Wednesday, November 30, 2011

ECAC Power Rankings: November

OK, now that every team in the league has at least a month under their belts, it's time for the monthly power rankings, sponsored by... nobody.

The early season rankings take a team's entire body of work into account, not just ECAC games - so just because Cornell is in first in league standings doesn't necessarily mean they're first in the power rankings. These are generally weighted toward more recent results, meaning how the team fared in November is more important right now than how they did in October.

1. Cornell - They didn't have to be number one, but here they are. There's no other team in the league that has been not only consistently in every game they play, but for the most part winning all of those games quite like the Big Red. Only three losses on the year, each by just one goal. The offense has done enough by and large when the defense has struggled, and vice versa (evidenced by three straight shutouts before the loss to BU). That's a recipe for success.

2. Union - If not for one awful home weekend against Brown and Yale, the Dutchmen are probably tops here, especially given their road romp over Michigan last weekend that turned more than a few heads (although the Wolverines are in freefall right now). They pretty clearly have answered the questions they had in net and behind the bench from last season, and the offense hasn't missed much of a beat. This is a team ready to compete for ECAC hardware once again.

3. Colgate - While they've had a few bumps along the way, the Raiders have at least been fairly consistently in the win column all season. The offensive problems Colgate had last season have basically evaporated thanks to Austin Smith and Chris Wagner's breakout performances over the last two months, and the Raiders have bounced back from every single loss this season with a win in their next game. Currently, they're sporting a three-game winning streak with four wins in their last five, allowing just three goals in those wins.

4. Yale - I'm sorry, but if you claim to be one of the best programs in the country, allowing 7 goals against an 0-11-0 team (Sacred Heart) and then losing to boot is not something that's going to bolster that claim in the slightest. Easily the worst loss of the season for the ECAC in its entirety, and that's saying something. That one loss was enough to move them from contention from first or second down to here, but without it Yale has actually done very well thus far, to include a streak of slick goaltending with three straight shutouts. The Bulldogs are still a dangerous team.


5. St. Lawrence - The Saints have bounced back well from one of the worst starts you could imagine (including a 10-3 drubbing at Michigan) to pick up a whole bunch of league points with five wins in their last seven games. That's a serious turnaround from the 0-5 start, but it was a brutal early season schedule - two games against Ferris State (remember them?), at Michigan, at RIT in front of 10,000 fans, and then hosting Union. That's not to say that SLU has necessarily been overwhelming in the last seven, but they've at least found the winning edge.


6. Harvard - The Crimson have been pretty solid of late, a one-goal loss to St. Lawrence the team's only major blemish in the last five games (3-1-1). They have just two more games before going on break, and then comes the opportunity to truly prove themselves with two big non-conference games at the end of December at North Dakota. If they can stay consistent, they can be a threat, but Harvard's biggest problem right now is defense - they don't have much, and their offense may not have the chops to bail the team out with the same level of regularity in the future.


7. Quinnipiac - That the Bobcats are still ranked this high after the troubles they've had recently underscores just how much the bottom half of the ECAC is hurting right now, and how relatively close many of them are. A big pick-me up win at UMass last weekend brought a six-game winless streak to a halt and represented the first time in five games Quinnipiac had scored more than one goal (including a pair of shutouts). So why are they ranked this high? In October, much as they did two years ago, the Bobcats were practically unstoppable, both offensively and defensively. If we'd done an October power ranking, they'd have had a fair shot at number one.


8. Dartmouth - Now that the RPI power play is beginning to find life, attention is starting to focus within the league on just how terrible the Big Green are at scoring on the man advantage - truth be told, it's pretty much always been worse than RPI's, if only because it took them a very long time to notch their first power play goal of the season - they are almost dead last nationally on the power play and it's starting to take its toll. Dartmouth has just one win in their last six games, many of which they probably could have done better in with power play tallies, but the defense has been rough, too.


9. Clarkson - Man, the Golden Knights would be wasting the competition in Atlantic Hockey if that's where they called home. They're 6-0-1 against the conference. Outside? 2-5-2, their only wins coming against floundering Dartmouth and RPI. It's been that kind of night and day for Clarkson thus far. The defense has been relatively inconsistent, but the bigger problem is that outside of playing Atlantic Hockey teams, the offense and the defense just aren't always covering each other when one has a bad night. That's a sure setup for inconsistency, and that's what we've seen.


10. Princeton - Do the Tigers miss Guy Gadowsky? Probably. But they miss consistent goaltending and offense the most. It's Sean Bonar's team this year, and his numbers are down from last year's showing while in platoon with Mike Condon. That by itself probably wouldn't be that bad, except that there hasn't been an awful lot of growth when it comes to scoring, either. Like many other teams in the back end of the conference, Princeton has occasionally found goals very hard to come by, which tends to require the defense to be turning cartwheels to overcome and more often than not, it just isn't the case.


11. RPI - I was very tempted to put RPI last (where they are in the league standings), but some of Brown's more recent games make that really questionable. Let's be blatantly honest here. The Engineers, by the end of the season, may well have some of the most solid all around defensive numbers in the league. But the offense has been remarkably  bad on an epic level, and although most of their games have been low scoring, they still haven't been on the positive side of most of them.


12. Brown - While RPI at least is showing some signs of their offensive funk ending, Bruno is right smack in the middle of theirs - and displaying it against some pretty weak competition. RPI may have had their offensive woes going longer, but the Bears have back-to-back shutouts at the hands of American International and Holy Cross. Yeah. That's AIC's first shutout of a non-conference opponent since they returned to Division I in 1998 - and they played D-III teams early on.

Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Hockey East Watch: November Update

There hasn't been an awful lot to report on the Hockey East front since the league has been focusing on, well, playing hockey, but there have at least been additional rumblings since the beginning of the season that are worth reflecting on.

We first touched on most of these schools during Tsunami Watch, here. We'll try not to rehash what we said back in September.

And, for what it's worth, we've endorsed the concept of RPI moving to Hockey East, which you can read here.

Here's the score.

RPI: The school still hasn't said publicly that it's interested in Hockey East, but it's generally known that the Engineers have at least been inquiring behind the scenes and that there have been discussions within the Hockey East ranks about RPI. There's really not much more to talk about on this level until something moves (as engineers, that probably calls for a healthy dose of WD-40), but it is important to note the early success this season of Merrimack, the #1 team in the country. They're proving, at least for the time being, that it is possible to be successful in Hockey East even from outside of the big guns.

UConn: From practically every perspective of what tends to be important in college sports, UConn is still the school that makes the most sense for Hockey East. Given the school's size and importance in the broader spectrum, as well as being the most marketable name of any of the contenders, UConn would be the best fit if only the practical concerns were not so heavily in the way. According to the Eagle Tribune's Mike McMahon, the school has at least let Atlantic Hockey know that it is exploring the option of a Hockey East move, which could potentially be the first signal that the school is looking to upgrade its program. If it does, there's not an awful lot of discussion to be had here - presuming the school builds a new facility and starts offering scholarships (with the required Title IX offsets elsewhere), UConn would be the 12th school. The question now as the school undoubtedly begins the process of deciding whether it is worthwhile for them to outlay all that money is whether it's something they want from an institutional perspective. You may have read in the news that UConn may be looking to bolt the Big East - hockey might not exactly be in the foreground.

Holy Cross: The big news on the Crusaders' front is that the city of Worcester is keen on Holy Cross moving into Hockey East from a economic standpoint - 11 games a year bringing fans from around New England into the city for hockey. The city council, led by a Holy Cross hockey alum who sits on the council, is pushing for the 12,239-seat DCU Center (formerly the Spectrum) to be a home venue for the Crusaders, though that can be lowered to 7,230 with the Times Union Center-like curtain system they have. For their part, the school has done the same as UConn, according to McMahon, in alerting Atlantic Hockey that they are exploring the Hockey East option. It's worth mentioning that on our podcast last week, RIT's Chris Lerch mentioned that RIT and Holy Cross are both looking to move their D-III women's programs into Division I in the near future, so that could indicate some budding interest in the sport at Holy Cross. Just 40 miles from Boston, the school probably fits better into the league's wheel well than any other possible candidate, but whether the Crusaders are a good fit for Hockey East from a competition standpoint remains to be seen.

Quinnipiac: Nothing new to report on Quinnipiac really, either, but the rise of interest out of UConn and Holy Cross combined with the positives that RPI has going for it as a potential target in the first place (not to mention the Tute's already existing buzz) tends to lead one to believe that the Bobcats might be falling back in the likelihood category. They've still got the shiny new arena as its best selling point.

Syracuse: The "new program" option that recurs most frequently is one of two schools that has D-I women's hockey but not men's hockey (the other being Lindenwood - the teams coincidentally meeting this coming weekend). The assumption is always made that Syracuse, as a big name school in football, basketball and lacrosse, has a giant athletic department. Nope. Seven men's sports (two being cross-country and track) and 11 women's sports (again, including XC and track). That's it. Why the low number? Because those big time sports eat up most of the budget. Why the disparity? Title IX. Syracuse had to cut men's and women's swimming and diving in order to start the women's hockey program and come into compliance with Title IX. Throw in a likely increased travel budget with the school moving to the ACC in the near future and there's really no room for men's hockey.

Cornell and Harvard: The rumors just won't die about either of these Ivy League schools, but it's worth saying again - there's nothing to them. At all. The Ivies play together in every sport they participate in, and they're not breaking apart here, either. As we've said before, there's a better chance that the Ivies leave the ECAC to maintain their own conference than any of them joining Hockey East on their own (and Hockey East isn't taking on six new teams). That's actually an increased argument for RPI leaving - it's a sword of Damocles that has hung over the ECAC for decades.

Nobody: The possibility that Hockey East could be content to sit at 11 teams indefinitely has also been advanced over the last couple of months. Commissioner Joe Bertagna has been adamant at press conferences that the league won't bring on just anyone for the sake of reaching 12 teams, even though it's obvious the league would function better with 12 than 11. Still, if there's any shot at bringing a revamped UConn program aboard, there's little doubt the league would be willing to wait a year, or even a few years, operating with 11 than bring RPI, Holy Cross, or someone else on board to suddenly have UConn have a change of heart. They probably won't take this route unless they think something is in the cards for the Huskies in the near future. Otherwise, they do have decent options.

Monday, November 28, 2011

Men's Hockey - at RIT (25 Nov)

Ten days after a serious kick in the crotch at home against Union, RPI was afforded the opportunity to turn things around on the road in a non-conference game - not quite the same kind of bang that you'd get out of a  home league contest, but a lower-pressure situation to be sure. With a little creative changing to the lines, Seth Appert and the Engineers emerged winners from their first ever trip to RIT as freshman Scott Diebold picked up his first career win and shutout, 2-0.

RIT
Angers-Goulet/Rogic/Malchuk
Higgs/Laliberte/Haggerty
Lee/O'Grady/Schroeder
Tinordi/McGowan/Rabbani

Leonard/Bergin
Koudys/Bailen
Curadi/Dolan

Diebold

With Matt Neal still out with an ankle injury which now may see him sidelined through Christmas, RPI was dealt another blow on the injury front as Patrick Cullen sustained an injury against Union that kept him from making the trip to Rochester.

The only line to remain intact from the Union debacle was the line of Alex Angers-Goulet, Johnny Rogic, and Joel Malchuk. Brock Higgs was moved onto Jacob Laliberte's wing and paired with top forward scorer Ryan Haggerty, while Mark McGowan returned to the lineup in relief of Cullen. Also, Guy Leboeuf did not make an appearance, with Luke Curadi suiting up in his stead.

The Engineers got things going quickly, generating a number of good chances during the first 20 minutes and forcing RIT's Shane Madalora to make 9 stops in the opening period. The only power play of the period went to RIT as Mike Bergin was called for what would be the first of three minor penalties on the night, but the RPI penalty kill stopped the chance without too much hassle.

The game's turning point arrived just 28 seconds into the second period, as RIT's Brad McGowan was given a five-minute major and a game misconduct for a borderline call of hitting Bergin from behind. That gave the Engineers their first - and ultimately, only - power play opportunity of the night, but they definitely made it count.

A little under a minute into the major, Nick Bailen took a shot off a pass from Jacob Laliberte that was well screened in front by Josh Rabbani. The big senior forward got right in Madalora's line of sight and then further distracted by leaping over Bailen's shot, which found the back of the net to put RPI up 1-0 on the junior defenseman's third goal of the year.

1:10 later, while still on the major power play, the Engineers struck again, this time with Ryan Haggerty notching his third of the campaign on a nicely timed alley-oop pass from Brock Higgs. The sophomore, who usually suits up at center, pushed a pass laterally through the slot that Haggerty found and immediately one-timed into the back of the net on a play that RPI has tried in practically every game, but as part of their difficulties finishing had generally been unable to convert.

That would do it for the scoring on the five minute advantage, and for much of the remainder of the period, it was penalty kill time for the Engineers. Bergin picked up practically back-to-back calls midway through the period to keep RPI down a man, and calls against Curadi for boarding and Curtis Leonard for cross-checking rounded out the second period. Diebold was called upon to make 11 saves in the middle frame, giving him 16 on 16 shots for the first 40 minutes.

RIT picked things up a little in the third, doing well on Leonard's penalty - the majority of which was held over into the period - and on Joel Malchuk's hooking call four and a half minutes in. During the last 20 minutes, RIT hit a pair of posts, but were unable to get any closer to beating Diebold, who finished with 25 saves in the shutout.

RPI also unleashed some good offense in the third, as they did throughout the game. Madalora finished with 28 shots, and several times in the third period the Engineers came close to increasing their lead. That bodes well for the team going forward as they continue to try to shake their offensive funk which, as we will note shortly, still has some important kinks to work out.

Other junk - Union's stunning destruction of Michigan at Yost Arena boosted the Dutchmen into the national top 10 this week, they pace the ECAC as the 9th ranked team (up four). Also ranked in the ECAC are #14 Yale (lost to Sacred Heart and Boston College, down six), #15 Colgate (beat Vermont, up one) and #17 Cornell (lost to BU, no change). #2 Notre Dame (split with Lake Superior, no change), #6 Ferris State (idle, up one) and #8 Colorado College (swept by North Dakota, down four) are also ranked. Receiving votes were UMass-Lowell (17), Clarkson (5), and Harvard (1).

RPI has gone 440:04 without scoring an even strength goal - that came on Patrick Cullen's first goal of the year, scored 10 seconds after a Colorado College goal in the first meeting between the two sides. That's 4 seconds more than 22 consecutive periods. No, you aren't reading that wrong.

In all but one RPI game this year - the 5-2 loss to Notre Dame - one team or the other (or both) have scored either 1 or 0 goals in the game. Frequently, that's been RPI, but across the Engineers' three wins, they've given up just one goal, underscoring the importance of defense on this team.

Slowly improving, the RPI power play is now up to 10.4% on the season, technically going 2-for-3 on the advantage against RIT. A 6-for-6 night on the penalty kill increased the Engineers' PK rating to 87.5%, 12th best in the country.

One final league weekend of the first semester is on tap for RPI next weekend as they travel to Princeton and Quinnipiac, and we'll find out there if the offensive improvements seen at RIT will be able to carry forward into the rest of the season.

ECAC Standings
1. Cornell - 10 pts (5-1-0)
2. Colgate - 8 pts (4-2-0, +7 GD)
3. St. Lawrence - 8 pts (4-2-0, +1 GD)
4. Dartmouth - 7 pts (3-3-1)
5. Yale - 6 pts (3-1-0)
6. Union - 6 pts (3-2-0)
7. Harvard - 6 pts (2-3-2, -1 GD)
8. Clarkson - 5 pts (2-3-1, +1 GD)
9. Brown - 4 pts (2-2-0)
10. Princeton - 4 pts (2-5-0)
11. Quinnipiac - 4 pts (1-4-2)
12. RPI - 2 pts (1-4-0)


RPI at RIT
Non-Conference Game - Frank Ritter Memorial Ice Arena (Henrietta, NY)
11/25/11 - 7:00pm


RESULT: RPI 2, RIT 0


BOX SCORES
College Hockey Stats
USCHO

RECAPS

RECORD: 3-10-0 (1-4-0 ECAC, 2 pts)

Upcoming games
02 Dec - at Princeton
03 Dec - at Quinnipiac
10 Dec - vs. #9 Union (Lake Placid, NY)
29 Dec - vs. UMass-Lowell (Storrs, CT)
30 Dec - vs. Army OR at UConn (Storrs, CT)

Sunday, November 27, 2011

Women's Hockey - Syracuse (25/26 Nov)

RPI closed out the year's nonconference schedule this weekend with a pair of games at home against Syracuse. Last week, we noted RPI's need to carry the level of intensity and quality of play shown against Wisconsin into their other games. It didn't show consistently on Friday as Syracuse skated to a 4-3 victory, but after a slow start Saturday, the Engineers picked up play and finished strong for a 2-1 victory over the Orange.

Friday

Smelker/Cox/Horton
Mahoney/Harrison/Vandegrift
Sanders/Guillemette/Svoboda
Letuligasenoa

Castignetti/Vadner
Le Donne/Schilter
Marzario

O'Brien/Piper

A furious comeback attempt by the Engineers in the game's final minutes and a 31-16 advantage in shots weren't enough to overcome a 3-goal second period from Syracuse as RPI fell 4-3 at Houston Field House on Friday.

The Engineers opened the scoring at 13:24 of the opening period when Jill Vandegrift took a pass from Kathryn Schilter, put a shot on Orange netminder Jenesica Drinkwater, and collected her own rebound for the goal.

A 1-0 first intermission lead quickly evaporated as the second period drew on, with Syracuse breaking out with three goals on just six shots. Holly Carrie-Mattimoe opened the scoring for the Orange with a goal on a quick cross-ice pass from Caitlin Roach. Julie Knerr gave Syracuse the lead at 10:46 when she snuck a shot past Kelly O'Brien despite heavy pressure from the RPI defense.

Megan Skelly made it a 3-1 game at 15:47 of the period when she picked up her own rebound and was left alone to skate it around the back of the Engineers' net for a wraparound goal as O'Brien scrambled to get back in position from the initial save.

O'Brien would be relieved by Brianna Piper near the midpoint of the third period when Syracuse extended their lead to 4-1. A slapshot from Kaillie Goodnough found its way through traffic from the point to beat O'Brien, making it a difficult shot to see.

RPI elected to pull Piper early in an attempt to dig out of the 3-goal hole, and the move paid off at 15:51 when Jordan Smelker buried a rebound with the extra attacker on to cut the Orange lead to 4-2.

The Engineers cut the lead to one with 1:13 remaining with a 6-on-4 power play, extra attacker goal by Andie Le Donne. Le Donne pinched in to fire a rocket slapshot on a rebound opportunity past Drinkwater to make it 4-3.

RPI was able to play the game's final minute with the extra attacker but could not come up with the equalizer, and the 4-1 hole early in the third was just a little too much to overcome so late in the game.

Saturday

Mahoney/Harrison/Vandegrift
Smelker/Cox/Horton
Sanders/Guillemette/Svoboda
Letuligasenoa

Castignetti/Vadner
Le Donne/Schilter
Marzario

Piper

A slow start didn't hold the Engineers back on Saturday as they jumped out to a 2-0 lead early in the second period and held on to take a 2-1 victory and a split on the weekend.

After a very subdued first period which saw only five shots by each team, the Engineers had spent a lot of time on their heels (and on the penalty kill), although Syracuse could not generate any significant offense despite holding the edge in play early on.

RPI came out of the gate flying in the second period, however, and the Engineers got themselves on the scoreboard just 49 seconds into the middle frame. Breaking in 2-on-1, Eleeza Cox slid a perfect pass cross-ice to Jordan Smelker, who fired a laser past Drinkwater for the 1-0 lead.

Alisa Harrison made the lead 2-0 at 6:15 of the second, after Taylor Mahoney skated in against two defenders and put a shot on net. Jill Vandegrift had a look at the first rebound but couldn't put it home, and Harrison capitalized on another rebound chance as Drinkwater was unable to get the puck covered fast enough.

Syracuse launched their own third period comeback effort in Saturday's game, turning the momentum squarely in their favor in the final period, but RPI would manage to hold to Orange to a single goal by Jordyn Burns, scored from the point through traffic at 13:15 of the third period.

While Syracuse continued to pressure the Engineers after the goal, a penalty on the Orange's Julie Knerr at 15:25 took the wind out of their sails and helped RPI regain some composure and close out the game to earn the split in the weekend series.

The Engineers close out the 2011 portion of their season on the road next weekend at Clarkson (7pm Friday) and St. Lawrence (4pm Saturday), in a pair of ECAC matchups, before a month without a game over the holidays. Live stats and score updates via twitter will be available as usual, while the North Country schools will both have live video available for purchase at game time.

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RPI vs. Syracuse
Non-Conference Game – Houston Field House (Troy, NY)
11/25/11 – 7:00pm
Syracuse 4, RPI 3

BOX SCORES:

RECAPS:

RECORD: 3-10-4 (1-3-2 ECAC)

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RPI vs. Syracuse
Non-Conference Game – Houston Field House (Troy, NY)
11/26/11 – 4:00pm
RPI 2, Syracuse 1

BOX SCORES:

RECAPS:

RECORD: 4-10-4 (1-3-2 ECAC)

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Upcoming Games

Dec. 2 - at Clarkson (7pm)
Dec. 3 - at St. Lawrence (4pm)
Jan. 6 - Colgate (3pm)
Jan. 7 - Cornell (3pm)
Jan. 13 - at Dartmouth (7pm)
Jan. 14 - at Harvard (4pm)

Friday, November 25, 2011

Stop the Bleeding

It's off to RIT tonight for a single game weekend with another ECAC set looming next weekend. The problems are well documented. Something needs to be done.

The puck has got to go in the net.

We have a suggestion as to what we'd like to see more of tonight. Pump it up.

Wednesday, November 23, 2011

On Empty Nets and Admiral Ackbar

This has been floating around in my head for the last week, and finally there's some time to talk about it... last Tuesday, while we were busy sleepwalking through the one and only Union home game of the season, Seth Appert decided to pull Bryce Merriam from the net with about eight minutes left to play, trying to light a fire  that could get the team back into the game while they were down 4-1 with practically zero offensive opportunities.

Directly behind me, there was an immediate reaction. "What the hell are you doing, Appert?" a fan shouted. "This is (expletive)!"

I just about buried my head in my hands, but I'd had about enough - given that there has been actual commentary on the Internet lately as to whether lifting the goaltender is really a good idea for RPI, given the number of empty netters that the Engineers have given up this season... a number that reached 8 (more than the last two seasons combined - 5) when Daniel Carr hit the net from behind the red line, sending the Union fans in attendance into a celebration that seemed more apt for an overtime win than an empty netter with three minutes left in a game in which they were up by three and dominating.

I turned around and shouted back. "What the hell is he supposed to do? Nothing else is working. Who cares if we allow an empty netter, what's the big deal?"

Quite frankly, it's not a big deal. Empty net goals are almost never worth getting excited over, and the practice of pulling the goaltender for an extra skater when you're down late - earlier if you're down more - is done by precisely everyone. It's standard operating procedure. The football equivalent is going for it on fourth down. The exception that proves the rule is probably the Soviet Union in 1980. They didn't pull Vladimir Myshkin when they trailed the Americans late in the Miracle on Ice game, but that team was so strong and powerful that they'd never really been in a situation where they were down late before. They never practiced or planned for playing with an extra attacker.

Here's the illustration of the point on why empty net goals are meaningless. RPI was losing 2-1 to Colorado College in the first game the teams played this year. CC scored two empty netters and 4-1 was the final. What is the difference? There isn't one, really. RPI was losing before and still lost. RPI was losing 2-0 to St. Lawrence up in Canton a week later. RPI pulled the goaltender, and didn't allow the empty netter. What was the difference? None. RPI still lost - and they were losing before they pulled the goalie, too.

Now think back to last year's Black Friday... or Saturday or whenever it was. RPI on the power play. Down 3-2. Allen York gets pulled - he's out of the net for almost two full minutes of gameplay. Marty O'Grady scores with 0.2 seconds left on the clock, and RPI wins in OT. What happened there? A game the Engineers were losing turned into a tie, then a victory.

Bottom line, empty net goals are given up when the team is losing anyway and is going all out to either get back in the game or tie it, depending on how far down they are.

But, you say, what about tiebreakers?

Well, what about them? Here they are in ECAC play.

1. Comparison of game results between tied teams (head to head). -- This is an argument for winning as many games as you can against as many teams as you can, and therefore, pulling the goaltender.
2. League wins. -- This is an argument for winning as many games as you can against as many teams as you can, and therefore, pulling the goaltender.
3. Comparison of results of games against the top four teams. -- This is an argument for winning as many games as you can against as many teams as you can, and therefore, pulling the goaltender.
4. Comparison of results of games against the top eight teams. -- This is an argument for winning as many games as you can against as many teams as you can, and therefore, pulling the goaltender.
5. Goal differential in head-to-head competition. -- AHA! Perhaps we shouldn't pull the goaltender after all. Oh wait... this is the FIFTH tiebreaker, and it only has to do with goal differential with ONE OTHER TEAM.

When you're down, you pull the goaltender. When you're getting killed at home and nothing else is working, pull the goaltender. It was a sound plan, and it actually worked, too. RPI kept Union in their own zone for much of the five minutes it took Carr to send out a wing and a prayer from the neutral zone.

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That honestly could have been the end of this, but for no apparent reason, after I snapped at this guy behind me about the empty net, he then sent me into orbit: "We should be playing the trap. 1-3-1."

Holy. Cow.

I don't even know where to begin, so I'll just start with this. Trap hockey is some of the most boring hockey you will ever watch. It is focused not on moving the puck and scoring goals, but rather on gumming up the neutral zone to keep the other team from transitioning and creating offense. Forechecking becomes practically non-existent, which leads to fewer offensive opportunities.

Yeah, that's just what a team struggling to score goals needs right now.

His excuse? "Oh, well the Lightning do it. New Jersey's played the trap for years."

Yeah, that would be the 12th place Lightning and 10th place Devils.

I mean, look how exciting 1-3-1 can be:



Amazing. How can we get this kind of fast paced play in Troy?

Listen, I love my school and I love hockey - real hockey, the way it is meant to be played, fast paced, with hard hitting, quick action, and puck battles. Fortunately, that's the way we've pretty much always played. But if we suddenly switched to some kind of trap or clutch and grab scheme, I'd stop coming to games - and this is coming from a person devoted enough to run a fan blog.

Why do you watch hockey? To see who can put more pucks in the net at any cost? Why'd you get interested in the sport in the first place?

Say RPI had an exceptionally good... oh, cricket team, for instance. Now, I'd be fairly proud of this team if they were national contenders on a regular basis. But would I go to watch them? I would not. Why? For the life of me, I just am not into cricket. Can't get excited about a sport that takes even longer than baseball to play.

When I go to watch hockey, I want to see good hockey. Over the years, there have been a number of games we've lost by more than a little that I at least enjoyed because it was good back and forth. There have been close games (last year's Cornell home game rings a bell) that was nauseatingly sleep inducing because of the clutch and grab the Big Red plays.

Bottom line? If boring hockey is acceptable to you, why not stare at the scoreboard for 60 minutes and forget about what's happening on the ice? It's almost as riveting.

My retort to the trap fan? "The trap is bull(stuff) hockey." Which I repeated over and over again until he got the point and clammed up. The trap may be a legitimate hockey scheme, but it comes at a cost of the game's very soul. Most real hockey fans don't enjoy it and I personally would never support a team that used it.

We may be struggling, but at least we've got a coach and a team that plays real hockey. I can live with that at the end of the day.

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Today's Podcast: Chris Lerch

We are happy to welcome back to Without a Peer Radio USCHO's Chris Lerch, who covers Atlantic Hockey for the longest-running college hockey website on the information superhighway. He also does play-by-play for RIT hockey on WITR-FM and is a fantastic resource for all things RIT.

We'll talk to Chris about RPI's first ever trip to Rochester, a game featuring a couple of teams that seem to be going in opposite directions. The Tigers have scored more goals in the last four games (all Atlantic Hockey wins) than the Engineers have scored all year - is this RIT's year to pick up their first D-I victory over RPI, and their second all time? We'll also ask about goings on in Atlantic Hockey and the underlying issues with conference realignment - including RIT's relatively well-known deigns on ECAC membership, which may hinge on a 12th member of Hockey East.

Today's podcast gets underway at 4pm Eastern. You can listen live by clicking "Listen to Without a Peer" on the right hand side of the page at the appropriate hour, or you can listen on demand by doing the same after the show.

Monday, November 21, 2011

Men's Hockey - Union (15 Nov)

The hole keeps getting bigger for the Engineers, and this time it gets much worse. A mid-week game, at home, on Greek Night, against Union - the opposite side of a rivalry that has produced heart-stopper after heart-stopper over the last three years. The setting was right for RPI to break out and finally get themselves out of first gear offensively, but instead of more of the same that we've seen from RPI-Union, we got more of the same that we've seen from RPI 2011-12: a relatively silent offense, and a loss, this time by a 5-1 margin.

Union
Cullen/Laliberte/Rabbani
Tinordi/O'Grady/Haggerty
Lee/Higgs/Schroeder
Angers-Goulet/Rogic/Malchuk

Koudys/Bailen
Leboeuf/Bergin
Leonard/Dolan

Merriam

Coming just three days after the Engineers' first win of the ECAC schedule against Brown - albeit of a less-than-inspiring 1-0 variety - Seth Appert went to war with the same exact lines that produced the victory, with no changes whatsoever to personnel, lines, pairings, or the crease.

Early on, the Field House was electric. The combination of Greek Night adding a solid number of rowdy students in attendance and the rivalry aspect helped contribute to an excellent start for RPI. The Engineers controlled the puck well and got a good number of early opportunities to score, cashing in with a power play goal on the first advantage of the night as Nick Bailen scored his second goal of the year from Jacob Laliberte and Ryan Haggerty - two freshmen playing on the power play - to put RPI up 1-0 for the second game in a row and the third time this season. It was also by far the earliest in a game the Engineers had put the puck in the net, notching a goal in the first period for only the fourth time all season.

Now, one thing Union certainly has going for it is its offense, so it was pretty obvious that the Engineers weren't going to be able to pull off a 1-0 victory for the second time in a row. After the Bailen goal, RPI went right back to work and continued to control play for another couple of minutes, again getting some good opportunities, especially a mini-breakaway by Alex Angers-Goulet that could have been a solid scoring opportunity, but a perfect backcheck poked the puck away from him, and he didn't get a shot off.

Union counter-attacked quickly, and on a defensive breakdown in transition, the Dutchmen ended up with a 2-on-1 that ended with Merriam committing to a shot that ended up being a pass that was one-timed to the back of the net, tying the game at one.

That became the moment of truth for RPI, and the Engineers did not answer the bell. After Union converted on their first power play opportunity of the game in relatively short order four minutes later, it seemed apparent that RPI was not going to put up much of a fight given the way they were playing - lethargic in chasing after pucks, lazy in the neutral zone, and predictable in the increasingly rare opportunities they were getting in the Union end.

A heads up play by Johnny Rogic to dump the net and take a delay of game penalty rather than risk what probably would have been a Union goal early in the second period could be counted as one of the best plays the Engineers put up in the final 40 minutes of the game, and that's saying a lot. Union didn't score on that man advantage, but they did just a few minutes later in a four-on-four situation, and then again before the period was halfway in the books on the power play to make it 4-1. Whatever atmosphere was left at the Field House at that point was pretty much gone.

Union went into lockdown mode after going up by three, but the way RPI was playing it wouldn't have mattered if they decided to continue to push the envelope. The Engineers got a pair of power play opportunities in the third period, practically back to back, that they never came close to threatening with. Out of realistic options, Seth Appert pulled Bryce Merriam with about eight minutes left in the game, desperate to park something - anything - that would get RPI going. The move did help the Engineers bottle Union up in their own end for nearly five minutes, but eventually Union did get the puck moving and finished things off with an empty netter.

The offensive woes have now reached epic proportions: RPI's tally in the last seven games can be submitted in binary: 1, 1, 1, 0, 0, 1, 1. Since the 100-001 victory over Minnesota State on the first night of the season (see what I did there?), the Engineers have scored more than one goal in just one game out of ten.

RPI now is in the middle of a 10 day break between games, ending this coming Friday with a visit to RIT. We'll see then if the time off has been what they've needed to get unstuck, or whether this season is likely to be one of the longest on memory. That game will be broadcast live on Time Warner Cable, if you dare to watch.

Other junk - An interesting turn of events in the USCHO.com poll as Merrimack, the last remaining team without a loss in the nation, is the #1 team in the nation for the first time. Three years ago, this would have been a joke - something to keep in mind. Ranked ECAC teams this week are #8 Yale (up one), #13 Union (no change), #16 Colgate (up one), and #17 Cornell (up one). Also ranked are #2 Notre Dame (up two, with 10 first place votes), #4 Colorado College (up one, with one first place vote), and #7 Ferris State (down one). Also receiving votes were UMass-Lowell (15), Clarkson (10), and RIT (2).

RPI has a total of 27 points as a team this season - 11 goals, 16 assists. Their opponents have put up 84 against them. Only Alabama Huntsville has a worse offense - they have just 10 goals in 12 games, so it's a matter of one goal.

Most embarrassing of all? No fewer than five individual players - Colgate's Austin Smith, Minnesota's Nick Bjugstad, Notre Dame's Anders Lee, Minnesota-Duluth's Travis Oleksuk, and Nebraska-Omaha's Terry Broadhurst - have more goals so far this year than RPI does combined. Notre Dame's T.J. Tynan has more assists than RPI does combined, which is even more impressive when you consider that a team can pick up two assists on the same goal.

Not helping matters are the penalties for the Engineers - they're averaging 17 per game, good for 8th in the nation.

Green Bay certainly seems like a very long time ago.

ECAC Standings
1. Cornell - 10 pts (5-1-0)
2. Colgate - 8 pts (4-2-0, +7 GD)
3. St. Lawrence - 8 pts (4-2-0, +1 GD)
4. Yale - 6 pts (3-1-0)
5. Union - 6 pts (3-2-0)
6. Dartmouth - 6 pts (3-3-0)
7. Clarkson - 5 pts (2-3-1, +1 GD)
8. Harvard - 5 pts (2-3-1, -1 GD)
9. Brown - 4 pts (2-2-0)
10. Princeton - 4 pts (2-5-0)
11. Quinnipiac - 4 pts (1-4-2)
12. RPI - 2 pts (1-4-0)


#13 Union at RPI
ECAC Game - Houston Field House (Troy, NY)
11/15/11 - 7:00pm


RESULT: Union 5, RPI 1


BOX SCORES
College Hockey Stats
USCHO

RECAPS

RECORD: 2-10-0 (1-4-0 ECAC, 2 pts)

Upcoming games
25 Nov - at RIT
02 Dec - at Princeton
03 Dec - at Quinnipiac
10 Dec - vs. #13 Union (Lake Placid, NY)
29 Dec - vs. UMass-Lowell (Storrs, CT)

Sunday, November 20, 2011

Women's Hockey - Wisconsin (18/19 Nov)

Last year, the Engineers opened their season with a road trip to Madison, WI, where the Badgers thoroughly dismantled RPI en route to 7-0 and 6-0 blowouts. In those games last year, there were few positives to be had, and it looked like RPI was playing shorthanded nearly the entire game.

This year, with nearly half the season gone before the teams met in Troy for a rematch, RPI was much better prepared to take on the #1 team in the country. While the Engineers again suffered two losses, Friday's game was a very close 4-3 contest in which RPI led twice, and Saturday's 8-2 final - while looking extremely lopsided - still offered more than a few positives and learning opportunities for the Engineers.

Friday

Cox/Smelker/Horton
Vandegrift/Guillemette/Harrison
Sanders/Mahoney/Svoboda
Letuligasenoa

Castignetti/Vadner
Le Donne/Marzario
Schilter/Walsh

O'Brien

Whether it was the result of a week off for the Badgers, the long trip to Troy, or a case of underestimating their opponent, Wisconsin looked a little off their game on Friday night, and all the Engineers had to do to get into the game was weather a few minutes of very strong Badger pressure to open the game.

In the opening four minutes of Friday's contest, Wisconsin had racked up a 10-0 shot advantage, but the Engineers did a good job of blocking shots from the front and limiting opportunities to sharp angles, giving Kelly O'Brien a good chance at each one.

Five minutes into the opening frame, RPI made it clear to the visitors that they weren't going to just sit back and take a beating, as Jordan Smelker and Eleeza Cox capitalized on a Wisconsin turnover at their own blue line to make it 1-0. Smelker broke past the backchecking Badger defense and fed Cox across the crease who beat netminder Alex Rigsby for the early lead.

The goal gave the Engineers life and for the next several minutes the play was remarkably close, with several opportunities each way, but the momentum shifted back in the Badgers' favor past the midpoint of the period when Jill Vandegrift was sent off on a hooking call. Less than a minute into the penalty kill, Amanda Castignetti tripped up a Badger skater and Carolyne Prevost beat O'Brien on the delayed penalty off a pass from Brooke Ammerman to tie the game at one - and send the Engineers back to the penalty kill for another two minutes.

RPI killed the ensuing penalty and held off Wisconsin's pressure for the remainder of the period, which saw a an 18-7 advantage in shots for the Badgers - relatively even once RPI held off the first 10 shots in the game's opening minutes.

Wisconsin struck again near the midpoint of the second period, after several more minutes of solid play from the Engineers, when a faceoff win sprung Brooke Ammerman and Carolyne Prevost on a 2-on-1 for the Badgers. Prevost fed Ammerman with a quick pass for an easy tap-in past O'Brien - a shot which the RPI netminder never had a chance at stopping.

By this point in the game RPI had been shorthanded four times, but shortly after Wisconsin's second goal RPI finally got their first power play opportunity, and they made good on it. With Alev Kelter off for hooking, Jill Vandegrift picked up a rebound in front of Rigsby and put it home to tie the game at two.

RPI made it 2-for-2 on the power play later in the period when Andie Le Donne was tripped by UW's Stefanie McKeough. Smelker and Cox again broke in 2-on-1, and when the Wisconsin defender dropped to the ice to prevent the pass, smelker fired a laser past Rigsby to take a 3-2 lead, which the Engineers held into the intermission. RPI actually held a 13-11 shot advantage in the period, which was one of the best played by the Engineers this year.

If not for one bad minute in the third period, the Engineers had every chance to win the game. However, a pair of ill-advised penalties taken by RPI set them up to be shorthanded for most of the opening five minutes of the third, and Wisconsin made quick work of getting back on top, with a power play goal by Brianna Decker followed up by a quick Blayre Turnbull goal just 42 seconds later to flip the score from 3-2 to 4-3 in what seemed like an instant.

Despite RPI's efforts to tie the game back up, including two power play opportunities, Wisconsin's conditioning got the best of the Engineers, who were unable to mount any sustained pressure even during the man advantage, and Wisconsin took a little-too-close-for-comfort 4-3 win heading into Saturday's rematch.

Saturday

Cox/Smelker/Horton
Guillemette/Harrison/Vandegrift
Sanders/Mahoney/Svoboda
Letuligasenoa

Castignetti/Vadner
Schilter/Walsh
Le Donne/Marzario

Piper/O'Brien

Several of those in attendance for Friday's game looked at RPI's performance and predicted a much different flow to the game on Saturday; that RPI would not have as much left in the tank as Wisconsin and would face a much tougher game than they did on Friday. Those predictions turned out to be pretty accurate.

Despite another great effort from the Engineers, Wisconsin's top scorers were too much to contain, with the Badgers' top line combining for seven goals and 15 points en route to a 8-2 victory for the visitors.

The Badgers jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the first half of the opening frame, with Hilary Knight poking home a rebound and Brianna Decker picking up another from close range, beating Brianna Piper with a nifty move to double the lead.

RPI answered back with a power play goal on their first opportunity of the game, with Sierra Vadner sliding a shot in from the point which was tipped past Rigsby by Ali Svoboda. Wisconsin regained their two-goal lead before the period ended, on yet another play off a rebound, this time by Prevost.

The second period saw Wisconsin and RPI trade goals in the opening two minutes, with Brooke Ammerman scoring on the power play for the Badgers before Taylor Horton fed Eleeza Cox for a quick tap-in less than a minute later.

That would mark the end of the Engineers' scoring as Wisconsin never let up through the remainder of the game, picking up goals by Prevost and Brooke Ammerman later in the second, while Decker notched the Badgers' final two goals in the third period to complete her sixth career hat trick. Decker also saw her point-scoring streak extend to 24 straight games on Saturday.

After playing the first two periods, Piper was replaced in net by O'Brien for the third period. Although the numbers may not reflect it, both netminders played well on the weekend, with more than a few of Wisconsin's goals coming on tic-tac-toe passing plays that left the goalie no chance at making a save.

While the Engineers dropped both games, the level of play RPI brought to the ice this weekend beat anything seen thusfar in the season. Friday's game in particular was marked by extremely smart hockey - short shifts, a lot of blocked shots (20 to be exact), and good use of turnovers and mistakes by Wisconsin to create opportunities. If RPI can carry this weekend's level of play back into the remainder of the ECAC schedule, there's not a game on the schedule they wouldn't have a fair shot at winning. The key will be to see if the Engineers can bring their A-game when they're not playing the top-ranked team in the country.

RPI is home again next weekend for a non-conference pair against Syracuse before facing Clarkson and SLU on the road before the holiday break. The games against Syracuse are extremely winnable and would give the Engineers a chance to get some momentum going into the remainder of the ECAC schedule. With the men playing at RIT on Friday, the only potential radio coverage would be Saturday's game, although nothing has been confirmed by WRPI as of yet. As usual, video and live stats will be available from the RPI Athletics website, along with tweets from WaP at twitter.com/without_a_peer.

-----

RPI vs. Wisconsin
Non-Conference Game – Houston Field House (Troy, NY)
11/18/11 – 7:00pm
Wisconsin 4, RPI 3

BOX SCORES:

RECAPS:
Video Highlights (no audio): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_rakImhUt0

RECORD: 3-8-4 (1-3-2 ECAC)

-----

RPI vs. Wisconsin
Non-Conference Game – Houston Field House (Troy, NY)
11/19/11 – 4:00pm
Wisconsin 8, RPI 2

BOX SCORES:

RECAPS:
Video Highlights (no audio): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tolFHChov5E

RECORD: 3-9-4 (1-3-2 ECAC)

-----

Upcoming Games

Nov. 25 - Syracuse (7pm)
Nov. 26 - Syracuse (4pm)
Dec. 2 - at Clarkson (7pm)
Dec. 3 - at St. Lawrence (4pm)
Jan. 6 - Colgate (3pm)
Jan. 7 - Cornell (3pm)

Friday, November 18, 2011

To Be the Best...

...you've got to beat the best.

The likelihood of that actually happening this weekend seems fairly unlikely, but playing good teams is a strategy that frequently brings out the best against weaker teams down the road. Obviously, it's not foolproof, just ask the guys on the other side of the Field House how their tough schedule was.

If you've never been to a women's hockey game before, this weekend may or may not be a good chance to go see one. On one hand, you will get the opportunity to see the best team in the nation, the Wisconsin Badgers, defending national champions and winners of four of the last six national championships and the consensus #1. They are a team stocked with past, present, and future Olympians. They are rather good.

On the other hand, this same team skunked the Engineers 7-0 and 6-0 in Madison last season. The actual game s may not be very good.

If not for RPI's 5-0 pasting of Yale last weekend, it would seem that the overreaching task of scoring a goal against this team would be out of reach, because before that game the Engineers had been struggling to score. Now, at home, perhaps they can pick one up this year. Winning... well, that would be a pretty huge upset.

Here's this weekend's pumpup, which pretty well describes what RPI should be expecting. Content warning - the video has the singer in some semi-racy attire, but your mileage may vary.

Thursday, November 17, 2011

Times That Try Men's Souls

Took a couple of days to collect my thoughts on Tuesday's game. Here they are, with some serious pontification:

Tuesday was an embarrassment. To play that way on your home ice, in front of your home fans (on Greek Night, no less, ensuring that a surplus of rowdy frat boys were on hand to add to the atmosphere), against the local rival with whom you've just completed I-don't-remember how many classic contests in a row, was absolutely disgraceful. If you can't get yourself up for a game in a situation like that, what can you get up for?

The first seven or eight minutes, it must be said, the team did look the way the whole building had hoped they'd look: fired up, ready to go, and even had the early goal - the earliest of the season by almost eight full minutes. Alex Angers-Goulet gets a mini-breakaway and it takes a huge play from the defenseman behind the action to stop him from getting a shot on net. Then it breaks the other way and on a defensive breakdown, the game is tied up.

And that's the ballgame. Or at least, that's what it looked like.

We left our live tweets on Tuesday night with a shot - this team is playing with no heart.

We want to be proven wrong.

Without a Peer was born in 2009 for a few reasons. First, there was no independent site on the Internet that offered a fan's perspective of the Engineers (and, by and large, the ECAC either). We wanted to fill that gap, and that's something that's certainly been done. We also wanted to harness the power of social media to help RPI fans stay up to date on the latest with the team - to include live tweets of games. When we first started, we were the only ones doing it. Today there are at least three different places you can go to get live tweet, which is fantastic. Third, we wanted to have fun with our observations, in the vein of the Yankee blog nomaas.org, which was one of the inspirations for WaP.

We're biased - but we wear our bias on our sleeve. We don't claim to be giving equal time to everyone, although we do enjoy discussing the league and the NCAA from time to time. We've never wanted to be straight up fanboys when it came to our team. Long time readers have seen us defend the team, players and coaches alike, to the death - but these have never been blind defenses. We've had some criticisms here and there, too.

Anyone following our live tweets on Tuesday could see that it wasn't a straight up running report of exactly what was happening in the game. That is not our sole intention. We sought to display, in real time, the frustration of the stands, a frustration that has continued to mount over the course of the season.

Just a couple of weeks ago, we advised that it was not time to panic. There were plenty of external explanations as to why the RPI offense was struggling. Forwards left and right were out with injury - reasonable. The team went through a gauntlet of some of the best teams in the nation, each with a bonafide rock solid defense - reasonable.

The problem is, that gauntlet is now over. Clarkson and St. Lawrence and Brown are not Ferris State and Colorado College and Notre Dame.

All the forwards are back with the exception of Matt Neal.

We're going on the road for six weeks.

We're in last place. By ourselves.

So it's time to start casting eyes inward. Chase Polacek is not walking through that door. Brandon Pirri and Jerry D'Amigo are not walking through that door.

The knock on RPI from a number of quarters coming into the year was that they wouldn't be able to bounce back from losing Polacek and Allen York. We thought the latter charge was fairly spurious, argued against it vigorously, and it turned out we were right. Bryce Merriam is doing just fine.

Chase Polacek was a great player, one of the best to ever don the Cherry and White for four seasons. But hockey is a team sport, and there were plenty of guys who played last year who were just as much a part of the team's success. Brock Higgs. Patrick Cullen. Johnny Rogic. Marty O'Grady. Josh Rabbani. Alex Angers-Goulet. Joel Malchuk. None of them were asked to step up and be Polacek.

Add to the mix one of the most anticipated classes of freshmen in RPI's history - Neal, Jacob Laliberte, Ryan Haggerty, Zach Schroeder, Mark McGowan. None of them were asked to step up and be Polacek.

But surely, with all of those guys available, the offense wasn't going to be a major issue.

Boy, do we look stupid now.

You don't lean on your freshman class in order to be successful no matter how talented or anticipated they may be - because you never know how a freshman is going to adapt to the college game. You can't place blame on these guys, especially because three of the five have done time on the injured list. In fact, give Haggerty some credit - he's the team's leading forward in scoring, not that it's much to brag about right now.

The upperclassmen - the seniors, juniors, and even sophomores - seem to be waiting. Waiting for someone else to be that offensive leader. Someone else to take the shot. Someone else to look for that pass to the open man. Someone else to dig the puck out. Someone else to connect.

Worse, in games like Tuesday, they're almost waiting for bad things to happen, and when that tying goal came down in the first period, ending a three minute lead, the view from the stands was that despair had already set in. Perhaps it's just what happens when a team is accustomed to losing, as any 2-10-0 team certainly would be, but this should not be a team accustomed to losing. 3/4 of this team beat the #1 ranked team in the country last year. 3/4 of this team was taking on North Dakota in Wisconsin in late March.

Prove us wrong, gents. We're begging you.

Quite honestly, the six week break before the next home game is probably good for the fans, too. By the time the third period came around, there were plenty of fans arguing with each other. That's not a good sign. It was the fans with the reserve attitude shouting at those whose faith was fading as quickly as the product on the ice.

It can't be easy to come to the rink for practice right now. The game these guys grew up playing at all hours of the day probably doesn't seem like a lot of fun when you're in a tailspin like this. Understandable.

Thomas Paine, in The American Crisis, wrote words to rally supporters at a time when the Revolution seemed hopeless and lost:

These are the times that try men's souls: The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.

This quote, it should be noted, goes for fans and players alike. There's still time to lead. There's still time to steel our resolve and salvage our pride.

This is a team that has done a lot of things right. In fact, in many games - basically, all of them but Tuesday's farce and the Clarkson game - they've done everything they've needed to do to win hockey games except putting the puck in the net. That's why we know this is a team with potential. This isn't the team we watched limp to a 7-25-2 regular season record three years ago. That team played some of the toughest teams around, but just wasn't ready for primetime. We'd go to games and just watch the team get manhandled by better programs.

Today, the record is just as dismal, and yet we're watching a team that's very much a part of most of the games they've played, and they just aren't getting anything from these games. That speaks to something else. On Tuesday, it looked very much like a lack of heart.

Prove us wrong, guys. Prove us wrong.

Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Early Returns

More in depth discussion at a later time. For now, our expert analysis on last night:





UPDATE (11:54am): Actually, you know what? The whole rant works pretty well, with the exception of the explicit references to football. Change "turnovers" to "team meltdowns" and there you go.

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

No Love Lost

Ask a long time RPI fan who the most hated team in the ECAC is, and you'll usually hear Clarkson mentioned more often than not.

Ask a student or younger alum, and they'll reference the "one minute" cheer, but there's little doubt which team gets today's generation charged up - the Union Dutchmen. I'll never forget the words of a recent (anonymous) Engineer, who put the state of RPI-Union very bluntly: "We hate them, they hate us. It's pretty simple."

Let's hear some goal horns tonight. Multiple. Please?

Here's today's pumpup, which I'd actually been hoping to use for RPI-Union IV at Atlantic City last season... well, at least we weren't the only ones who were late to that party.


Public service: If you'd rather get pumped with the uncensored version, go ahead and click here (content warning, language).

Monday, November 14, 2011

Men's Hockey - Yale & Brown (11/12 Nov)

Snapping a long losing streak often brings a sigh of relief, but RPI's first victory in nine games, which came on Saturday, was anything but relief for a team still struggling to put the puck in the net. The offensive woes returned in RPI's second league weekend, marring an otherwise outstanding game on Friday as the Engineers fell on Black Friday for the first time, dropping a closely played 2-0 contest with first-place Yale, but RPI's lone goal of the weekend on Saturday was enough to put the team in the win column for the first time in over a month as Bryce Merriam picked up his first career shutout in a 1-0 victory over Brown.

Yale
Lee/Higgs/Schroeder
McGowan/O'Grady/Haggerty
Cullen/Laliberte/Rabbani
Angers-Goulet/Rogic/Malchuk

Leboeuf/Bergin
Koudys/Bailen
Leonard/Dolan

Merriam

Black Friday is always an optimistic time for the Engineers, and with Jacob Laliberte returning to the lineup, the team became as close to 100% as they could possibly get, with freshman Matt Neal the only player still out with injury. Even with a tough task in Yale coming into the Field House, there was at least a little optimism that this could be the week that the Engineers made it out of their funk.

Unfortunately, the Engineers got behind early thanks to a bad defensive maneuver. Pat Koudys gave the puck away to Yale senior Josh Balch, who came in unmolested against Bryce Merriam, and the senior coolly faked Merriam out and stuck it in to give Yale a 1-0 lead just 1:51 into the game. When a team is struggling to score, scoring first can be a big help. But just like that, RPI was already in the hole.

From there, the game was actually pretty tight the rest of the way. The Engineers got plenty of power play opportunities practically start to finish, but the offensive woes, which have extended to the man advantage, continued. Despite 12 full minutes of power play chances, RPI simply could not put one in the net. Yale's outstanding penalty kill no doubt had much to do with it, but nothing at all was going to beat Yale's Jeff Malcolm, who appears to be stepping in to answer Yale's overriding question coming into the season about offense. He is on fire early this season, with three consecutive shutouts. Malcolm made 27 stops, including 13 in the second period, to keep RPI off the board for the second straight game.

Clinton Bourbonais (no relation to RPI recruit Riley Bourbonnais) gave Yale a two-goal cushion to seal it with under two minutes to play following an untimely slashing call against Ryan Haggerty. Merriam, who made 14 saves in the third period to keep RPI in the game, was pulled for the final 90 seconds, but RPI could not break Malcolm. For the second straight contest, a lengthy extra attacker situation did not result in an empty netter and ended in a 2-0 loss for the Engineers.


Brown
Lee/Higgs/Schroeder
Tinordi/O'Grady/Haggerty
Cullen/Laliberte/Rabbani
Angers-Goulet/Rogic/Malchuk

Leboeuf/Bergin
Koudys/Bailen
Leonard/Dolan

Merriam

Despite the struggles, only one change came down for Saturday's lineup against a Brown team that had upset Union the previous night - freshman Mark McGowan was replaced by sophomore Matt Tinordi, an expected move for a team that tends to play a more physical game like the Bears.

The first period was a veritable parade to the penalty box for RPI, as three penalties resulted in three power plays for Brown, but Merriam and the penalty killers stood tall as they have done all year - the penalty kill went 8-for-9 on the weekend. Merriam made 10 saves, but the RPI offense was stymied, racking up a ninth straight period without scoring a goal.

It appeared likely that the second period would become the 10th straight without a goal despite 11 shots in the middle frame, but a late penalty to Brown freshman Massimo Lamacchia put RPI on its second power play of the night, and Ryan Haggerty finally broke a scoreless streak of just over 200 minutes in the final minute with a laser of a one-timer from Nick Bailen and Jacob Laliberte to get RPI on the board and give them a 1-0 lead for only the second time this season.

The goal, however, was not enough to fully jumpstart the offense, which remains a concern going forward. Two early opportunities to grab a cushion with power plays starting in the second and fourth minutes of the third went for naught. RPI successfully killed two penalties later in the period, and though they couldn't put the puck in the net despite 1:26 of extra attacker time at the end of the period for Brown, the Engineers still held on for the 1-0 victory, gaining their first two points in league play.

The victory is obviously important for RPI as they try to regain their confidence, but just one goal on the weekend, and only two in the last two weekends, both by Ryan Haggerty, leads one to believe that there is still more work to be done to shake the offensive problems that have plagued the team.

It's a quick turnaround for RPI, as they host Route 7 rivals Union tomorrow night in the fall semester finale at Houston Field House. The Engineers have, for several years, always "gotten up" for Union, and we've seen some real doozies between RPI and the Dutchmen over the last couple of seasons, including three memorable meetings last season. Might this be the moment that offense breaks loose from the icy grip of despair? We'll see. These are two important points, with the Engineers currently sitting in last place after four games. A win would at least bounce them out of the doldrums.

Other junk - For the second week in a row, Union and Yale have swapped positions in the USCHO poll - meaning they're back where they started the ECAC season. #9 Yale (swept RPI/Union, up four) and #13 Union (swept by Brown/Yale, down four) are joined in the rankings this week by #17 Colgate (beat Dartmouth, lost to Harvard, up one) and #18 Cornell (swept Harvard/Dartmouth, previously unranked). Also ranked this week are #4 Notre Dame (swept Alaska, up three with one first place vote), #5 Colorado College (lost to #11 Denver, down two), and #6 Ferris State (beat and tied #12 Lake Superior State, up two). Receiving votes this week were Ex-#19 Quinnipiac (56), Ex-#17 Dartmouth (37), Clarkson (26), and Harvard (3).

RPI's offense is about to hit rock bottom, with 10 goals in 11 games, their 0.91 goals per game average is besting only Alabama-Huntsville's 0.83 (10 in 12 games). Every other team in the nation is scoring at least a goal and a half per game.

Fueling the problem is a total of four goals in the last six contests, and the Engineers haven't scored an even strength goal since Patrick Cullen's tally with 4 seconds left in the second period in the first game against Colorado College - a drought of 320:04, over five hours of game time. Also, it's worth recalling that a full 40% of RPI's goals scored this year came in just one of their games, the 4-1 victory over Minnesota State. We're certainly a long way from that 7-0 goal bonanza of an exhibition game against Acadia.

And, oh yeah. We're a third of the way through the season already.

ECAC Standings
1. Cornell - 6 pts (3-1-0, +6 GD)
2. Yale - 6 pts (3-1-0, +4 GD)
3. St. Lawrence - 6 pts (3-1-0, +2 GD)
4. Colgate - 4 pts (2-2-0, +2 GD)
5. Brown - 4 pts (2-2-0, -1 GD, 10 GF)
6. Union - 4 pts (2-2-0, -1 GD, 6 GF)
7. Dartmouth - 4 pts (2-2-0, -2 GD)
8. Princeton - 4 pts (2-3-0)
9. Quinnipiac - 4 pts (1-2-2)
10. Harvard - 3 pts (1-2-1, -1 GD)
11. Clarkson - 3 pts (1-2-1, -2 GD)
12. RPI - 2 pts (1-3-0)

#13 Yale at RPI
ECAC Game - Houston Field House (Troy, NY)
11/11/11 - 7:00pm

RESULT: Yale 2, RPI 0

BOX SCORES

RECAPS

RECORD: 1-9-0 (0-3-0 ECAC, 0 pts)

Reale Deals
1. G Bryce Merriam, 27 saves
2. F Brock Higgs, 6 shots
3. D Nick Bailen, 5 shots


Brown at RPI
ECAC Game - Houston Field House (Troy, NY)
11/12/11 - 7:00pm

RESULT: RPI 1, Brown 0

BOX SCORES

RECAPS

RECORD: 2-9-0 (1-3-0 ECAC, 2 pts)

Reale Deals
1. F Ryan Haggerty, 1 G
2. G Bryce Merriam, 22 saves, SO
3. F Jacob Laliberte, 1 A


Upcoming games
15 Nov - #13 Union
25 Nov - at RIT
02 Dec - at Princeton
03 Dec - at Quinnipiac
10 Dec - vs. Union (Lake Placid, NY)

Sunday, November 13, 2011

Women's Hockey - at Brown & Yale (11/12 Nov)

If there was ever a time to turn around the Engineers' troubled season start, this would be it. Hitting the road to take on Brown and Yale, teams both predicted to finish among the bottom of the league, RPI needed to pick up some points and break out of their offensive funk. They did just that as the weekend progressed, managing only a 2-2 tie against Brown on Friday before shellacking Yale 5-0 on Saturday behind a hat trick from freshman Eleeza Cox.

Brown

Smelker/Cox/Horton
Harrison/Guillemette/Vandegrift
Sanders/Mahoney/Svoboda
Letuligasenoa

Castignetti/Vadner
Le Donne/Schilter
Walsh/Marzario

O'Brien

Brown's record last season would seem to indicate a team that didn't have much going for them, but they gave RPI trouble, winning the teams' first meeting and holding a 2-0 lead in the other past the midpoint of the third period before breaking down and letting the Engineers roar back for the win. That tough competition returned in the teams' first meeting of the 2011-12 season as the Bears and Engineers skated to a 2-2 tie at Meehan Auditorium.

A scoreless first period passed with limited interruptions as the scoresheet shows just a single RPI penalty in the frame, with a 10-5 RPI shot advantage. Momentum would shift in the Bears' favor in the second, but only for a matter of moments.

Just past the midpoint of the middle frame, a defensive turnover by RPI left Brown's Katelyn Landry all alone against Kelly O'Brien. Landry was stopped on her first try as well as the ensuing rebound, but the puck sat in the crease after the stop, allowing Skyelar Siwak to sneak in from the side and poke it past O'Brien for a 1-0 lead at 10:33.

The score didn't hold for long. Just 45 seconds later, Toni Sanders knotted the score at one on a quick feed from Taylor Horton following a save on Eleeza Cox. The pass made its way through traffic in the crease to a wide open Sanders who put it home and kill the Bears' momentum in a hurry.

A Brown tripping penalty assessed on the same play left the Engineers on the power play immediately following the goal, and they capitalized quickly to turn the 1-0 defecit into a 2-1 lead. Taylor Horton carried the puck into the offensive zone, dropped it for the defense and headed to the net, and was rewarded with a rebound opportunity on an ensuing shot which she snuck past a sprawling Aubree Moore to put the Engineers ahead at the 12:08 mark - less than a minute after tying the game.

RPI kept strong pressure throughout the remainder of the second and the third, but Brown's Sarah Robson singlehandedly tied the game back up, carrying the puck deep into the RPI end, outworking a defender in the corner, and taking a dipsy-doodle path to the front of the net to beat O'Brien and make it a 2-2 game.

Continued RPI pressure, including a power play opportunity later in the third, did not give the Engineers the look at the net they needed to retake the lead, and the game went into overtime, ending in a 2-2 tie, but allowing the Engineers to at least take a point from the game.

Yale

Smelker/Cox/Horton
Harrison/Guillemette/Vandegrift
Sanders/Mahoney/Svoboda
Letuligasenoa

Castignetti/Schilter
Vadner/Walsh
Marzario

Piper

The preseason coaches' poll may have gotten the bottom end of the league wrong based on early results, as both Union and Brown have shown promise so far, while Yale has apparently regressed even further from last year's underwhelming performance, with an overtime win over Union (in which the Bulldogs were outshot 31-24) marking their only win in nine games. In that stretch, only twice have they given up three or fewer goals.

RPI took advantage of Yale's struggles and used them to break out of their own offensive funk. Scoring in bunches - specifically with a hat trick from Eleeza Cox, shutting down Yale's offense entirely, and a shutout by Brianna Piper netted RPI its first win of the ECAC season.

Cox opened the scoring late in the first period with Yale's Stephanie Mock off for a hooking call. Cox took the puck from the board and slid into the slot where a weak backhander snuck through traffic and past Yale's Genny Ladiges. Jordan Smelker and Alisa Harrison picked up assists on the goal.

Jill Vandegrift doubled the Engineers' lead at 16:40 of the second when she put a rebound off Taylor Mahoney's shot past Ladiges to make it 2-0. Jordan Smelker, who herself notched a hat trick against Yale exactly one year prior, opened it up to 3-0 at 19:09 as she broke in on Ladiges alone and ripped a shot top shelf.

Early in the third period, RPI was awarded a penalty shot when Yale's Madi Murray closed her hand on the puck in the crease. Cox took the shot, skating in and deking several times before slipping a backhand shot past the outstretched leg of Ladiges and extending the lead to a commanding 4-0.

Cox completed the hat trick about three minutes later, threading a shot under Ladiges' arm through traffic to make it 5-0 and close out the scoring. All told, the Engineers finished the game with a seriously lopsided 52-15 edge in shots on goal, in a game they controlled from the opening faceoff to the final buzzer.

While Yale is not top flight competition by any means, teams need to be able to soundly defeat teams they should beat, and RPI did just that on Saturday. After a disappointing tie against Brown on Friday, RPI came out strong, dictated the flow of the game, and never let off the gas en route to Saturday's win.

The Engineers will face much, much stronger competition next weekend as the top-ranked and defending national champion Wisconsin Badgers come to Troy for a pair of games at the Field House. Wisconsin won last year's pair of games by a combined 13-0 score and has already jumped out to an 11-1 record this season, so RPI will have its hands more than full for the weekend.

With the men off next weekend, expect to see WRPI cover the games against Wisconsin, although it is not currently listed on their broadcast schedule. Video and live stats will be available as usual through the RPI Athletics website, and live tweets from HFH can be found @without_a_peer.

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RPI vs. Brown
ECAC Hockey Game – Meehan Auditorium (Providence, RI)
11/11/11 – 7:00pm
RPI 2, Brown 2 (OT)

BOX SCORES:

RECAPS:

RECORD: 2-7-4 (0-3-2 ECAC)

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RPI vs. Yale
ECAC Hockey Game – Ingalls Rink (New Haven, CT)
11/12/11 – 4:00pm
RPI 5, Yale 0

BOX SCORES:

RECAPS:

RECORD: 3-7-4 (1-3-2 ECAC)

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Upcoming Games

Nov. 18 - Wisconsin (7pm)
Nov. 19 - Wisconsin (4pm)
Nov. 25 - Syracuse (7pm)
Nov. 26 - Syracuse (4pm)
Dec. 2 - at Clarkson (7pm)
Dec. 3 - at St. Lawrence (4pm)

Saturday, November 12, 2011

Game #11: Brown

We got so busy yesterday we never started the Twitter feed.

Hopefully that doesn't happen tonight, while we're all still holding our breath waiting for something good to happen.

Live tweets for both men and women today, at least.

Meantime, enjoy this. We've been doing it for much of the day.




Friday, November 11, 2011

Game #10: Yale

Short staff tonight, so we're only going to have men's live tweets tonight - though we'll have some score updates on the women during the intermissions.

Here's your twitter feed.

Always bet on black.

Fade to Black

Apologies for the lack of content this week. Combination of a hectic week and a general lack of additional things to say about both teams' struggles - that led to a lack of a podcast too, which we'll remedy next week. We had wanted to do a Black Friday jersey retrospective pictorial yesterday, but couldn't secure the necessary permissions for use of the pictures.

Anyway... moving on. Jacob Laliberte returns to the lineup tonight, just in time for Black Friday, which has traditionally been a winning proposition for the Engineers. They are 7-0-1 all time in the black uniforms and have not lost the league home opener since 2002 - the year before the advent of Black Friday. There have been some pretty rough teams in that stretch - and there have been some pretty difficult opponents as well, but the worst result thus far has been walking away with a tie in 2007 against Yale, who appears in their record third Black Friday tonight (no other team has featured more than once).

The women are in a must win situation as well, facing a Brown/Yale road weekend in which their opponents have 2 and 0 points respectively. If they can't walk away with some serious points this weekend, they're going to be in a desperate battle all season long to make the playoffs.

Here it is... our third annual Black Friday pumpup.

Tuesday, November 8, 2011

OK, Now Can We Panic?

OK, so we've got the following to dwell on.

1) The Engineers' 1-8-0 start is the worst start to a season of at least nine games in the entire history of hockey at RPI, which goes all the way back to 1902.

2) The team has scored 2/3rds of its goals in two of its nine games - the 4-1 victory over Minnesota State, and the 5-2 loss to Notre Dame. The nine goals in nine games for RPI is one less than Notre Dame's Anders Lee in as many games.

3) The power play is 3-for-50 in those nine games.

4) The highly touted freshman class didn't score its first goal of the season until this past Friday with Ryan Haggerty's first goal.

5) Brock Higgs and Marty O'Grady returned to the lineup, but were a bit invisible outside of draws.

6) Literally every other team in the ECAC picked up at least one league point last weekend.

7) Union annoyingly isn't skipping much of a beat at all without their coach or their stud goaltender. Not that this has anything to do with us, of course, but seriously, what the heck.

8) The women are struggling just as much, in basically the same way.

9) Most ominously, the problems that we thought might have been attributable to the difficult October schedule were still front, center and in your face this past weekend.

Yes, there is plenty of reason to panic at this point. No one expected this team to struggle on this level. There were those who expected this team to struggle without Chase Polacek and Allen York (and Tyler Helfrich and Bryan Brutlag), but no one thought any potential struggles would be this bad.

It's not fun to be a fan right now, but seven-game losing streaks make going to practice a bit of a chore for the players, too. But trust me - there are better times ahead.

The tough part about breaking out of a funk this serious can often be the psychological aspect. Seth Appert put it well after Saturday's game - the team is gripping the sticks a little tight. They know they're having problems putting the puck in the net, and that makes it harder to score goals.

The goals will come. The team is doing everything necessary to score goals with the exception of the final step - finishing. One-timers are being fanned on. Rebounds can't be picked up. Passes down low are being missed. At the moment of truth, RPI just isn't in sync. When you go so long without any good luck, it's human nature to get frustrated, and that frustration unfortunately only fuels a slump. When you expect difficulty scoring because of what's happened in the recent past, it becomes more difficult to score.

We could have seen confidence return on Friday - the team took a 1-0 lead for the first time, and if they'd been able to hold it for longer than two minutes, perhaps the outlook starts to turn. But they didn't, and the despair started to set back in.

In each game this past weekend, RPI gave up a bad luck goal on a shot that redirected off an Engineer. We haven't really gotten one of those for ourselves yet.

So, while the early start is now officially a bit frightening, there's plenty to be optimistic about once bad luck and frustration start turning. And it will turn. This may be the worst start in program history, but even the most ardent RPI hating pundit would be hard-pressed to make the claim that this is the worst team in program history (unless they're making their observations without having actually seen the team, of course).

And there are even plenty of bullet points that can be cause for optimism.

1) Just over 25% of the goals given up by the Engineers this season have been empty netters - so the wide disparity between goals for and goals against really isn't that wide.

2) Jacob Laliberte and Matt Neal, it seems, could be back for this coming slate of games. (Big loss for Union hockey.) These guys were expected to be the cornerstones of the freshman class, and they've missed the last five and four games respectively. Neal was a faceoff machine against Notre Dame, just before getting injured, and Laliberte showed flashes of his playmaking skill against Minnesota State and Ferris State.

3) The penalty kill is performing admirably - at 46-for-52, the senior leadership shown on the kill by Joel Malchuk and Alex Angers-Goulet is something that could well bleed over into the rest of the game.

4) Bryce Merriam isn't lighting the world on fire with his numbers, but no one expected him to. Instead, he's been just what we said he'd be - a more than serviceable goaltender, and a rock for this team to cling to in these turbulent waters.

5) Yale and Union might be tougher opponents, but we've seen this team get up for these teams in the recent past, playing with more intensity. They could be just the tonic to get the team moving again.

Yes, these are difficult times - but stick with this team, give them your support. They'll surprise you when you least expect it.