This Is Still A Thing

Soak it in. We posted the ECAC standings about two weeks ago after RPI beat Union in the first (and to that point, only) league game of the season, therefore starting off the season in first place.

Oddly enough, three games later, there they remain. Enjoy.

There are some super important caveats to mention with this, however.

1) Every team with the exception of Union has at least one game in hand against the Engineers, and all of those but Dartmouth and Harvard have two games in hand.

2) By winning percentage, a more accurate indicator when the total number of games played is skewed, the Engineers are only in a tie for third with Clarkson.

3) As awesome as it is to be 3-1-0 to start the league schedule, RPI has walked a razor's edge to get there - they were 3:49 away from an outright loss at Union and 18.2 seconds away from heading to overtime against Dartmouth. That 3-1-0 record could have easily been 1-3-0 or 1-2-1 for the breathing room they've been leaving themselves.

4) All of their league games have been more or less at home so far. Three home games against one road game, and the one road game was a single road, Route 7. After this coming weekend, RPI is left with just six more ECAC games in Troy, against 10 on the road, all of them farther away than their last one. The Princeton-Quinnipiac games this weekend marks the final league games at home until the middle of January, and fully 2/3 of the remaining league schedule in Troy comes in the final three weeks of the regular season.

5) It's the middle of November.

But, at least it's nice, even this early, to know that RPI controls its own destiny for first place. The only other teams that can make that claim right now are Quinnipiac, St. Lawrence, and Clarkson.

That's what makes this coming weekend's home series that much more important. Regardless of how they got there or the games other teams have in hand, the fact remains that they're in the catbird seat. There's a golden opportunity on Friday and Saturday to stay there for the time being.

Let's see how far this string runs.