by two or three Vermont defenders. As a whole, there were a lot of positives to be taken from the weekend’s games; if RPI can find the back of the net with some more of their shots, things should get a lot easier for them.

RPI hosts #8 New Hampshire on Friday night at 7pm in their only game on the weekend. The game will not be carried on WRPI as the men will be playing at Northeastern, but live video should be available via the RPI Athletics website.

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RPI vs. Vermont
Non-Conference Game – Houston Field House (Troy, NY)
10/8/10 – 7:00pm
RPI 3, UVM 3 (OT)

BOX SCORES:
RECAPS:
RECORD: 0-2-1 (0-0-0 ECAC)

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RPI vs. Vermont
Non-Conference Game – Houston Field House (Troy, NY)
10/9/10 – 4:00pm
RPI 1, UVM 1 (OT)

BOX SCORES:
RECAPS:

RECORD: 0-2-2 (0-0-0 ECAC)

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Upcoming Games

Oct. 15 – New Hampshire (7pm)
Oct. 22 – at Providence (7pm)
Oct. 24 – at Northeastern (1pm)
Oct. 29 – at SLU (7pm)
Oct. 30 – at Clarkson (4pm)