Without a Peer

Where We Stand

2012-02-11T07:43:00.001-05:00

Following last night's 4-2 loss to Harvard, there are three games left in the women's hockey season. The Engineers face Dartmouth this afternoon in Troy, and travel to Princeton and Quinnipiac next weekend to finish the season.

RPI (5-12-2 ECAC) sits in a three-way tie for 8th with Brown (4-11-4) and Colgate (5-12-2). The Bears and Raiders play each other this afternoon in Providence.

The Engineers lose the head-to-head tiebreaker with the Bears due to an 0-1-1 record against Brown this season. As we will shortly see, RPI cannot realistically make the playoffs in any way, shape, or form if they have the same number of points as the Bears.

The tiebreaker with Colgate is unknown. The teams split the season series and have the same number of league wins, so it goes to the record against Top 4 teams. Both teams have lost all of their games against Top 4 and potential Top 4 teams, though both have games remaining (Dartmouth at RPI today, St. Lawrence/Clarkson at Colgate next week). If neither team picks up a point in those three remaining games, the tiebreak moves to Top 8, which is also in the air because all three of both teams remaining games are against Top 8 teams (with the possible exception of Colgate at Brown today).

The three-way tie will not settle out until this afternoon's Brown-Colgate game, but the Engineers will not win it. RPI has a 1-2-1 record against the sides for 3 points, Brown and Colgate also have a total of three points going into their game, so the winner of that game will win the three-way tiebreak, or a tie would have both of them dropping RPI into 10th.

Thus, in order for the Engineers to be in playoff position following this afternoon's game, they must beat Dartmouth and see Brown and Colgate tie (or at worst, Colgate win). A loss or tie with Dartmouth is guaranteed to push the Engineers into 9th or 10th (the lowest position they can finish).

RPI can technically finish as high as seventh place, but this would require a sweep of the remaining three games and for Princeton to lose to St. Lawrence and Union as well. The Engineers would then win a tiebreak with the Tigers for 7th place. The only way RPI can win a tiebreak with Brown is in a three-way tiebreak with Princeton (which would require Brown to run the table as well). The Engineers would also win a three-way tie-break with Princeton and Colgate.

On the other side of the table, Cornell (17-2-0) is in first place by five points, and can clinch the #1 seed with a win or tie over last-place Yale this afternoon. The #8 seed would then travel to Ithaca in two weeks.

Won't Back Down

2012-02-10T12:28:00.000-05:00

Make or break this weekend... a poor weekend has the potential to leave the women out of the playoffs and statistically keep the men from being able to climb out of the bottom four, which is already a difficult proposition.

There's no quit here, though. We don't back down. Reach down and pull out your inner CoD: Black Ops for this one - it's the clean version, don't worry.

Without a Boor

2012-02-09T20:20:00.000-05:00

The north side of the Field House is obnoxious. Generally speaking, that's something we tend to wear as a badge of honor, since most of the obnoxiousness gets focused on the other team. There's loud chanting, there's loud cheering, and mostly the student and alumni sections do what they can to get under the skin of the other team and their fans. It's what sets us apart from a lot of other schools in the league, save for Cornell and Clarkson who are rather good at it as well, a by-product of the passion for the sport at all three schools.

But there's a line somewhere - there always is. Sure, this is aimed at a crowd that regularly allows opposing players (especially ones who are overly aggressive) know that they are comparable to a certain dark portion of the human body which serves as the last stop of the human digestive system, but nonetheless a line exists. Flirting with the line is what makes for that abrasive, annoying, obnoxiousness. Crossing it just makes you the, erm, anus.

For one thing, know when and where it's OK to jeer something. Bad call? Hey, fire away. Opponent playing like a female hygiene product? Let 'er rip.

Booing during the playing of another school's alma mater? Back up a second, slick. Would you want someone booing yours?

We're rather proud of our alma mater here at WaP - heck, the site's name derives from it (now you know). There's something special about the second intermission, when students and alums go shoulder to shoulder, with the band in the middle, and sway back and forth to what is, essentially, the school's anthem. It's enough to give you a chill up your spine from time to time.

Now imagine doing that with jerks from the other school shouting at you during it. Not quite as fun anymore, is it?

Now, look, I hate Cornell as much as the next guy, but there's a time and a place for it. I didn't experience this myself since I was outside during much of the second intermission last Friday (getting some fresh air with my girlfriend, who despite feeling nauseous was determined to stay for the whole game - what a trooper, eh?), but from what I can understand, a large number of RPI stalwarts on the north side booed Cornell's alma mater.

Why? What did you get out of it? All you really proved was that you don't know when to quit. Sure, we harass players and fans during the game, but once the game's over I'm willing to bet you'd probably like most of those people. So if it doesn't have to do with the game itself, why continue to be obnoxious?

A school's alma mater is a proud, introspective composition. It's a source of pride for anyone associated with the school, the same way a national anthem is a source of pride for a nation and its citizens. Leave it alone.

And while we're on the topic of unnecessary disrespect of anthems - can we kill the unnecessary "sucks" shout during the national anthem when other schools emphasize a different part of the words than we do? Feel free to debate among yourselves on the appropriateness of shouting during the anthem in the first place (I don't), but surely we can all agree that shouting "sucks" at Union or Clarkson fans is also over the line.

Bottom line - there's a time and place for everything. But let's not cross the line from feverish support to flat out boorishness.

Today's Podcast: Perry Laskaris

2012-02-09T12:32:00.002-05:00

With just four games left in the season, the women sit in 9th place in the ECAC despite a tie with Brown for 8th (the Engineers lose the tiebreaker based on head-to-head results). Essentially, if the Engineers can pick up just one point more than Brown in the next four games, and can stay ahead of Colgate (just a point back), the 8th position could be theirs.

Meanwhile on the men's side, three weeks after a turnaround appeared in order after RPI swept a road weekend with a favorable schedule going forward, the Engineers remain in last place after just three points in four consecutive home games. With six games left (four on the road), RPI is five points behind Dartmouth and Yale for the final home playoff position. That doesn't look good.

We'll talk to WRPI's Perry Laskaris for his analysis on both the men and the women as the teams head down the stretch on what has been a rough year for both teams. Without a Peer Radio goes live today at 6:30pm. Just click on Listen to Without a Peer over on the upper right hand side of the page to listen at the appropriate time, or listen any time on demand.

New Kids on the Block?

2012-02-08T17:24:00.001-05:00

One of the more popular pastimes among college hockey watchers even before the conference shuffle of last season has always been the speculation on new programs. In the last ten seasons, we've seen just three new programs come along - Robert Morris started from scratch, RIT moved up from D-III, and now Penn State is elevating its club program.

Penn State was, of course, one of the most common rumors in this psuedoscientific field. We constantly hear rumors of new programs at Navy, Syracuse, and Rhode Island. We hear of interest that later comes to nothing at Lindenwood, Kennesaw State, Liberty, and Missouri-St. Louis. That's not to say that there aren't possible new programs just on the horizon - in fact, with all the changes taking place, we may well see new programs. Here are the five schools with the most buzz at the moment.

MSU-Moorhead: The hottest item out there right now is one of seven four-year institutions in the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities system (MnSCU), six of whom compete in Division II athletics in the Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference. Of those six, three - Bemidji State, Minnesota State, and St. Cloud State - already compete in D-I hockey. The Dragons have been making noise in recent years about seeking to join their MnSCU brethren as Fargo-Moorhead's college team, but it wasn't until this summer that things started to get serious. The school is putting together a funding drive and has an active goal of starting a program in 2013 when the new alignments begin. With Bemidji and Mankato as part of the new WCHA's core and the new league in need of a 10th member, the Dragons would be a solid fit - the major question is whether they can secure the funding in time for the first season of the new and not-so-improved WCHA.

Illinois: With the advent of the Big Ten, there are suddenly six new schools with a custom made conference to join if they start a varsity hockey program and, much like Columbia and Penn to the Ivy League, you can expect non-stop speculation on which one will be the next one on board. It's not a great deal to go on, but Let's Play Hockey, a noteworthy publication on high school, junior, and college hockey in Minnesota tweeted in December that the founder of Jimmy John's (the sub shop chain) is considering funding a transition from club hockey to D-I. The Fighting Illini (uh oh) won national club championships in 2005 and 2008 and were runners-up in 2009. With six-time champions Penn State making the plunge starting next season (and they should add a 7th this year), Illinois does become the most successful remaining Big Ten club program out there and a possibly logical seventh member.

Wisconsin-Green Bay: The Phoenix have an interesting position in the UW system. The system has two research universities, the flagship in Madison and the school in Milwaukee. Then there are 11 other comprehensive universities around the state - 9 of which are Division III schools (5 with hockey), and 1 of which is Division II. Green Bay stands alone in D-I. As we saw last year, there's a vibrant enough hockey community in Green Bay for the move to work and a built in place to play at the Resch Center. The WCHA is reportedly hoping to lure the Phoenix into the D-I ranks, a move that would place the league back in the familiar territory of the Badger State and help link the Minnesota teams more to the new batch of programs joining from the Great Lakes region.

Iowa State: The Cyclones, much like Illinois, are a top-end athletic school (they make their home in the Big 12) with a better than average club program. ISU won the national club championship in 1992 and reached the national championship in 1990, 1996, 1997, and 2010. Iowa is a unique place to explore expansion of college hockey, especially since the state makes up the heart of the NCAA's top feeder system, the USHL (five teams call the Hawkeye State home). The WCHA is rumored to be interested in ISU just as they are apparently interested in Green Bay, but ISU could well draw attention from the NCHC as well if they start making strides toward D-I hockey. They would be one of only two D-I level schools in the WCHA, while they would at least be with two other FBS schools in the higher-profile NCHC.

Buffalo: The Bulls make a third FBS school on this listing, which could bode well for future expansion of college hockey (although adding a bunch of big names could spell trouble for the smaller schools). UB, you will recall, was the wet dream of The Buffalo News' Bucky Gleason a couple of years back, and while we ripped on his overenthusiastic approach, we agreed with the basic premise that the Buffalo area was ripe for college hockey expansion. UB was primarily mentioned this past summer as a possible player in the talks to save the CCHA from extinction. With that possibility now off the table, it's hard to see where Buffalo fits in unless they help take the lead on the formation of a new league, possibly comprised of the Atlantic Hockey schools of western New York and Pennsylvania. Rumor had it that Terry Pegula, owner of the Buffalo Sabres and Penn State's benefactor, was willing to front the money at UB as well to give the Sabres a new practice facility and the Bulls a program of their own.

Men's Hockey - Cornell & Colgate (3/4 Feb)

2012-02-06T16:32:00.002-05:00

It only takes one game sometimes for progress to be washed away, and for the second time in three years, the Big Red Freakout game certainly fit that mold. Just one night after RPI produced a gutsy performance against a typically stingy Cornell squad, coming from behind to nab a 2-2 tie (and almost producing an overtime winner), the Engineers fell to a complete collapse at Freakout against Colgate, falling by an embarassing 8-3 score.

Cornell

Lee/McGowan/O'Grady

Rogic/Malchuk/Angers-Goulet

Cullen/Neal/Haggerty

Tinordi/Higgs/Burgdoerfer

Leonard/Bergin
Leboeuf/Bailen

Koudys/Dolan

Merriam

Not too many changes from the previous home weekend into Friday, as the only changes were Matt Neal returning in place of Jacob Laliberte, who missed the weekend's games due to a death in the family, and Greg Burgdoerfer replacing Zach Schroeder, who missed his first game as an Engineer.

Cornell took the early lead late in their first power play of the game six-and-a-half minutes after the opening puck drop. With Patrick Cullen off on a tripping call, the Big Red scored on a scrum in front with less than 10 seconds left in the man advantage to go up 1-0. RPI would pick up a subsequent two power plays in the first period, but could not get anything going, mustering only four shots in the first period.

The Big Red controlled the puck well for much of the first two periods, which limited RPI's opportunities significantly. The Engineers' power play certainly didn't do any favors either, going 0-for-4 in the first four periods. Cornell took advantage of another power play late in the second period, scoring with five minutes left in middle frame to take a 2-0 lead.

If there's one thing Cornell has had a problem with lately, however, it's keeping a lead in the third period, and RPI pounced early to turn things around. About three minutes into the third period, C.J. Lee scored on a wraparound attempt for his fifth goal of the season to make it 2-1, and a minute and a half later, Ryan Haggerty notched his first even-strength goal of the year on a rebound. His sixth of the season tied the game up at two.

From there, the Engineers dominated the third period in search of the go ahead goal, but couldn't find a third one despite a total of 12 shots on goal in the final stanza, the most of any team in one period on the night. They continued to come close in the overtime period, ringing one off the post on one shot and missing the net by inches on another, but ultimately had to settle for the tie.

Bryce Merriam picked up 23 saves in his first tie of the season, just the second tie of his career.

Colgate

Lee/McGowan/O'Grady

Cullen/Higgs/Haggerty

Tinordi/Rogic/Schroeder

Angers-Goulet/Malchuk/Burgdoerfer

Leonard/Bergin
Leboeuf/Bailen

Koudys/Dolan

Merriam

Schroeder returned to the lineup on Saturday, replacing Matt Neal and requiring a bit of shuffling to the lines since Schroeder isn't a center.

The 35th annual Big Red Freakout got off to a promising start as the Engineers generally traded blows fairly well with the Raiders in the first meeting with Colgate since last year's playoff upset at the Field House.

RPI picked up the game's first penalty seven minutes into the contest, a hit from behind against Johnny Rogic that the Engineers successfully killed off, but as the Engineers returned to full strength, C.J. Lee was called for slashing essentially because he was playing to the whistle while the teams waited for the referee to signal a stoppage after a cover by Bryce Merriam. Ten seconds later, Hobey Baker candidate Austin Smith put Colgate on top 1-0.

The game's turning point likely came with about three minutes left to play in the first period as the Engineers, whose play in their own zone became much sloppier after falling behind, gave the Raiders a freebie. Curtis Leonard tried to sweep away a puck in front of the net following a neutral-zone transition, but the deflection instead went on net and past Merriam, essentially what would be called a "own goal" in soccer, putting Colgate up 2-0.

Marty O'Grady was called for a hit from behind almost immediately to begin the second period, but a successful kill and a goal by Guy Leboeuf (his third of the year) on a shot from the point cut Colgate's lead in half and appeared to be the start of yet another comeback by the Engineers.

The comeback was squelched just about a minute and a half later on an oddly developing play. What appeared to be an icing call against Colgate was waved off at absolutely the last moment by the referees, and then a pass to the slot facilitated by a high hit was put home by Smith for his second of the game, making it 3-1.

Two power play opportunities for RPI fell by the wayside during the middle of the second period, and then a very soft Colgate goal made it 4-1 and chased Merriam from the net in favor of Scott Diebold. The change in net certainly didn't change the Engineers' luck to any great degree, as Diebold's first play on the puck two minutes later took an odd carom off the zamboni door, leaving a wide open net for Smith to score his third goal of the game into, making it 5-1.

The problems continued into the third period as the Raiders picked up two more goals 1:29 apart early in the period - the second of which was Smith's fourth of the game, and 30th of the season (as opposed to the 47 that RPI had as an entire team at that point), making it 7-1. That goal also chased Diebold from the net, and Bryce Merriam returned to the pipes.

By this point, it was essentially garbage time, with both teams playing out the remainder of the contest. Colgate picked up another one with about six minutes left to make it 8-1, and RPI picked up a pair of goals late - Zach Schroeder scoring unassisted on a 2-on-1 for his fifth of the season a minute and a half after the last Colgate goal, and Patrick Cullen picking up his third of the year on a two-man advantage with a minute left.

The loss left the Engineers with just one win in the Freakout in the last five (last year), following a 17-year unbeaten streak in the event.

Other junk - Ranked teams on the RPI schedule include #6 Ferris State (no change), #7 UMass-Lowell (up two with one first place vote), #9 Notre Dame (down one), #10 Colorado College (up one), #11 Union (no change), and #13 Cornell (up one). Falling from the rankings this week despite the lopsided victory is Colgate, falling just six votes short of #20 with 87. Also receiving votes were Quinnipiac (12) and Harvard (4).

The Freakout debacle marked the first time the Engineers have allowed 8 goals in a game since a 9-1 drubbing at home against Dartmouth on January 7, 2005. The 8 goals was the most ever given up by the Engineers in the Freakout (breaking the record of 7 from 1979, 1982, and 2010), but RPI has scored 8 or more themselves on seven different occasions in the game, last in 1999.

With Schroeder out on Friday night, only Nick Bailen, C.J. Lee, Mike Bergin, and Curtis Leonard have appeared in every RPI game this season.

Bryce Merriam made his second Freakout start, but his number in both starts are not good. Between this year and the 7-0 loss to Princeton in 2010, Merriam's Freakout numbers are 42 saves on 52 shots, giving him an .808 save percentage and 5.89 GAA in the game. That's a better figure, however, than Joe Harkenrider and Scott Diebold, who combined to make 8 saves on 13 shots for a .615 save percentage and a 20.13 GAA in his relief.

Only six games remain in the regular season, and the Engineers are back in last place, sitting five points out - and really, six points out - of a home ice position. That makes quite long odds that RPI's home schedule will extend past senior night in two weeks.

ECAC Standings

1. Union - 24 pts (10-3-4)
2. Cornell - 21 pts (8-3-5)
3. Colgate - 19 pts (9-6-1)
4. Harvard - 19 pts (6-4-7)
5. Clarkson - 17 pts (7-6-3)

6. Quinnipiac - 16 pts (6-6-4)

7. Yale - 15 pts (7-8-1)

8. Dartmouth - 15 pts (6-7-3)

9. St. Lawrence - 13 pts (6-9-1)

10. Princeton - 13 pts (5-8-3)

11. Brown - 12 pts (5-9-2)
12. RPI - 10 pts (4-10-2)

#14 Cornell at RPI
ECAC Game - Houston Field House (Troy, NY)
2/3/12- 7:00pm
RESULT: RPI 2, Cornell 2 (OT)

BOX SCORES

RECAPS

Binghamton Press & Sun-Bulletin

RECORD: 7-18-2 (4-9-2 ECAC, 10 pts)

#20 Colgate at RPI
ECAC Game - Houston Field House (Troy, NY)
2/4/12 - 7:00pm
RESULT: Colgate 8, RPI 3

BOX SCORES

College Hockey Stats

USCHO

RECAPS

RECORD: 7-19-2 (4-10-2 ECAC, 10 pts)

Upcoming games

09 Feb - at Harvard
10 Feb - at Dartmouth
16 Feb - Quinnipiac

17 Feb - Princeton (Senior Night)

24 Feb - at Colgate

Women's Hockey - at Cornell & Colgate (3/4 Feb)

2012-02-06T06:39:00.003-05:00

With the last potentially-easy game of the season set to take place against Colgate on Saturday, the Engineers desperately needed to take two points from the weekend to maintain a good chance at capturing the final playoff spot. Instead, RPI saw a comeback bid fall short in a 3-2 loss in Hamilton, after shouldering a 3-0 loss at Cornell the night before.

Cornell

Smelker/Cox/Vandegrift

Mahoney/Harrison/Horton

Sanders/Guillemette/Mankey

Letuligasenoa/Svoboda

Marzario/Vadner

Castignetti/Le Donne

Walsh/Schilter

O'Brien

The Big Red have had an easy go of it in the ECAC this season - not quite so easy as the Harvard squad that went 22-0 in league play a few seasons ago, but rather good nonetheless. Friday's game offered one more glimpse of what the Engineers would be lucky enough to face if they take the eighth spot in the standings, and the game went fairly predictably with Cornell picking up a 3-0 victory with all three goals coming in the second period.

After a first period which saw the teams trade several penalties, the game was broken open near the middle of the second period, when Cornell notched two quick goals just 1:18 apart. Brianne Jenner deflected a shot from the point by Lauriane Rougeau at 8:31, then Chelsea Karpenko scored at 9:49 on a 2-on-1 break which developed after Catherine White blocked an RPI shot at the other end of the ice.

White would be responsible for Cornell's third goal, deflecting a long shot past RPI netminder Kelly O'Brien at 17:28 of the middle frame.

RPI managed just two shots on goal in the final period, despite three power plays, as Cornell locked down defensively and closed out the game for a 3-0 final. Total shots on goal were 37-12 in Cornell's favor, similar to many of the games they have played this year.

While Cornell's season has shown they are not invincible, they remain the clear frontrunner to win the ECAC regular season (and tournament), with a five point lead over Harvard with four games to go, including a pair against Brown and Yale. It remains to be seen how the Big Red will do on a national level, where they have stood in the top three in the polls for most of the season.

Colgate

Smelker/Cox/Vandegrift

Mahoney/Harrison/Horton

Sanders/Guillemette/Mankey

Letuligasenoa/Svoboda

Le Donne/Vadner

Castignetti/Marzario

Walsh/Schilter

O'Brien

Right on the Engineers' heels in the standings and fighting hard for that privelege of playing Cornell in the playoffs, Colgate entered Saturday's game with just as much to play for as RPI, and made the most out of the game, skating to a 3-2 victory after RPI's comback bid fell short. Coupled with a victory over Union on Friday, the Raiders picked up four points on the Engineers and now stand just a point behind - while getting to play Yale and Brown next weekend while RPI hosts much tougher teams in Harvard and Dartmouth.

The scoring on Saturday was all contained in the third period, with a first period that saw the teams with only four shots each, and a second which saw the visiting Engineers outshoot their hosts 10-5, with several power play chances thrown into the mix.

Things certainly got more interesting in a hurry in the early third period, with Colgate's Rachel Walsh opening the scoring at 2:10 before Taylor Horton tied the game just 48 seconds later. The tie would not last as Colgate regained the lead another 40 seconds after Horton's goal, with Melissa Keuber picking up her 11th goal of the season.

Keuber would go on to notch her 12th goal on the power play at 14:53, which put the Raiders up 3-1 and proved to be the eventual game-winner. Horton scored again with the net empty to draw to within 3-2, but Colgate's Kimberly Sass held the Engineers off for the final 41 seconds to help her team to victory.

RPI now plays host to Harvard and Dartmouth before traveling to Princeton and Quinnipiac to end the regular season. Making the playoffs is no longer a simple proposal for the Engineers, who are tied with Brown (but the Bears hold the tiebreaker over RPI and may see the difference come from a remaining game against Colgate while each of RPI's games are against teams ahead of them in the standings). The statistics are not in RPI's favor, as their best chance of picking up points comes against Princeton - a 23% chance of winning that game based on the numbers.

More importantly, a single win may not be enough to seal the deal; if Brown defeats Colgate, or Colgate can sweep Yale and Brown, the Engineers would need a second upset against Harvard, Dartmouth, or Quinnipiac or they will be on the outside looking in two weeks from now.

-----

RPI at Cornell

ECAC Hockey Game – Lynah Rink (Ithaca, NY)

2/3/12 – 7:00pm

Cornell 3, RPI 0

BOX SCORES:

USCHO: http://www.uscho.com/box/womens-hockey/2012/02/03/rensselaer-vs-cornell/

College Hockey Stats: http://collegehockeystats.net/1112/boxes/wcorren1.f03

RECAPS:

RPI: http://rpiathletics.com/news/2012/2/3/WICE_0203122108.aspx

Cornell: http://www.cornellbigred.com/news/2012/2/3/WICE_0203125810.aspx

RECORD: 8-17-4 (5-10-2 ECAC)

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RPI at Colgate

ECAC Hockey Game – Starr Rink (Hamilton, NY)

2/3/12 – 4:00pm

Colgate 3, RPI 2

BOX SCORES:

USCHO: http://www.uscho.com/box/womens-hockey/2012/02/04/rensselaer-vs-colgate/

College Hockey Stats: http://collegehockeystats.net/1112/boxes/wclgren1.f04

RECAPS:

RPI: http://rpiathletics.com/news/2012/2/4/MHOCK_0204120506.aspx

Colgate: http://www.gocolgateraiders.com/news/2012/2/4/WHOCKEY_0204123629.aspx

RECORD: 8-18-4 (5-11-2 ECAC)

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ECAC Standings (all teams have played 18 games)

                Pts   Conf     All
Cornell         32    16-2     21-3
Harvard         27    13-4-1   16-7-1
Clarkson        26    12-4-2   18-7-5
Dartmouth       24    11-5-2   15-7-2
St. Lawrence    24    11-5-2   17-8-4
Quinnipiac      22    10-6-2   15-12-2
Princeton       18    8-8-2    10-11-4
Brown           12    4-10-4   7-11-7
Rensselaer      12    5-11-2   8-18-4
Colgate         11    5-12-1   10-18-1
Union           6     2-14-2   4-22-4
Yale            2     1-17     1-24

-----

Upcoming Games

Feb. 10 - Harvard (7pm)

Feb. 11 - Dartmouth (Senior Night) (4pm)

Feb. 17 - at Princeton (7pm)

Feb. 18 - at Quinnipiac (4pm)

Feb. 24-26 - ECAC Playoff Quarterfinals (if RPI qualifies)

Seeing Red?

2012-02-04T08:11:00.001-05:00

RPI refuses to quit against one of the nation's top ranked teams, gets a point for its efforts... and falls back into last place because St. Lawrence pulled out an overtime winner against death spiralling Yale. Such is life.

Oh well. It's Freakout!, which means it doesn't matter if the team's in last place or first place. Have a great night tonight, everyone. Also, enjoy our one-day-a-year color scheme.

Get Your Freak On

2012-02-03T09:37:00.000-05:00

No, this isn't Missy Elliott (although if this morning's title got you wanting some, here it is). "More" pretty well explains what we're looking for this weekend. More of the elevated play we've seen from the men in the last two weeks. More national television coverage (NBC Sports Network in high definition excitement). More of the same intensity that we saw in a weekend sweep for the women last week against Union, especially tomorrow night in a crucial contest with Colgate.

More, more man!

Today's Podcast: Joe Yerdon

2012-02-02T13:06:00.000-05:00

No, you aren't reading that wrong. We're having a podcast today!

After a month of technical issues, we're confident we have the means to produce a stable podcast, and we do so this afternoon at 5:30 pm ET with our guest Joe Yerdon, who writes for NBC's Pro Hockey Talk.

Since NBC began airing college hockey on the newly christened NBC Sports Network (formerly Versus), Joe has added a bit of NCAA knowledge to his usual NHL repertoire, penning the weekly "Back to Class," recap on Mondays and providing a preview of the Friday night game of the week on Friday mornings. And look who's starring in this week's edition - it's Cornell at RPI, marking the second time in five weeks that NBC's cameras will be at Houston Field House.

We'll talk with Joe about the Cornell matchup and get his thoughts on the 35th annual Big Red Freakout! which is this coming Saturday against Colgate. Can Seth Appert, fresh off his first Freakout! victory last year against #1 Yale, make it two in a row against ranked opponents in the BRF?

To listen in, click Listen to Without a Peer in the upper right hand corner of the page at the appropriate time, or listen on demand at any time.

Glad to have Without a Peer Radio back on the air.

ECAC Power Rankings (January)

2012-02-01T18:19:00.000-05:00

If there was ever a good season for RPI to have a rough year, this one might have actually been it when you look at the league as a whole and compare it to the rest of the country.

This time last year, the ECAC was doing very well. Yale was one of the best teams in the nation. The Capital District duo was the most feared road trip in the league, and both looked ready to end long NCAA tournament droughts.

Today? Union is the standard-bearer, which should historically be starting with the warning bells right off the bat, but the numbers paint the full picture. The Dutchmen sit 21st in KRACH, which is arguably the best mathematical method to compare teams to each other. Union, with the nation's fifth best record, ranks behind Northeastern, a team tied for seventh in Hockey East with a sub-.500 record overall.

The PairWise Rankings don't offer any better outlook. Again, Union is highest ranked in the ECAC, but sit just 15th, a position which would require them to win the ECAC championship in order to reach the national tournament if the season ended today. There are no teams sitting in position for an at-large bid. Union or Cornell could probably put themselves in position for one, but it's unlikely we'll see both, especially since they still have to play each other twice.

Last year, the league scored three NCAA bids - Yale, Union, and RPI. The first two were pretty rock solid by the time March began, and by the start of February last season, all three teams were regularly in at-large position. Additionally, there were two other teams floating on the bubble in Cornell and Dartmouth, and if you throw in Cinderella Colgate, half of the league had a reasonable likelihood of reaching the national tournament in the final week before the field was chosen. This year, unless something extreme happens in February, the four teams in Atlantic City are going to be fighting tooth and nail for what may ultimately become the league's only bid.

No, this certainly isn't the ECAC's year - which means that even if RPI had been more successful, the chances of a repeat bid would be long... then again, if RPI had been more successful, the league as a whole would be that much better, but the basic truths remain. The relative strength of the league last year helped the Engineers get into the tournament. This time around, the team that gets hot and stays hot in March is likely to be all alone on the inside looking out.

That' means everyone is in the same boat - which, depending on how you look at it, can either be a great equalizer, or it could give the top teams more incentive to look out below in the ECAC Tournament lest their season come to an abrupt end.

1. Union (15-6-6) - 21st in KRACH, 15th in the PairWise, 11th in our hearts and 1st in the ECAC. The Dutchmen plowed through January with a 6-1-1 record overall and following Cornell's slip last week against Colgate, sit in first place, in the driver's seat to add a second consecutive season to the quite unique Cleary Cup banner hanging from the Achilles Center ceiling. Union will have to prove its mettle in four games with the Big Red and the Raiders, but they've been pounding opponents lately with the curious exception of Brown, who picked up a season sweep two weekends ago.

2. Cornell (11-6-4) - One moment, you're humming along, sitting in first place, stringing together three straight 3-point weekends (the first coming at Colorado College, not technically three points but a win and tie nonetheless), and the next moment you run smack into a home-and-home weekend, get swept (including blowing a two goal lead on Saturday night on the road), and you're sitting in second place rather than first. That's Cornell - 3-0-3 in the first three weeks of the month (all three wins on Fridays, all three ties on Saturdays), and then swept last weekend by Colgate.

3. Colgate (14-9-3) - If one weekend was enough to judge, the Raiders should be ahead of the Big Red. Completing the weekend and season sweep of their rivals from Ithaca for the first time since 2004, the Raiders definitely injected themselves back into the discussion of the best teams in the ECAC, with the major exception that the rest of January was relatively putrid. The win on Friday at Lynah snapped a six-game winless streak that dated back to the beginning of the month, and the Raiders went 2-5-1 for January with some awful defensive shows during that stretch.

4. Quinnipiac (13-8-5) - Only four games for the Bobcats in January thanks to the class schedule of their travel partners down in New Jersey, but the Q's comeback from a rough November continued with a 2-1-1 record in the first two weekends of the month, picking up five points and ensuring that when the Bobcats return to action this weekend, they'll be right in the conversation for the first round bye. Their last game was an impressive 7-1 drubbing of Colgate, the most goals they've scored in a league game since an 8-3 pasting of Brown in 2010.

5. Harvard (6-6-9) - Somehow, the Crimson continue to find ways to tie. They picked up five more of them in the month of January (including last night's tie at home with Dartmouth), giving them nine for the season in just 21 games. It's technically a .500 record for the month at 2-2-5, but four of the five ties were of the comeback variety, which means Harvard is an exceptionally difficult team to finish off. That makes them a dangerous draw come March, and in a league that's struggling to produce standouts, a .500 record puts the Crimson in the mix for the bye.

6. Clarkson (12-11-5) - The Golden Knights bounced back well in January, dropping a pair of games against nationally ranked opponents in North Dakota and Union, but going undefeated in their other four games (3-0-1). Clarkson's lunchpail mentality has kept them in the majority of their games this year, and as we saw this past weekend in Troy, helps them pick up points even when they are unable to control the flow of the game. Frequently, their defense helps out with that, but on nights when the defense isn't on, the offense has been. That combination can make the Knights tough in February.

7. Dartmouth (9-9-3) - It's been up and down for the Big Green in the last month. Following the team's hold-on victory at the beginning of the month at RPI, Dartmouth lost three straight, including a 7-1 pounding at Union the next night. All told, the Big Green went 3-4-1 in January, blowing a 4-1 lead at Yale last weekend. The offense has been keeping Dartmouth in the hunt, as the defense has allowed 3 or more goals in six of the last eight games - which, as we at RPI are well aware, is typically going to lose you plenty of games, but they're hanging in there.

8. Yale (9-10-2) - The spiral in New Haven looked like it was about to continue last Saturday as the Bulldogs fell behind 4-1 after one period against Dartmouth, following four straight losses and a five-game winless streak, but Yale may well have saved their season with four unanswered goals to salvage a weekend split. That put a happy bookend on a January that started with a win against Bentley on New Year's Day, but featured a 3-5-1 record. The Bulldogs were supposed to be better than their record appears - can their defense, which was ironclad in November, reappear from its slumber?

9. Princeton (7-10-5) - The Tigers emerged from hibernation last night with a come-from-behind victory at home against UConn, not exactly a result that garners lots of confidence. It finished a technically good January at 3-1-1, but the one loss was against a Yale team that has been sputtering, and the big victory was against a suddenly porous Colgate defense just before exams. The Tigers have not been exceptionally brilliant this season, but neither have they instilled a sense of hopelessness, either. Their problem now is the schedule - just seven games left and four of the next five on the road.

10. Brown (8-10-3) - There's little question that the Bears are the most schizophrenic team in the ECAC this season. They picked up a season sweep of first place Union, but were swept by last place RPI. They beat New Hampshire and Providence in three days time, but were shut out at home by American International. In Brown's nine-game January, the 3-4-2 record is equally strange. The three goal rule was hard and fast - they won the games they scored 3, lost the ones they allowed 3, and tied the ones neither got 3. A good February can still snag them home ice.

11. RPI (7-18-1) - Still technically last in the league in KRACH (but closing fast), the Engineers may have seen the worm turn in late January - the question now is whether they have enough juice to make a run of any kind. The schedule may be prohibitive, with four games against Cornell and Colgate yet to come, but RPI has put together four consecutive solid outings, picking up a 3-1-0 record in the stretch to power an optimistic 4-3-1 record for the month. If the Engineers can keep up the momentum, home ice in the first round may not be as far-fetched as it was once thought.

12. St. Lawrence (8-15-3) - 1-5-1 in January, the Saints are in general freefall at this point. They haven't picked up an ECAC win since November 19, with a league record of 0-7-1 since. St. Lawrence was outscored 10-0 in the Capital District last weekend, and has allowed at least four goals in each of its last four games, while scoring only four goals during the stretch. Essentially, the Saints are pretty much back to where they were at the start of the season, only against weaker general competition. They endure their fourth and fifth straight road games this weekend, but they don't have an easy home schedule either.

Men's Hockey - St. Lawrence & Clarkson (27/28 Jan)

2012-01-30T17:43:00.001-05:00

There's still a long way to go in the ECAC schedule - 8 games, which can be an eternity in the standings as it represents over 1/3 of the season - but RPI may well be turning the corner on what has generally been a dog of a season lately. They had to settle for a weekend split with a 4-0 victory over St. Lawrence and a 3-2 loss to Clarkson, but the effort shown in both games may well indicate that the Engineers have, at long last, found themselves as a hockey team and could well be ready to charge into the last segment of the season with some confidence, even with half of those eight games to come against the back-to-dangerous Central New York duo.

St. Lawrence

Lee/McGowan/O'Grady

Cullen/Laliberte/Haggerty

Tinordi/Higgs/Schroeder

Rogic/Malchuk/Angers-Goulet

Leonard/Bergin
Leboeuf/Bailen

Koudys/Dolan

Merriam

Despite the road sweep the weekend prior, some changes were made to the RPI lineup, especially the return of Alex Angers-Goulet, who had missed several games with a leg injury. His return pushed Greg Burgdoerfer out, but the lines were further jumbled a bit, with Jacob Laliberte moving to center over Marty O'Grady.

No scoring took place in the first period despite three power plays (2 for RPI, 1 for St. Lawrence), and a very well played 20 minutes by the Engineers, who were able to pick up a 7-3 edge in shots heading into the first intermission.

RPI had 23 seconds of power play time bleed into the second period, and once that ended, St. Lawrence managed a pretty solid stretch in the RPI zone for a couple of minutes, ending with an RPI icing. Seth Appert called timeout to give the guys out on the ice an opportunity to catch their breath, but a hooking penalty against Guy Leboeuf (after his man managed to get past him deep in the zone), threatened to allow the suddenly resurgent Saints the opportunity to score first. The penalty kill, however, held up, which helped the tide turn significantly in RPI's favor.

Just under a minute after the Leboeuf penalty expired, Patrick Cullen finally snapped his long point drought by putting the Engineers up 1-0 with a shot through traffic in the slot. Cullen was then instrumental in setting up RPI's second goal just over a minute later on the power play, taking a one-timer from near the blue line that was redirected in front by Matt Tinordi, with the rebound being powered home by Marty O'Grady, extending his goal scoring streak to three straight (and four in three games) to make it 2-0.

On RPI's next power play about three and a half minutes later, Cullen again played the playmaker role, setting up a C.J. Lee one-timer that found the back of the net to give RPI a 3-0 lead. Entering the game with just a single goal on the season for his point spread, Cullen racked up three big points in less than five minutes of game time to help the Engineers reach a commanding lead just past the game's halfway point.

The Engineers tightened their grip with just over two minutes to play in the second, as Bo Dolan notched his first goal of the season on a shot from the top of the faceoff circles, putting RPI up 4-0 for the first time this season. It was the first time RPI had scored four goals in one period since the third period at Clarkson on February 19, 2011 and the first time they'd scored four without an empty netter since the third period against UConn in the RPI tournament on November 26, 2010 (the first in league play since November 13, 2009... also at Clarkson).

With the solid lead in his back pocket, Bryce Merriam worked an outstanding final two periods. He didn't have to overexert himself, but he made 16 stops in the last 40 minutes to pick up the shutout victory.

The win moved RPI into a tie for 11th with St. Lawrence.

With his second shutout in three games, Merriam had recorded 100 saves on 101 shots in that stretch, an outstanding save percentage of .990.

Clarkson

Lee/McGowan/O'Grady

Cullen/Laliberte/Haggerty

Tinordi/Higgs/Schroeder

Rogic/Malchuk/Angers-Goulet

Leonard/Bergin
Leboeuf/Bailen

Koudys/Dolan

Merriam

No changes whatsoever to the RPI lineup between Friday and Saturday - the Engineers put together a complete 60 minutes against an admittedly weak St. Lawrence team, and went to work immediately against a much tougher squad from Clarkson, who had just had their heads handed to them the night before in Schenectady.

Unfortunately, the early work was overshadowed by a tough goal to give up just two and a half minutes into the affair. A good screen kept Merriam from seeing a shot from the point, and the Golden Knights took an early 1-0 lead.

Things got worse about six minutes later, as C.J. Lee was called for a boarding major after hitting Clarkson's Kevin Tansey behind the Knights' net. Tansey stayed down motionless after what was likely a minor penalty, drawing the extra three minutes. After Lee was assessed the penalty - fortunately for the Engineers, not including a game misconduct - Tansey skated back to the Clarkson bench and didn't miss a shift.

The bit of acting paid off well for Clarkson, who netted their second goal three minutes into the major penalty to go up 2-0.

RPI, who had been playing well before the Lee hit, did not give in at that point as two-goal deficits had commonly done earlier in the season. Guy Leboeuf got things started with his second goal of the season from the top of the slot just over two minutes later to cut the Clarkson lead in half, making it 2-1 after one period.

Midway through the second period, RPI tied things up with Matt Tinordi's third goal of the season, coming on the power play on a redirected shot by Patrick Cullen, making it 2-2. The assist was Cullen's fourth of the weekend, and of the season.

The Engineers played some dominant hockey from there on out, but could not get another one past Paul Karpowich, who played some very solid hockey and bailed his team out very well, slightly reminicient of Merriam's play a week prior in New Haven. A two-on-one break for Clarkson eventually gave the Knights the lead once again with about seven minutes left, and RPI was unable to break the trap that Clarkson fell back into after retaking the lead.

RPI produced several opportunities with Merriam out of the net in the final minute of the game, but couldn't find the third goal even after getting a power play chance with 20 seconds left. Karpowich finished with 29 saves to get his team the victory despite some exceptional play by the Engineers throughout.

The 3 goals on 17 shots was significantly off his pace from the previous three games, but Merriam still has a save percentage over the last two weeks of .966 and a GAA slightly less than 1.00 (when you consider the 1:52 of empty net time on Saturday night) in four games. Not too shabby.

Other junk - Ranked teams on the RPI schedule this week are #6 Ferris State (up four, with one first place vote), #8 Notre Dame (down four), #9 UMass-Lowell (up two), Co-#11 Colorado College (up one), Co-#11 Union (up three), #14 Cornell (down five), and #20 Colgate (re-entering the rankings). Also receiving votes were RIT (15), Quinnipiac (5), and Harvard (4).

While no Engineer has more than five goals this season (Nick Bailen, Marty O'Grady, and Ryan Haggerty), only five skaters have yet to dent the twine - Josh Rabbani, Mike Bergin, Greg Burgdoerfer, Justin Smith, and Luke Curadi. Interestingly, with Bo Dolan's goal against SLU, six of seven defensemen have scored. Curadi, in his defense, doesn't take an awful lot of shots and has only made 10 appearances. In fact, only Rabbani and Bergin on the list of non-goal scorers have more than 10 games in the lineup.

It's now Freakout! weekend, and RPI has won four of their last six games, and they've played very well in four straight. Two tough, ranked opponents in Cornell and Colgate await the Engineers. Points may be at a premium, but if they play as they did the last two weeks, they may be available nonetheless.

ECAC Standings (by win% in parentheses)

1 (1). Union - 21 pts (9-3-3)
2 (2). Cornell - 19 pts (8-3-3)
3 (3). Colgate - 17 pts (8-5-1)
4 (5). Harvard - 16 pts (5-4-6)
5 (4). Clarkson - 15 pts (6-5-3)

6 (7). Quinnipiac - 14 pts (5-5-4)

7 (7). Dartmouth - 13 pts (6-6-1)

8 (8). Yale - 13 pts (5-6-1)
9 (9). Brown - 12 pts (5-7-2)

10 (10). Princeton - 12 pts (5-8-2)
11 (11). RPI - 9 pts (4-9-1, -11 GD)

12 (12). St. Lawrence - 9 pts (4-9-1, -20 GD)

St. Lawrence at RPI
ECAC Game - Houston Field House (Troy, NY)
1/27/12- 7:00pm
RESULT: RPI 4, St. Lawrence 0

BOX SCORES
College Hockey Stats
USCHO

RECAPS
RPI
Troy Record
Albany Times Union
Watertown Daily Times

RECORD: 7-17-1 (4-8-1 ECAC, 9 pts)

Clarkson at RPI
ECAC Game - Houston Field House (Troy, NY)
1/28/12 - 7:00pm
RESULT: Clarkson 3, RPI 2

BOX SCORES
College Hockey Stats
USCHO

RECAPS
RPI
Troy Record
Albany Times Union
Watertown Daily Times
YNN

RECORD: 7-18-1 (4-9-1 ECAC, 9 pts)

Upcoming games

03 Feb - #14 Cornell
04 Feb - #20 Colgate (Big Red Freakout!)
09 Feb - at Harvard
10 Feb - at Dartmouth
16 Feb - Quinnipiac

Women's Hockey - Union Home & Home (27/28 Jan)

2012-01-29T21:47:00.003-05:00

With it looking more and more like a two-team race for the final playoff spot between RPI and Brown, no weekend could be more important for the Engineers to take four points than the home-and-home against Union - and that's exactly what RPI did. After earning a 3-1 victory on Friday which saw Union melt down and take three penalties in the game's final minute, the Engineers dominated Saturday's game from start to finish to earn a 3-0 shutout and move into a tie with Brown for the eighth spot in the standings.

Friday (at Union)

Smelker/Cox/Vandegrift

Mahoney/Harrison/Horton

Sanders/Guillemette/Mankey

Letuligasenoa/Svoboda

Castignetti/Marzario

Le Donne/Vadner

Walsh

O'Brien

RPI's top line combined for eight points at Union's Messa Rink on Friday, with freshman Eleeza Cox scoring her tenth goal and tacking assists on both of RPI's other goals, while senior Jill Vandegrift had assists on all three Engineer tallies.

Cox opened the scoring at 13:42 of the opening period, collecting a pass from Jordan Smelker and slid a five-hole backhand shot past Union goalie Kate Gallagher.

The second period saw the teams trade only a few penaltes and the Engineers held just a 15-13 edge in shots on goal by the end of the second period in what was becoming a little closer of an affair than the Engineers might have preferred.

While the Engineers appeared to be scrambling a little bit early in the third, there was no need for concern by the time the period hit its midpoint, as Smelker scored her ninth goal at 9:56 in a bid to keep pace with Cox. Cox picked up the primary assist on the goal, feeding Smelker for a wrist shot past Gallagher.

Sierra Vadner pushed the RPI lead to 3-0 just two minutes later, precisely redirecting a pass from Smelker on an odd-man rush to leave Gallagher little chance at a save.

Union would get one back about a minute and a half after Vadner's goal, with Maddy Norton earning her first goal of the season on a deflection past RPI's Kelly O'Brien. That would be the end of the offense for Union. The Dutchwomen would combine for three penalties in the span of 48 seconds in the game's final minute, completely losing their composure to the point where one of the calls (a checking penalty) would likely have been a penalty even in the men's league, where checking is allowed.

The win moved RPI to within two points of eighth place, setting them up to move into a tie with Brown following Saturday's game.

Saturday (vs. Union)

Smelker/Cox/Vandegrift

Mahoney/Harrison/Horton

Sanders/Guillemette/Mankey

Letuligasenoa/Svoboda

Castignetti/Marzario

Le Donne/Vadner

Walsh/Schilter

O'Brien

Unlike Friday's tilt, which actually was pretty strongly contested by the Dutchwomen, Saturday afternoon's game showed a much wider disparity between the teams as the Engineers more than tripled Union in shots on goal and picked up a goal in each period while cruising to a 3-0 shutout - Kelly O'Brien's third of the season for her second straight win.

Eleeza Cox scored the opening goal at 10:22 of the first period, beating a pair of Union defenders while rushing down ice one-on-two before firing the puck past Shenae Lundberg for a 1-0 lead. Cox would go on to score the next goal as well, with just 26 seconds remaining in the second period.

Six penalties passed in the second without either team being able to capitalize on the man advantage; RPI in particular suffered from a lack of shots on each of their three advantages in the frame, earning just seven shots total in the second. Cox's tally would come off a pass from Taylor Mahoney which was nicely redirected past Lundberg.

RPI remedied its lack of shots on the final period, racking up an astonishing 22-1 margin in the third. Four consecutive Union penalties would be killed by a surprisingly effective PK squad for the Dutchwomen, but the Engineers would instead pick up a shorthanded goal as Jordan Smelker fired one into the empty Union net with 1:47 left in regulation to seal the 3-0 victory.

With three weekends left in the regular season, it doesn't get any easier for the Engineers, who still have games against Cornell, Harvard, and Dartmouth on the schedule. Fortunately, Brown faces four out of the same six teams as the Engineers, also facing Clarkson and St. Lawrence in place of the Engineers' matchups against Princeton and Quinnipiac. Remarkably similar schedules for two teams battling to make the playoffs, and both will play four out of six on the road to round out the regular season. RPI travels to Cornell Friday night to take on the #2 Big Red (7pm) before facing Colgate (another must-win as the Raiders trail RPI by five points) at 4pm Saturday.

-----

RPI at Union

ECAC Hockey Game – Messa Rink (Schenectady, NY)

1/27/12 – 3:00pm

RPI 3, Union 1

BOX SCORES:

USCHO: http://www.uscho.com/box/womens-hockey/2012/01/27/rensselaer-vs-union/

College Hockey Stats: http://collegehockeystats.net/1112/boxes/wrenuni1.j27

RECAPS:

RPI: http://rpiathletics.com/news/2012/1/27/WICE_0127120404.aspx

Union: http://www.unionathletics.com/news/2012/1/27/WICE_0127122615.aspx

RECORD: 7-16-4 (4-9-2 ECAC)

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RPI vs. Union

ECAC Hockey Game – Houston Field House (Troy, NY)

1/28/12 – 3:00pm

RPI 3, Union 0

BOX SCORES:

USCHO: http://www.uscho.com/box/womens-hockey/2012/01/28/union-vs-rensselaer/

College Hockey Stats: http://collegehockeystats.net/1112/boxes/wrenuni1.j28

RECAPS:

RPI: http://rpiathletics.com/news/2012/1/28/WICE_0128122246.aspx

Union: http://www.unionathletics.com/news/2012/1/28/WICE_0128124906.aspx

Post-Game Interviews: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FewccuwwteM

RECORD: 8-16-4 (5-9-2 ECAC)

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ECAC Standings (all teams have played 16 games)

                Pts   Conf     All
Cornell         28    14-2     19-3
Harvard         23    11-4-1   14-6-1
Dartmouth       22    10-4-2   14-6-2
Clarkson        22    10-4-2   16-7-5
Quinnipiac      22    10-4-2   15-10-2
St. Lawrence    20    9-5-2    15-8-4
Princeton       16    7-7-2    8-10-4
Brown           12    4-8-4    7-9-7
Rensselaer      12    5-9-2    8-16-4
Colgate          7    3-12-1   8-18-1
Union            6    2-12-2   4-20-4
Yale             2    1-15     1-22

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Upcoming Games

Feb. 3 - at Cornell (7pm)

Feb. 4 - at Colgate (4pm)

Feb. 10 - Harvard (7pm)

Feb. 11 - Dartmouth (Senior Night) (4pm)

Feb. 17 - at Princeton (7pm)

Feb. 18 - at Quinnipiac (4pm)

There's Always One

2012-01-28T09:22:00.000-05:00

"In case you haven't noticed, and judging by the attendance you haven't, the Indians have managed to win a few here and there, and are threatening to climb out of the cellar." -- Harry Doyle, Major League

Great day for RPI hockey yesterday as the women put up a solid 3-1 victory over Union in Schenectady before the men rode a dominating second period - easily their best performance of the year - and kept a completely out of sorts St. Lawrence team from doing anything notable in the other two periods to take a 4-0 victory.

That's three wins in a row for the men's team, which they haven't accomplished since the five game stretch last January. Oddly enough, the attendance last night dipped below 3,000 for the first time since the Brown game - which was also a shutout.

The women now have a little separation on the back of the pack - three points ahead of 10th place Colgate, and two behind 8th place Brown. With a victory at home this afternoon (while Brown takes on 3rd place Harvard), RPI could well tie the Bears for the final playoff spot, setting up a three week scramble for points between the Engineers and Brown.

Two games at the Field House tonight... come on out for both! You won't be disappointed.

Special treat today: a reader-submitted photoshop effort. This one comes to us courtesy of Tom Kinstrey, who reminds us all of the... natural charisma of the Clarkson fan/student/alum.

It's a Long Way to the Top

2012-01-27T12:19:00.001-05:00

This weekend isn't really make or break - it could well be more of a "break," however, if either team has a rough outing.

For the women, it's four points or bust, but this isn't your usual roll over and play dead Union team. They've been stealing points here and there, however, and if RPI doesn't bring their A-game, they could suffer their first loss to the Dutchwomen since 2004, when Union was a Division I team and RPI was still in Division III. A sweep, and they may just take the driver's seat for 8th place.

For the men, it's an opportunity to prove that last week's sweep was no fluke. Tonight, they take on St. Lawrence, in a game they must win if they are going to pull themselves out of the basement. With a victory, they can move into a tie for 11th place with the Saints. With a loss, they're four points clear of the field again. Then tomorrow, it's Clarkson, a team that has done well without exactly knocking anyone's socks off. If Bryce Merriam can stay hot through this weekend, the long road to redemption could begin in earnest.

We may have used this one in the past... matter of fact I think we kicked off last year's season with it. Doesn't matter, it still rocks and it's apt. The first rule of pumpup is that you can never go wrong with AC/DC anyway.

Pipeline 2012: The New Breed

2012-01-25T06:28:00.000-05:00

In a season as difficult as this one has been, there can be some respite in looking into the future. Fortunately, in the last two seasons, we've set aside time in January to discuss the state of recruiting.

Thanks to Reilly Hamilton and RPI TV for their outstanding graphics for a third year running. We've included a projection as to who on the RPI roster (and no longer on the RPI roster, for that matter) these incoming recruits are expected to replace positionally, but that doesn't mean they're going to be mirror images of them. Some may take a season or two to get to that potential. Some may already be better than the guy they're replacing.

Recruiting never ends. This is unlikely to be the final list for 2012. Specifically, we're possibly going to be looking for one more forward, at least if we are looking to break even on the number of forwards lost and gained given that five forwards are graduating and three are currently known to be coming in next season. Defensively there exists the possibility of one more (especially if Mike Bergin chooses not to use his redshirt season), but there's no certainty.

As of now, there are five recruits who are currently expected on campus in August 2012, and a sixth who could arrive then as well. There are between two and four recruits expected in August 2013, and either one or two expected in August 2014.

Listed next to the player names are their current number, their position, and their birth year. They are listed in the order of their commitment, and also by their anticipated arrival year, with those expected or possibly arriving after this coming August at the very bottom.

Team: Youngstown Phantoms (USHL)
Projected to replace: Bryan Brutlag or Mike Bergin

Given that the Engineers have no defensemen on the team this year who will have exhausted their eligibility following the season (due to Bergin's injury as a freshman), Bradley will either replace Bergin if he decides not to stay for his redshirt year as Malchuk did, or he'll add depth to the defensive corps that has been missing essentially ever since Bryan Brutlag was moved to forward. Once Jacob Laliberte enrolled at RPI, Bradley became the recruit with the longest tenured commitment, making his decision in September 2010.

A lot of what we said last year still holds true: He has been described as a "big, puck-moving defenseman," which is exactly what Seth Appert has been looking for on the blue line lately. He's not as big as Luke Curadi, Curtis Leonard, Pat Koudys or Guy Leboeuf, but he's big enough to be another difficult obstacle for forwards in the ECAC to navigate. He's bigger than Bergin or Brutlag anyway, so regardless he makes a fifth big-un on the blue line.

He doesn't appear on the score sheet with any great frequency (though he's been picking up some points as of late - had a hat trick last week, actually), but from all reports, he's a solid defensive defenseman, much like Curtis Leonard. Bradley wasn't drafted last year despite being ranked by the NHL's Central Scouting Bureau, but he could well step in and make contributions to this team right away.

Team: Vernon Vipers (BCHL)
Projected to replace: Patrick Cullen

Zalewski hasn't received the hype that Jacob Laliberte got ahead of his arrival in Troy - in part thanks to the lack of drama regarding his status - but he may well be able to have an impact approaching that of Brandon Pirri or Jerry D'Amigo. While Laliberte ran up gaudy numbers in the weaker Ontario league, Zalewski is connecting for over a point per game in British Columbia, which, along with the USHL, is one of the top level junior circuits out there.

As we mentioned last year: Mike's older brother, Steve, played four years at Clarkson before moving on to play for the San Jose Sharks. Sharper college hockey aficionados will remember another older brother, Rich, who helped lead Oswego State to a Division III national championship a few years back. Like his brothers, Mike has chosen to stay close to home, which was a big part of his decision to come to RPI.

Like any American playing in the BCHL, he's a talent that's worth waiting for. He was good enough to get drafted by the USHL (by Youngstown, Bradley's team) even after he had made it evident that he was planning to play in the BCHL this season. That's how much he was sought after scoring in bunches for his high school team in New Hartford three years ago, and then again for the Syracuse Stars of the EJHL two years ago. He's already blown through last year's goal and assist totals, which shows great growth. According to hockey scout Dan Sallows during last season, Mike and his older brother Steve "mirror each other with their offensive ability, good work ethic, and strong two-way play."

Expect Zalewski to make some good strides next year and bolster RPI's offense relatively quickly.

Team: Omaha Lancers (USHL)
Projected to replace: Alex Angers-Goulet or Justin Smith

Last year we deemed Miller an unknown quantity because of a quirky statistic - he led Omaha in goals when he committed to RPI in November 2010, then failed to register a point in 15 straight games. In fact, he finished with just five goals and five assists on the season in 59 games played - which gave him one goal and three assists in the last 47 games of the season.

This year, it seems like more of the same, without much explanation. As one of the team's two captains, Miller has appeared in all of the first-place Lancers' games. He takes a healthy number of shots, averaging 2.3 per game. His penalty minutes are not in line with what you would expect from a forward who would project as a bruiser or enforcer. Before he arrived in Omaha, he'd previously been lighting it up offensively with a midget team in Kansas City and was a 2nd round USHL draft pick in 2010.

Without having seen him play, it's hard to know based on all of that exactly what to expect from Miller at RPI. Is he a defensive-minded forward? Is he a big penalty killer? Or, since he's wearing the C this year for Omaha, perhaps he may fit in well as a positive role model in the locker room in same mold as Justin Smith, who doesn't see an awful lot of ice time. In pretty much all respects, we're going to have to wait until he arrives on campus to see what he's got in him, though Seth Appert did mention recently at an alumni event that he likes Miller's work ethic, comparing him to Bryan Brutlag in that regard.

Team: Des Moines Buccaneers (USHL)
Projected to replace: Jeremy Coupal

We talked a little bit about Kasdorf last year when he appeared to be the heir apparent to Allen York upon his commitment just about a week after last year's pipeline piece. For a time, it appeared that Kasdorf's arrival was going to be accelerated, but Scott Diebold's commitment in April 2011 allowed his timetable to remain intact. With York's early departure, he will physically replace Jeremy Coupal on the roster, but in doing so will give RPI three serviceable Division I-level goaltenders for the first time since 2003-04, when Nathan Marsters, Kevin Kurk, and Andrew Martin were all on the roster together (though Marsters ultimately saw almost 90% of the playing time).

Kasdorf was drafted by his hometown Winnipeg Jets in the sixth round of the 2011 NHL Draft, just 10 draft spots below Patrick Koudys. This year, he moved from the Portage Terriers in the relatively weak Manitoba junior league to the rigors of the USHL. While he wasn't expected to put up the same kind of outstanding numbers that he did in the MJHL, his numbers thus far in Des Moines are a bit underwhelming, especially when you consider that both of RPI's current goaltenders are putting up better numbers in a more difficult league during the very definition of a difficult season. His win-loss record would seem to indicate that he has been getting some good offensive support.

It remains to be seen exactly what the goaltending equation will be next season, especially since we've seen a lot of fluctuation this season even with just two options. At the very least, Kasdorf, who shares a birth year with Diebold, will have a freshman season that will allow him to acclimate gradually to Division I, something which paid off in spades for the man it is hoped he can emulate, York. Much is expected of him, but we won't know how things will play out until he arrives, especially since he'll have a senior and a sophomore to share ice time with.

Team: Cedar Rapids RoughRiders (USHL)
Projected to replace: Joel Malchuk

Bourbonnais comes from a family with college hockey experience, as both his father and his uncle played for RIT. WaP spotted Bourbonnais on a visit to RPI last season, and it was rumored that a scholarship offer was made at that time. When the summer passed with no commitment, conventional wisdom said that he'd taken a pass, but that turned right around in mid-September when his commitment to RPI was announced for 2012.

After playing a key role in 2009 on the Greece Athena/Odyssey undefeated state championship team, Bourbonnais moved on to Berkshire Prep (despite being drafted by Niagara of the OHL), playing two seasons for the Bears just over the border in Berkshire County, Mass. Shortly before committing to RPI after graduating from Berkshire, he moved on to the USHL, where his skills as a playmaker are being put to very good use. He picked up six points in the RoughRiders' first four games, but his production has not kept up on that level.

Some reports have Bourbonnais at an even six feet, which makes him just about the perfect size for a Seth Appert forward. His scouting report describes him as "an exceptional skater with soft hands," and "a playmaker." As one of the top rated forwards in the 1993 birth year from New York, Bourbonnais is an excellent "get" for RPI. Expect him to be an early contributor, especially if he finds his scoring touch more frequently in Cedar Rapids before the end of the year.

Team: Dubuque Fighting Saints (USHL)
Projected to replace: Josh Rabbani or C.J. Lee

The most recently known recruit hit the news just in the last week, and he may be a very solid gain for the Engineers. Bubela has most recently played for the Slovak U-20 team, where he just finished a solid World Junior Championship tournament in Alberta with two goals and three assists to help Slovakia reach the quarterfinals, including a goal against the defending champion Russians in the preliminary round.

Shortly after the tournament concluded, Bubela committed to RPI and was signed to Dubuque, which is where Luke Curadi plied his trade last year under former Engineer assistant coach Jim Montgomery, who's obviously still willing to lend a hand to help out the Tute, but who had to use a coveted foreign player spot to take Bubela. The defending champion Fighting Saints are having another decent year this season, and it will be interesting to see how well Bubela fits into the USHL. His position as one of the best young players in Slovakia - one of the upper-tier hockey playing nations in the world - certainly makes him an attractive pickup for the Engineers.

We won't have to worry about missing Bubela for the WJC the way we lost Jerry D'Amigo's services during that tournament (and would have a second time if he'd stuck around) since he aged out of the tournament following this year's installation. The bigger question is whether Bubela will be in Troy come August, or whether he'll do another spin in the USHL next year. It is expected that Appert will try to get him in for next season, but it depends on whether Bubela has enough classes to pass through the NCAA clearinghouse in time.

Bubela will be the second Slovak to don the Cherry and White, following Alexander Valentin '06, and only the sixth player from outside of the United States and Canada to do so - Rafael Maximo de Arozarena of the Class of 1917 (Mexico), Mikael Hammarstrom '04 (Sweden), Mathias Lange '09 (Austria), and Andrei Uryadov '09 (Russia).

Team: The Gunnery (Prep-CT)
Projected to replace: C.J. Lee or Marty O'Grady

A senior this season at The Gunnery, Wood was the first known recruit for the Class of 2017 when he committed to the Engineers in early January 2011. He's currently scoring at about the same clip that he was last season, although he was scoring more goals last year. Wood isn't going to be the biggest guy on the ice by any stretch of the imagination, but he will likely spend next season in the BCHL (or the USHL) preparing to take the step into Division I.

By the metric of "the earlier the better," Wood's relatively early commitment - those who were freshmen when he gave his verbal will be seniors when he arrives - could by itself underscore the potential that he represents, but these days even in the ECAC it's not uncommon to nail down even role players this far out. That said, if Wood is destined to be a role player, he's probably going to be a pretty good one. His scouting reports call him an "old school player" who is tough with physical play and a willingness to do battle for loose pucks. Add the scoring what have been described as some "sweet moves" and you've got a solid prospect, one that's right in Seth Appert's wheel well. Those in the know have described him as being very similar to Chase Polacek when the two-time Hobey Baker finalist was in prep school in Minnesota.

The fact that he is attending a prep school in New England instead of playing junior hockey at home could also point to a focus on education which could well make RPI a perfect fit for him in the long run. Those are the kind of players Appert has sought - top guys who excel in the classroom as well as on the ice. It's been written that he plans to be an engineer, though that may have been intended as a "big E."

Team: Chicago Steel (USHL)
Projected to replace: Greg Burgdoerfer

Here, enjoy this. And this. Aaaaaand this too. Oh heck, just check out the DeVitofights channel on YouTube. You can probably tell just by looking at DeVito's statline that he's a physical player, and while he won't be able to engage in the fisticuffs the way he does in the USHL, there's no doubt that DeVito is an enforcer, a tough, physical player who's not afraid to back down from a challenge. His point line indicates that he has some degree of offensive ability as well, which is a great combination.

DeVito was offered a scholarship last month and accepted it earlier this month for a 2013 arrival in Troy. Presently in his second season with Steel - which allows him to play relatively close to home - he's already surpassed last year's goal, assist, and penalty minute totals despite playing in fewer games thus far.

Since he's a relatively new recruit, that's about all we know about DeVito thus far, but we can probably expect to see him back in a Chicago Steel jersey for a third straight season next year, and three seasons in the USHL definitely never hurt anyone. It will be interesting to see what his progression looks like by next season.

Team: Delbarton School (Prep-NJ)
Projected to replace: Marty O'Grady or Brock Higgs

Sorry we couldn't find a decent picture of Melanson - even more sorry because he may well be the heir to Jacob Laliberte when it comes to long anticipated arrivals. The Delbarton junior is one of a trio of talented members of his class (one of whom is slotted for Yale in 2014) making the Green Wave a dominant force in New Jersey prep hockey.

Melanson has been on our radar since he committed to RPI last January, just a couple of weeks after our pipeline feature ran. He has some size to him for his age and plenty of room to grow. The word "beast" has been used to describe his play. He's got speed - his current coach, who has led Delbarton to five state championships in the last six years, says Melanson is the fastest player he's ever coached. Obviously, he's got a scoring touch. Blue chip is a term that appears to apply to him, and apparently he's now getting a ton of attention from the professional ranks.

There are a pair of concerns right now with Melanson, the first being that he may not be getting too much of a challenge playing close to home in New Jersey, which could limit his growth as a player. To that end, do not be surprised to see him playing in the USHL next season, and possibly for the next two seasons, given that his arrival in Troy is still unknown, either 2013 or 2014. If he is coming in 2013, he'll certainly be in the USHL next year. The other concern is that which any ECAC fan would be concerned about when it comes to early commitments from blue chip prospects - that larger programs with, ahem, low morals, may try to convince Melanson to break his commitment. That doesn't seem likely, but it wouldn't be a first.

At any rate, it will certainly be a lot of fun watching Melanson's development, and he should be an absolute treat to watch in the Cherry and White.

Team: Selects Academy (Prep-CT)
Projected to replace: Pat Koudys or Bo Dolan

Your eyes do not deceive you - RPI has a commitment from a player with a 1996 birth year. Do you remember what you were doing in 1996? Yeah, you feel old now too.

Obviously, there's not a great deal that you can say about a just-committed (late last month) 15-year-old. Manley was a strong enough defenseman to be chosen to represent New York at the national development camp in Rochester last summer. He has a 6'5" cousin who played for the US National Team Development program at one point and is now in Division III with Geneseo. Odds are that while Manley probably won't still be 5'8" when he gets to RPI, he probably won't be 6'5" either.

It's too early to be sure of whether Manley is a blue-chip prospect or not, but the bonafides from his early resume are certainly there. We'll have plenty of time to track his development, however, as he is currently expected on campus in 2014, the year this current crop of freshmen hit their senior season.

Men's Hockey - at Brown & Yale (20/21 Jan)

2012-01-23T16:58:00.000-05:00

Last week, we commented on what a difference four days could make in a team's psyche as they went from a victory to a difficult loss against Union. Well, six days can apparently be a positive aspect, too. The Engineers put in 120 solid minutes of play on the road this past weekend and posted arguably their best two-game result of the season thus far, shutting out Brown for the second time this season with a 3-0 victory over Brown and earning a gritty 2-1 victory over Yale.

Brown

Lee/Higgs/Schroeder

Cullen/McGowan/Haggerty

Laliberte/O'Grady/Tinordi

Rogic/Malchuk/Burgdoerfer

Leonard/Bergin
Leboeuf/Bailen

Koudys/Dolan

Merriam

Alex Angers-Goulet missed a second consecutive week with an injury he picked up against Harvard, and Matt Neal's bumpy health year continued with a stomach bug that kept him at home all weekend.

Things looked rough for the Engineers early on as they picked up a pair of early penalties that put them on the penalty kill for basically four of the game's first five minutes. C.J. Lee picked up an interference penalty just 14 seconds into the game, followed by a high-sticking call against Greg Burgdoerfer, but the RPI penalty kill successfully snuffed out both Brown advantages. All told, the first period was fairly even, but produced no scoring.

Brown's second period began much the same way RPI's first period began - with a pair of early penalties. The major difference was in the subsequent execution of the ensuing power plays, both of which the Engineers scored on to take control of the contest. Nick Bailen scored his fifth goal of the season 59 seconds into the first power play chance at 1:39 to put RPI on the board, then Marty O'Grady notched his second goal of the year a little less than three minutes later to make it 2-0.

Things threatened to get much worse for Brown as they picked up yet another penalty just 19 seconds after O'Grady's goal, but head coach Brendan Whittet called timeout to rally the troops, and the Bears successfully killed off that power play.

Meanwhile, with the two-goal lead, Bryce Merriam became the star of the game. The junior goaltender stopped 14 shots in the first period and 16 in the third, making a total of 36 saves in all to earn his second career shutout, which also happened to be his second shutout of the season and second shutout of Brown. Merriam stopped all 58 shots that the Bears put on him this season.

Zach Schroeder added an empty netter with 1:30 left in the game to seal the victory, his fourth goal of the year.

Yale

Lee/Higgs/Schroeder

Cullen/McGowan/Haggerty

Laliberte/O'Grady/Tinordi

Rogic/Malchuk/Burgdoerfer

Leonard/Bergin
Leboeuf/Bailen

Koudys/Dolan

Merriam

You go with what works sometimes in hockey... the lineup was exactly the same on Saturday as it was on Friday, and it paid off in spades for the Engineers.

After a first period in which the teams largely felt each other out, the second period included a barrage of shots from Yale thanks to some very solid puck possession by the Bulldogs. Merriam faced 19 shots in the second period alone, but turned away each and every one of them to maintain the 0-0 score through 40 minutes of play. Yale was able to maintain a 27-11 shooting advantage after two periods.

The main event of the second period involved a serious scrum in front of Merriam after Yale's Clinton Bourbonais ran into him. RPI got a power play out of it, but lost Mike Bergin for 10 minutes after he was assessed a misconduct for leaving the bench during the tussle.

That misconduct proved dangerous for the Engineers early in the third period as Pat Koudys was assessed a tripping penalty, putting the available complement of defensemen for the penalty kill down to four, but the penalty kill and Merriam stood tall once again, as the PK went a perfect 8-for-8 on the weekend.

Despite the wide disparity in shots, RPI was the first onto the scoreboard as Marty O'Grady finally broke the ice 5:45 into the third with his second goal of the weekend. Just over three minutes later, he did it again by stealing the puck right out from under Yale goaltender Jeff Malcolm's blocker, putting it into the empty net after Malcolm had thought it was covered, putting RPI up 2-0 on O'Grady's fourth goal of the season and third of the weekend.

Yale pulled Malcolm from the goal with just over two minutes left to play, and with the extra attacker the Bulldogs took complete control of the RPI zone, unleashing an absolute frenzy of shots that had Merriam scrambling to and fro, making save after save. He would finish with 18 saves in the third period for a total of 45 in the game, but he lost his shutout bid on a very weak shot that Yale's Kevin Limbert appeared to miss. Setting into position for the wrister, the puck instead trickled slowly between his legs and into the back of the net, making it 2-1 with 1:42 left in the game. The goal ended a shutout streak of 121:15 for Merriam.

The Bulldogs continued to push for the equalizer, but a tired RPI defense, led again by Merriam, stood up to the challenge and managed to escape with a 2-1 victory, the Engineers' first four-point weekend since hosting Brown and Yale (in that order) on January 28 and 29 of last year - last Freakout! weekend.

The immediate schedule does look promising for RPI if this past weekend's games are more than just a fluke. They have pulled within 2 points of getting themselves out of the cellar, and lo and behold, it's 11th place St. Lawrence, nursing a six-game winless streak in league play, coming to Houston Field House on Friday. After Clarkson on Saturday, it's then Freakout! weekend once again, which kicks off with a very difficult challenge in Cornell, but then features a Colgate team winless since the start of 2012 in the main event. Have we reached a turning point? We'll see.

Other junk - Ranked teams on the RPI schedule this week are #4 Notre Dame (up three), #9 Cornell (no change), #10 Ferris State (up three), #11 UMass-Lowell (up three), #12 Colorado College (down one) and #14 Union (down two). Also receiving votes were Colgate (ex-#18, 43 votes), Quinnipiac (24), Harvard (8) and RIT (7).

ECAC Standings (by win% in parentheses)

1 (1). Cornell - 19 pts (8-1-3)
2 (2). Union - 17 pts (7-3-3)

3 (7). Quinnipiac - 14 pts (5-5-4)

4 (3). Colgate - 13 pts (6-5-1)
5 (4). Clarkson - 13 pts (5-4-3)

6 (6). Brown - 12 pts (5-5-2)

7 (8). Harvard - 12 pts (3-4-6)
8 (10). Princeton - 12 pts (5-8-2)

9 (5). Dartmouth - 11 pts (5-5-1)
10 (9). Yale - 11 pts (5-6-1)

11 (11). St. Lawrence - 9 pts (4-7-1)

12 (12). RPI - 7 pts (3-8-1)

RPI at Brown
ECAC Game - Meehan Auditorium (Providence, RI)
1/20/12- 7:00pm
RESULT: RPI 3, Brown 0

BOX SCORES

College Hockey Stats
USCHO

RECAPS

RPI
Troy Record
Providence Journal

RECORD: 5-17-1 (2-8-1 ECAC, 5 pts)

RPI at Yale
ECAC Game - Ingalls Rink (New Haven, CT)
1/21/12 - 7:00pm
RESULT: RPI 2, Yale 1

BOX SCORES
College Hockey Stats
USCHO

RECAPS

RPI
Troy Record
Albany Times Union

RECORD: 6-17-1 (3-8-1 ECAC, 7 pts)

Upcoming games

27 Jan - St. Lawrence

28 Jan - Clarkson

03 Feb - #9 Cornell
04 Feb - Colgate
10 Feb - at Harvard

Women's Hockey - Yale & Brown (20/21 Jan)

2012-01-22T23:27:00.002-05:00

With the ECAC season already approaching its end - just ten games remained at the start of the weekend - the Engineers needed to pick up points against Yale and Brown to say the least. Unfortunately, RPI picked up just two of four points on the weekend with a 4-2 victory over Yale on Friday before dropping a disappointing 3-2 decision to Brown on Saturday afternoon. The Engineers are now two points behind Brown in the race for the final playoff spot, with the Bears holding a game in hand over RPI.

Yale

Smelker/Cox/Vandegrift

Sanders/Harrison/Svoboda

Mahoney/Guillemette/Mankey

Letuligasenoa

Marzario/Castignetti

Schilter/Horton

Walsh

Piper

Yale picked up the game's first goal, but four unanswered tallies from the Engineers in the second period would be more than enough to lead the Engineers to a 4-2 victory over the Bulldogs at Houston Field House on Friday. Eight Engineers would record points in the game, with no player tallying more than one as the scoring was spread across the lineup.

After a strong first period from the Engineers, which saw the home squad outshoot the visitors 14-6, the teams headed to the locker rooms scoreless - despite several power play opportunities each way in what quickly became a very physical affair.

Yale would strike first early in the second period - another early-period goal the likes of which we have seen on more than a few occasions this season - with Jackie Raines putting a rebound opportunity past Brianna Piper from the doorstep for the 1-0 lead. The tables turned after the initial goal and the remainder of the period would be all RPI.

Laura Guillemette tied the game 5:01 into the middle frame on a rebound of her own. With Taylor Mahoney rushing down ice 1-on-1 with a Yale defender, Guillemette followed her into the zone. Mahoney took a shot through the defenseman which was steered aside by Genny Ladiges, but the rebound came right out front to Guillemette for the tap-in.

Jill Vandegrift put the Engineers ahead at 11:46, cashing in on a loose puck which popped out of a scrum in front of the Yale net during an RPI power play. Alisa Harrison extended the lead to 3-1 at 16:36 when Ladiges misplayed the puck behind her net and a miscommunication with her defenseman allowed Harrison to swoop in, collect the puck and wrap it around and into the wide open net.

With just three seconds remaining in the second period, Jordan Smelker provided the Engineers' fourth unanswered goal with a great individual effort to carry the puck through traffic in front of the Yale net before roofing a backhander past Ladiges. The Engineers would pile 24 shots on Ladiges in the period.

A series of RPI penalties in the final period gave Yale several opportunites, and although they would muster just five shots on goal, they would connect with one at 9:20 of the third, with Raines picking up her second of the game from the point. With the puck sneaking through nearly a half-dozen skaters in front of Piper, it appeared she never saw the puck until it was in the back of the net.

RPI ended the game having more than doubled the Bulldogs in shots, 44-20, en route to the 4-2 final score.

Brown

Smelker/Cox/Vandegrift

Sanders/Harrison/Svoboda

Mahoney/Guillemette/Mankey

Letuligasenoa

Castignetti/Marzario

Schilter/Vadner

Walsh/Horton

Piper

With two points in the bag after Friday night's win, RPI looked to build on the victory Saturday afternoon against Brown. With each point becoming more important as the games pass, the Engineers squandered an opportunity in allowing two goals on four shots in the second period, then taking a penalty just 15 seconds after tying the game late - and allowing Brown to score the game-winning goal on the ensuing power play.

A back-and-forth first period saw chances for both teams but few better than the one the Engineers got at the end of the period as they received nearly a minute and a half of 5-on-3 power play time following a pair of Brown penalties. RPI couldn't capitalize on the chance and instead it was Brown who gained the momentum with a goal just 31 seconds into the middle frame (sound familiar?). Controlling the puck in the RPI zone, Paige Pyett fired a shot from the point which Jessica Hoyle redirected past Piper for a 1-0 lead.

Janice Yang gave the Bears a 2-0 lead at 11:03 with a 4-on-3 power play goal, collecting the puck off her skate and sliding it around a sprawling Piper for the tally.

RPI battled back to tie the game in the third period, with Jill Vandegrift scoring at 2:51 of the final frame and Eleeza Cox tipped a puck past Katie Jamieson at 13:32 to knot the score at two.

At 13:47, Alisa Harrison would be sent off for interference and the Bears took just fifteen seconds to capitalize, with Alena Polenska putting a rebound past Piper for a 3-2 lead which would hold up through an RPI power play and a long string of extra attacker time for the Engineers.

The loss set the Engineers back by two points in the race for eighth place, with Brown holding both a two-point lead and a game in hand over the Engineers. Next weekend's games against Union will be critical for RPI - if they suffer another one of these letdowns that have plagued them the past few seasons against bottom-four teams, they may see their shot at the playoffs fade away before their eyes. The teams will meet in Schenectady at 3pm Friday and Troy the same time on Saturday.

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RPI vs. Yale

ECAC Hockey Game – Houston Field House (Troy, NY)

1/20/12 – 7:00pm

RPI 4, Yale 2

BOX SCORES:

USCHO: http://www.uscho.com/box/womens-hockey/2012/01/20/yale-vs-rensselaer/

College Hockey Stats: http://collegehockeystats.net/1112/boxes/wrenyal1.j20

RECAPS:

RPI: http://rpiathletics.com/news/2012/1/20/WICE_0120124918.aspx

Yale: http://yalebulldogs.com/sports/w-hockey/2011-12/releases/20120120j9e6ll

Highlights: http://www.youtube.com/user/RPIathletics#p/u/1/MwJubP5i7tE

Post-Game Interviews: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0fd8fpgqJ8

RECORD: 6-15-4 (3-8-2 ECAC)

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RPI vs. Brown

ECAC Hockey Game – Houston Field House (Troy, NY)

1/21/12 – 4:00pm

Brown 3, RPI 2

BOX SCORES:

USCHO: http://www.uscho.com/box/womens-hockey/2012/01/21/brown-vs-rensselaer/

College Hockey Stats: http://collegehockeystats.net/1112/boxes/wbrnren1.j21

RECAPS:

RPI: http://rpiathletics.com/news/2012/1/21/WICE_0121120415.aspx

Brown: http://www.brownbears.com/sports/w-hockey/2011-12/releases/20120121jq2kx7

Highlights: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BecUH4I39FA

Post-Game Interviews: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Km8k_DO3rUE

RECORD: 6-16-4 (3-9-2 ECAC)

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ECAC Standings

                GP    Pts     Conf    All
Cornell         14    26      13-1    18-2
Quinnipiac      16    22      10-4-2  14-9-2
Harvard         14    19      9-4-1   12-6-1
Dartmouth       14    18      8-4-2   12-6-2
St. Lawrence    14    18      8-4-2   14-7-4
Clarkson        14    18      8-4-2   14-7-5
Princeton       16    16      7-7-2   8-10-4
Brown           13    10      3-6-4   6-7-7
Rensselaer      14     8      3-9-2   6-16-4
Colgate         14     7      3-10-1  8-16-1
Union           14     6      2-10-2  4-18-4
Yale            13     2      1-12    1-19

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Upcoming Games

Jan. 27 - at Union (3pm)

Jan. 28 - Union (3pm)

Feb. 3 - at Cornell (7pm)

Feb. 4 - at Colgate (4pm)

Feb. 10 - Harvard (7pm)

Feb. 11 - Dartmouth (4pm)

Time for the Beast

2012-01-20T10:46:00.002-05:00

This is arguably a bigger weekend for the women than it is for the men, so let's start off with them. Yale and Brown are coming to Troy, and both of these come across as very winnable games for the Engineers, given that Yale is 1-10-0 in ECAC play and Bruno is 2-6-3. Now, RPI isn't exactly lighting the world on fire at 2-8-2, but given the wide gap between 7th and 8th place (a shocking 8 points), the Engineers are now in a battle for the last playoff spot.

Does that mean being a sacrificial lamb for Cornell at the end of the day? Yes it does. But being that lamb is better than being at home, so the battle is on with Brown and Colgate for the spot. RPI is 1-0-1 against those teams this year. With the Union home-and-home next week, the time is certainly now for the Engineers to establish themselves as the team to beat for 8th place - eight points is not outside the realm of possibility in the next two weekends.

Meanwhile, the men are running out of time to turn the season around, and they face a Brown team tonight that has the ignoble position of being one of four teams RPI has beaten this year, and the only ECAC team. That might mean tonight would be a good time to bounce back from the whupping they took last week. Yale isn't lighting the world on fire themselves. However, the team is 1-8-0 on the road, and that doesn't impress anyone.

Gets tougher and tougher to get psyched up for the weekends. Here, try this one on for size. We haven't done any rap lately, especially not anyone as talented as the Nina. This is the clean version, don't worry kiddies.

Men's Hockey - American International (10 Jan), at Union (14 Jan)

2012-01-17T19:31:00.001-05:00

What a difference four days makes. Less than a week after finally getting the monkey off their back with a mid-week win over American International (3-1) that snapped a seven-game winless streak, the Engineers backslid considerably on Saturday, getting overwhelmed early with a long two-man penalty kill followed by two shorthanded goals given up on consecutive power plays, falling to Union 5-1 in a game they never really were in.

American International

Lee/Higgs/Schroeder

Neal/McGowan/Haggerty

Laliberte/O'Grady/Tinordi

Cullen/Malchuk/Rabbani

Burgdoerfer

Leonard/Bergin
Leboeuf/Bailen

Koudys

Merriam

Following the tie against Harvard that snapped a losing streak of six straight, RPI played its final non-conference game of the season on a Tuesday without school being in session - it made for a pretty empty Field House to begin the game (plus no band), although the final attendance did reach over 3,000, which is impressive considering all of that and the team's record.

Alex Angers-Goulet suffered a leg injury against Harvard and was out of action - a sickness affecting a few undisclosed members of the team also had an effect on the lineup, which led to 13 forwards and 5 defensemen dressing for the game against the Yellow Jackets.

RPI dominated play throughout the first two periods as we have rarely seen them dominate all year. Through the first 40 minutes, the Engineers uncorked 31 shots, while Bryce Merriam saw only 6 - three in each period - on the other end of the ice. However, some very solid play by AIC goaltender Ben Meisner kept RPI from scoring in the first period despite 14 shots on goal. He kept the Engineers out of the net for the first 13 minutes or so of the second period as well; although RPI thoroughly controlled the game, it was 0-0 halfway through.

The Engineers finally broke through with a shot right off a faceoff win from the point. Marty O'Grady won a draw in the AIC zone back to Curtis Leonard, whose shot beat a screened Meisner for the freshman's first career goal and point, making it 1-0 RPI.

Another blast from the point made it 2-0 about five minutes later, as Greg Burgdoerfer found Nick Bailen at the blue line, and the junior defenseman ripped a shot that was saved by Meisner, but C.J. Lee, who had been robbed on a similar play by Cab Morris against Dartmouth just a few days earlier, swatted home the rebound into an open net.

AIC found some life in the third period, as they began to control the puck more frequently. RPI had only 6 shots on goal in the final 20 minutes, while the Yellow Jackets pushed to get themselves back into the game, which they did on a 4-on-4 goal with three minutes left to play, cutting the RPI lead in half and placing things in doubt. Meisner was pulled from the net, and AIC had some good chances to draw level, but eventually Joel Malchuk scored RPI's first empty net goal of the season with 28 seconds remaining to seal the Engineers' fourth win of the season.

Regardless of the win, there was much to dislike about the game. RPI was 0-for-6 on the power play and could only manage two goals despite a total domination of the first two periods.

Union

Lee/Higgs/Schroeder

Neal/McGowan/Haggerty

Laliberte/O'Grady/Tinordi

Rabbani/Malchuk/Burgdoerfer

Leonard/Bergin

Leboeuf/Bailen

Curadi/Koudys

Diebold

It was hoped that the victory would give the Engineers the push they needed to bounce back into league play with a push for home ice, but it was not to be on Saturday in Schenectady. Although Union had been through a tough outdoor game the previous night in Boston (a 2-0 win over Harvard at Fenway Park), they appeared no worse for the wear against a relatively rested RPI squad.

The Engineers dressed 13 forwards for the pre-game warmup, and Patrick Cullen was removed from the lineup as a game-time decision.

If it could go wrong for RPI early on, it did. Matt Tinordi picked up a hitting from behind penalty just 2:13 into the game, and after getting burned on a move in his own zone, Curtis Leonard added a holding penalty 18 seconds later, giving Union a long 5-on-3. While the Dutchmen technically didn't capitalize on the two-man advantage, they scored two seconds after Tinordi's penalty expired, too early for RPI to add the fourth skater back to the defensive scheme, so it was functionally a 5-on-3 goal that put Union ahead 1-0.

It only got worse as RPI ostensibly got opportunities to draw even. On the Engineers' first power play chance three minutes later, a lazy effort moving down ice ended with Union moving quickly in transition and netting a shorthanded goal to make it 2-0. Four minutes after that, RPI's second power play resulted in yet another shorthanded goal, this one from an exceptionally lackadaisical pass in the defensive zone that caused a turnover right in front of Scott Diebold, who had no chance as Union went up 3-0 after about 13 minutes of play.

That was a bridge too far for the Engineers, but Union dominated play in the first two periods almost as much as RPI had against AIC - the only difference being that they managed goals during that domination. Another power play goal came in the latter half of the second period, making it 4-0.

RPI supposedly put 40 shots on net - a questionable tally - and got only one goal, oddly enough, coming in a shorthanded situation as Nick Bailen scored his fourth goal of the season with six minutes left to play, but by this time it was far too late. Union added an empty netter four minutes later for the final tally.

Both teams officially combined for 80 shots in the game (40 each), which again is questionable, but it does at least underscore perhaps the one player who had an OK game for the Engineers - Scott Diebold. He did not give up a single goal at even strength and was hung out to dry completely on three of the four goals he allowed.

RPI heads back on the road next weekend to face an unpredictable Brown team and an also-down-on-their-luck Yale squad. Time is running out for a turnaround.

Other junk - Ranked teams on the RPI schedule this week are #7 Notre Dame (down four), #9 Cornell (no change), #11 Colorado College (down three), #12 Union (up two), #13 Ferris State (no change), #14 UMass-Lowell (down three) and #18 Colgate (down six). Also receiving votes were Quinnipiac (15), Harvard (6), Minnesota State (4) and RIT (2).

The Engineers are now 6 points behind the rest of the field. To show how big of a gap that is, 11th place Dartmouth and St. Lawrence are 7 points behind first place. 8th place, the last home ice spot, is 7 points out as well. Not looking good for hockey at Houston Field House past Senior Night.

ECAC Standings (by win% in parentheses)

1 (1). Cornell - 16 pts (7-1-2)
2 (2). Union - 15 pts (6-2-3)

3 (8). Quinnipiac - 14 pts (5-5-4)

4 (3). Colgate - 12 pts (6-4-0)

5 (11). Princeton - 12 pts (5-8-2)

6 (4). Yale - 11 pts (5-4-1)
7 (7). Clarkson - 11 pts (4-4-3)

8 (6). Brown - 10 pts (4-4-2)

9 (9). Harvard - 10 pts (3-3-4)

10 (5). Dartmouth - 9 pts (4-4-1)

11 (10). St. Lawrence - 9 pts (4-6-1)

12 (12). RPI - 3 pts (1-8-1)

American International at RPI
Non-Conference Game - Houston Field House (Troy, NY)
1/10/12- 7:00pm
RESULT: RPI 3, American International 1

BOX SCORES

RECAPS

RECORD: 4-16-1 (1-7-1 ECAC, 3 pts)

RPI at #14 Union
ECAC Game - Achilles Center (Schenectady, NY)
1/14/12 - 7:00pm
RESULT: Union 5, RPI 1

BOX SCORES

RECAPS

Schenectady Daily Gazette

RECORD: 4-17-1 (1-8-1 ECAC, 3 pts)

Upcoming games

20 Jan - at Brown

21 Jan - at Yale

27 Jan - St. Lawrence

28 Jan - Clarkson

03 Feb - #9 Cornell

Women's Hockey - at Dartmouth & Harvard (13/14 Jan)

2012-01-16T06:06:00.003-05:00

The road trip to Dartmouth and Harvard is never an easy one and this year proved no different for RPI, with the Engineers falling 4-2 in Hanover before letting a 3-0 advantage slip away the following afternoon, allowing five straight goals in a 5-3 loss to Harvard.

Dartmouth

Cox/Vandegrift/Smelker

Mahoney/Guillemette/Horton

Letuligasenoa/Svoboda

Sanders/Mankey

Castignetti/Marzario

Le Donne/Walsh

Schilter/Vadner

O'Brien

An early Engineer lead lasted just seven minutes before Dartmouth took control of the game and never looked back, besting RPI 4-2 at Thompson Arena on Friday night.

Amanda Castignetti put the Engineers on the board at 11:47 of the opening frame with a long-range slapshot on the power play, which deflected off a Dartmouth defenseman and past goalie Lindsay Holdcroft.

The Big Green answered just eleven seconds into a power play of their own, after controlling the puck off the faceoff and feeding it to Camille Dumais behind the net. Seeing a pass through the crease coming, Kelly O'Brien slid laterally to prevent the one-timer, but the pass was deflected off an RPI defenseman and straight to senior Kelly Foley who put it home to tie the game at one.

Dumais would pick up Dartmouth's second goal late in the second period, with Jordan Smelker off on a tripping penalty. Dumais rushed down ice with Jenna Hobeika on a two-on-one which the Big Green converted for a 2-1 lead.

Dartmouth would hold the lead for the rest of the contest, making it 3-1 at 2:55 of the third period as Reagan Fischer scored on a delayed penalty against RPI. The Engineers drew back to within one at 15:56 when Jordan Smelker deflected a shot by Sierra Vadner past Holdcroft to make it 3-2.

With Taylor Horton in the box late for tripping, O'Brien went to the bench to allow RPI some 5-on-5 time with the extra attacker, but Dartmouth controlled the puck and just Erica Dobos hit the empty net for the final 4-2 score.

Harvard

Cox/Vandegrift/Smelker

Mahoney/Guillemette/Horton

Letuligasenoa/Svoboda/Sanders

Mankey

Le Donne/Vadner

Castignetti/Marzario

Schilter/Walsh

Piper

It hasn't been often that RPI has jumped out to a large or early lead this season, so it must have been a little surprising when the Engineers found themselves up 3-0 on Harvard just past the midpoint of the second period. Surprised or not, the lead did not last as RPI allowed two goals in a minute and a half to close out the second, two goals in two minutes near the middle of the third, and an empty netter en route to a tough 5-3 loss to Harvard thanks in large part to a hat trick by Gina McDonald.

The Engineers picked up the lone tally of the first period when Laura Guillemette scored on the power play at 4:38 to make it 1-0. They would go on to extend that lead to 3-0 in the span of just over a minute in the second period, with Sierra Vadner roofing a shot past Laura Bellamy at 12:05 before Jill Vandegrift made it 3-0 at 13:07.

Before the period ended, Harvard closed the lead to 3-2 behind a goal from Jillian Dempsey at 16:31 and a 5-on-3 tally for McDonald at 17:57. The Crimson outshot the Engineers 15-5 in the frame, turning the tables and setting up a third period which saw just three RPI shots on goal in what quickly became a Harvard-dominated affair.

Kelly Armstrong tied the game at three just 7:35 into the third period. Given a little too much room to work in the slot, Armstrong had time to tee up a shot and beat Brianna Piper top shelf with a nice shot.

Less than two minutes later, McDonald scored her second of the night on a close-range rebound opportunity in front of Piper to put the Crimson ahead 4-3. McDonald capped off Harvard's first hat trick of the season at 18:56 with an empty net goal.

With a very large gap starting to open up between seventh place St. Lawrence (15 points), eighth place Brown/Colgate (7 points) and the Engineers (6 points) it's becoming a 3-way race to capture the eighth and final playoff spot for the Engineers. No games may be more important in realizing that goal then next two weekends when the Engineers take on Yale and Brown at home before a home and home with Union. With four games against bottom-four teams ahead, now would be the ideal time for RPI to put together a string of wins, rack up some points and catapult themselves into that final playoff position - especially since the remaining RPI schedule gets much tougher, including second games against Cornell, Harvard, and Dartmouth.

-----

RPI at Dartmouth

ECAC Hockey Game – Thompson Arena (Hanover, NH)

1/13/12 – 7:00pm

Dartmouth 4, RPI 2

BOX SCORES:

USCHO: http://www.uscho.com/box/womens-hockey/2012/01/13/rensselaer-vs-dartmouth/

College Hockey Stats: http://collegehockeystats.net/1112/boxes/wdarren1.j13

RECAPS:

RPI: http://rpiathletics.com/news/2012/1/13/WICE_0113124314.aspx

Dartmouth: http://www.dartmouthsports.com/ViewArticle.dbml?SPSID=48905&SPID=4726&DB_LANG=C&ATCLID=205360857&DB_OEM_ID=11600

RECORD: 5-14-4 (2-7-2 ECAC)

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RPI at Harvard

ECAC Hockey Game – Bright Hockey Center (Boston, MA)

1/14/12 – 4:00pm

Harvard 5, RPI 3

BOX SCORES:

USCHO: http://www.uscho.com/box/womens-hockey/2012/01/14/rensselaer-vs-harvard/

College Hockey Stats: http://collegehockeystats.net/1112/boxes/wharren1.j14

RECAPS:

RPI: http://rpiathletics.com/news/2012/1/14/WICE_0114123218.aspx

Harvard: http://www.gocrimson.com/sports/wice/2011-12/releases/20120114ku2xay

Video Highlights: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLjYaIT8gM8

RECORD: 5-15-4 (2-8-2 ECAC)

-----

ECAC Standings

                GP    Pts     Conf    All
Cornell         12    22      11-1    15-2
Quinnipiac      16    22      10-4-2  14-9-2
Harvard         12    17      8-3-1   11-5-1
Clarkson        12    17      8-3-1   14-6-4
Dartmouth       12    16      7-3-2   11-5-2
Princeton       16    16      7-7-2   8-10-4
St. Lawrence    12    15      7-4-1   13-7-3
Brown           11    7       2-6-3   5-7-6
Colgate         12    7       3-8-1   8-14-1
Rensselaer      12    6       2-8-2   5-15-4
Union           12    3       1-10-1  3-18-3
Yale            11    2       1-10    1-17

-----

Upcoming Games

Jan. 20 - Yale (7pm)

Jan. 21 - Brown (4pm)

Jan. 27 - at Union (3pm)

Jan. 28 - Union (3pm)

Feb. 3 - at Cornell (7pm)

Feb. 4 - at Colgate (4pm)

Wind Burn

2012-01-14T12:50:00.000-05:00

Union returns home from a cold, windy win against Harvard in Boston at Fenway Park to find last-place RPI waiting for them in the NYSDOT salt dome they call Messa Rink. Do I smell third straight "turning point" for the Dutch?

Maybe. But we'll bet they were playing on better quality ice last night.

There's a natural way of things. The ratio of a Euclidean circle's circumference to its diameter is pi. When gravity equals drag, terminal velocity is achieved. And the hockey program at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute is superior to that at Union College. Some things in nature, of course, get upset from time to time, but there's a reason the expansion from 10 to 12 teams in the ECAC playoffs was referred to as the "Union rule," and why RPI's record is presently described as "Unionian."

Order will eventually be restored to the universe, it always does. Maybe it won't be tonight. But their time will come.

Youth Movement

2012-01-13T11:33:00.000-05:00

It has been a rough year on both sides, there's no question. But there's reason for optimism - both the men's and women's teams have young talent that is taking the lead on a lot of things.

At the beginning of the second half of the season, there were two good options for the men - either play your best players and hope for the best result from them, or get your younger players more experience with an eye toward the future.

Ultimately, those options were realistically the same thing. That has seen some upperclassmen fighting for ice time. There's no reason not to expect that, when healthy, we will see all five freshman forwards in the lineup on the men's side.

The freshman are making a significant impact on the women's team as well, with Eleeza Cox, Ali Svoboda, and Taylor Mahoney each making solid contributions already.

Six of the top ten scorers for the men are freshmen and sophomores (and four are freshmen). Six of the seven freshman skaters have put the puck in the net this season at least once. Freshmen lead both teams in goals scored (Ryan Haggerty with five and Cox with eight).

Those sophomores and freshmen will be juniors and sophomores next year, and both teams have some pretty solid recruits ready to come in as freshmen next season, too. More on them soon.

In the meantime, it's game day for the women as they head off to play at Dartmouth and Harvard this weekend. Neither team, of course, can be considered low-hanging fruit, but neither seem invincible either. Might be a good weekend to gain some ground if the team plays as well as they did last weekend in a solid win over Colgate (which was followed by a "hang in there and don't get killed" outing against Cornell, easily the class of the league).

Here's a pumpup for the women this weekend. Been looking for a good excuse to go with Muse, this feels like the weekend.

We'll have another tomorrow for the men as they spend today making sure their immunizations are up to date for the yearly trip to Schenectady.

And once again, apologies for the recent lack of content. Podcasts will be returning as soon as our new computer arrives.

Confidence Builder or Groundwork Destroyer?

2012-01-10T10:36:00.000-05:00

Tonight's midweek game, strangely, could represent a turning point in the season for RPI. Obviously, at 3-16-1, there hasn't been an awful lot that's gone right.

However, according to KRACH, there is only one team the Engineers should be favored against on the remainder of the schedule - American International, tonight. That makes this a must win contest.

It won't be easy. As a midweek game, attendance will be down. Still no students in town. The band, who to their great credit put together an ensemble for last weekend's games, won't be there. But the win is there for the taking. AIC's never terribly good, even this year when they managed a 3-0 win against Brown.

RPI does seem to be improving. They played very well on Friday. They didn't lose on Saturday. Now, with Union waiting on Saturday and the rest of the league schedule coming down the pike afterwards, this is an opportunity for the team to prove to themselves that they can play well and win a hockey game. Sometimes, that's all you need to go into a tough game with play with confidence rather than wait for the next thing to go wrong.

Of course, anything but a solid win could be the exact opposite. Even a tie, and definitely a loss, could send the team into a tailspin, completely destroying confidence going forward. That's why RPI needs to go out strong and look to make this one decisive. Put the puck in the net, and keep it out on the other end. Doesn't seem too hard.

Men's Hockey - Dartmouth & Harvard (6/7 Jan)

2012-01-09T16:02:00.003-05:00

RPI's long awaited return to Houston Field House took place last weekend, with Friday's game against Dartmouth kicking off live college hockey coverage on the newly named NBC Sports Network. The team didn't disappoint in effort for the most part, but the results are still lacking. RPI scored first both nights, but couldn't recover from a terrible stretch in the second period on Saturday and fell 4-3 to Dartmouth before losing a 2-0 lead on Saturday to settle for a 2-2 tie with Harvard.

Dartmouth
Lee/O'Grady/Schroeder
Laliberte/Higgs/Haggerty
Angers-Goulet/McGowan/Neal

Tinordi/Malchuk/Cullen

Leonard/Bergin
Leboeuf/Bailen

Curadi/Dolan

Merriam

Although it was feared that the Dartmouth game could have produced a pretty empty crowd, it actually turned out only 32 fans less than the previous home game against Union - although the Union crowd was likely somewhat depressed from what it could have been since that game was played on a Tuesday. 3,501 was the announced attendance and it didn't look untrue.

Joel Malchuk got the Engineers on the board first with an even strength goal at 12:31 of the first period during a first 15 minutes generally dominated by RPI, but they were unable to carry that lead over into the first intermission. Dartmouth struck back five minutes later on a wrist shot that not only tied the game, but was also followed by a power play as Mark McGowan had been called on a delayed penalty for hooking.

That was killed off, but the Big Green would also grab the next three goals in the second period, including a pair of soft ones that put the Engineers behind the eight ball. A power play goal just four seconds into a Guy Leboeuf penalty eight and a half minutes into the second made it 2-0 Dartmouth, and then five minutes later RPI gave up two goals in just 1:15, both on odd man rushes, putting the Big Green up 4-1 and visibly frustrating the team, which had been playing fairly well throughout the game until that pair.

Dartmouth would get into a bit of penalty trouble shortly thereafter, allowing RPI to claw their way back into things. Enjoying a long five-on-three chance, the Engineers struck just under two minutes after going down by three, with Ryan Haggerty scoring his fifth goal of the year (and fifth power play goal) to make it 4-2, and then Matt Tinordi potting his second goal of the season just 21 seconds later on the ensuing five-on-four to bring RPI within one.

Despite a solid third period effort, that was as close as the Engineers would get to tying things back up. One power play opportunity midway through the period was all the advantage they would get. Cab Morris made seven stops, including an absolute monster robbery of C.J. Lee with a diving glove save on an open net, and Nick Bailen hit crossbar during the power play. That was as close as they got - one of those games where with just a couple of more minutes, things could have been different. The 1:15 letdown also proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that a team can play very well for nearly the entire game, and still lose if the right conditions exist.

Harvard

Tinordi/Malchuk/Rogic

Laliberte/Higgs/Haggerty
Angers-Goulet/McGowan/Neal

Lee/O'Grady/Schroeder

Leboeuf/Bailen

Leonard/Bergin

Koudys/Dolan

Diebold

The back end of the weekend was not as well attended and included just a few changes in the lineup - Scott Diebold got the nod in net, with Johnny Rogic replacing Patrick Cullen on the Malchuk line and Pat Koudys replacing Luke Curadi on defense.

RPI got off to perhaps their best start of the entire season, notching two goals in the first period for just the second time all season (at Princeton on 12/2) and going up 2-0 also for just the second time all season (at RIT on 11/25). Even more impressively, both goals came at even strength as Zach Schroeder scored 5:11 into the affair with his third goal of the season, followed just 26 seconds later by C.J. Lee with his second of the year, giving the Engineers the early edge.

From there, however, the offensive pressure diminished rapidly. Harvard would pull back within one just two minutes later on the power play with Mike Bergin serving a holding penalty, and the Crimson outshot RPI 12-4 in the first period.

There was no scoring and were no power plays in the second period, but the lopsided shot totals remained. After 40 minutes, the Engineers had just five total shots on goal - that's ONE for the entire second period - trailed 21-5 in shots, and still had the 2-1 lead.

Harvard did not wait long after play resumed to get the tying goal. In a four-on-four situation, the Crimson tied the score just 1:34 into the third period. Harvard picked up the only power play opportunity of the period - in fact the only one since their first goal of the contest nearly 50 minutes earler - but the Engineers held on. RPI put up more shots in the final 25 minutes (8) than they had in the first two periods, but it was not enough as the team had to settle for a tie.

Diebold finished with 25 saves in a bizarre game that the Engineers led for more than half the contest, but were essentially outplayed in the end, a day after outplaying the opponent for much of the game and losing. That's hockey for you.

Other junk - Ranked teams on the RPI schedule this week are #3 Notre Dame (up two), #8 Colorado College (down two), #9 Cornell (up four), #11 UMass-Lowell (up one), #12 Colgate (down three), #13 Ferris State (up four), and #14 Union (no change). Also receiving votes were Yale (33), Harvard (7) and Quinnipiac (2).

The Engineer offense continues to push its numbers upwards - they have at least two goals in each of their last eight games now - but it still stands next to last in the nation at 1.45 goals per game, just ahead of Alabama-Huntsville's 1.12.

The defense continues to sink. It now stands tied with Wisconsin for 44th (out of 58 teams) at 3.15 goals per game. Combined with the weak offensive numbers, the Engineers are third from the bottom in point differential (-1.7 goals per game), although well ahead of Alabama-Huntsville (-3.04) and Sacred Heart (-3.25).

RPI does actually have a couple of noteworthy players on the national level, though "noteworthy" may be kind of a stretch. Brock Higgs ranks 45th nationally in assists per game (he's putting together two every three games), Ryan Haggerty's five power play goals ranks him 22nd in the nation, and Nick Bailen's 0.60 points per game is 43rd nationally among defensemen.

The first goal of the game is usually the most important, but RPI hasn't made it stick. The Engineers are 2-5-1 when scoring first.

The Harvard tie snapped a six-game losing streak, during which the Engineers gave up at least three goals in each game. RPI is 3-4-1 when holding the opponent under three goals - another oddity.

American International is on a six-game losing streak since beating Brown 3-0 on November 22. This is not a game RPI can afford to lose or even tie if it wants to continue to build momentum. Still, it could prove an important confidence booster heading into the remainder of the season - to include the year's lone road home game out at Houston Field House West in Schenectady this coming Saturday.

ECAC Standings (by win% in parentheses)

1 (1). Cornell - 13 pts (6-1-1)
2 (2). Colgate - 12 pts (6-2-0)
3 (7). Quinnipiac - 12 pts (4-4-4)
4 (4). Union - 11 pts (4-2-3)

5 (3). Yale - 10 pts (5-3-0)
6 (6). Harvard - 10 pts (3-3-4)

7 (5). Dartmouth - 9 pts (4-4-1)

8 (11). Princeton - 9 pts (4-8-1)

9 (9). St. Lawrence - 8 pts (4-5-0)
10 (8). Clarkson - 8 pts (3-4-2)
11 (10). Brown - 7 pts (3-4-1)

12 (12). RPI - 3 pts (1-7-1)

Dartmouth at RPI
ECAC Game - Houston Field House (Troy, NY)
1/6/12- 7:30pm
RESULT: Dartmouth 4, RPI 3

BOX SCORES

RECAPS

RECORD: 3-16-0 (1-7-0 ECAC, 2 pts)

Harvard at RPI
ECAC Game - Houston Field House (Troy, NY)
1/7/12 - 7:00pm
RESULT: RPI 2, Harvard 2

BOX SCORES

RECAPS
RPI

RECORD: 3-16-1 (1-7-1 ECAC, 3 pts)

Upcoming games

10 Jan - American International
14 Jan - at #14 Union
20 Jan - at Brown

21 Jan - at Yale

27 Jan - St. Lawrence

Women's Hockey - Colgate & Cornell (6/7 Jan)

2012-01-09T06:40:00.002-05:00

With the holiday break behind them, RPI took to the ice in the first of seven straight league weekends which will close out the 2011-12 season. After ending 2011 with five losses in six games, including a 10-0 thrashing by Clarkson, RPI desperately needed a win over a Colgate squad just ahead of them in the standings, and they got it, posting a 4-1 victory over the Raiders before falling 3-0 to a powerful, albeit depleted Cornell squad.

Colgate

Cox/Harrison/Smelker

Mahoney/Vandegrift/Horton

Letuligasenoa/Guillemette/Svoboda

Sanders/Mankey

Castignetti/Vadner

Le Donne/Walsh

Schilter/Marzario

O'Brien

As the race to make the playoffs truly heats up over the tail end of the season, it becomes more and more critical to pick up points wherever possible - but nowhere moreso than the teams you're trying to catch in the standings. With RPI hovering around the bottom of the pack, and both Colgate and Brown just a point ahead, the game proved a ripe opportunity for the Engineers to do just that.

An early power play did little to help the Engineers find their momentum, as RPI put only a single shot on net during the advantage. Colgate came out firing after the penalty kill, putting several shots on netminder Kelly O'Brien before Melissa Kueber put a puck home from close range at 5:57 to give the visitors a 1-0 lead.

RPI would answer before the end of the period, as Taylor Horton knotted the game at one with a shot over Kimberly Sass's glove at 17:10.

Eleeza Cox put the Engineers ahead late in the second period, tapping a loose puck over the outstretched stick of Sass after the Colgate goalie made a nice play to stop a 2-on-1 opportunity for the Engineers. Cox made it a two goal game with her team-leading eighth goal of the season - with just 1:04 left in the third period after a brillian takeaway by Alisa Harrison behind the Colgate net. Harrison slid the puck forward to Cox, who was flying into the slot and left undefended for an easy one-timer past Sass.

Cox's goal, while not on the power play, came just after the tail end of the final of three penalties in a row for the Raiders in the third period, which stifled their comeback attempts. Madison Marzario scored her second of the season into an empty net to seal the game at 4-1.

Cornell

Cox/Harrison/Smelker

Mahoney/Vandegrift/Horton

Letuligasenoa/Guillemette/Svoboda

Sanders/Mankey

Castignetti/Vadner

Le Donne/Marzario

Schilter/Walsh

O'Brien

Cornell entered the game with six of their top players out of the lineup as they represented Team Canada at the Meco Cup in Germany, but the shortened bench did not disrupt the Big Red's winning ways. After trouncing Union 9-1 the night before despite dressing just 11 skaters, the same lineup took to the ice in Troy and worked its way to a 3-0 shutout and a 30-15 advantage in shots.

Cornell's Kendice Ogilvie scored from the slot at 11:07 of the first despite being surrounded by three RPI skaters, ripping the puck stick side on O'Brien for a 1-0 lead.

The teams traded a long series of penalties in the second period as the game got surprisingly rough. After combining for two slashing calls, a checking call, and three roughing calls, Cornell finally cashed in on a power play opportunity at 13:53 of the period when Monika Leck was given a little too much room to maneuver and fed a precise pass through the crease to Laura Fortino for an glove-side tap-in past O'Brien.

The Big Red extended their lead to three with just 22 seconds remaining in the middle frame, with Brianne Jenner firing a laser of a shot over O'Brien's shoulder from a surprisingly sharp angle.

Despite the two goals allowed, it was a rather good period defensively for the Engineers, who held Cornell to just six shots on goal in the frame. Unfortunately, RPI managed just two shots of their own in the same period, and four in the third - simply not enough to pick up any goals against a loaded Cornell squad.

Cornell made it clear once again that they are the team to beat in the ECAC, skating with just over half a full complement of skaters yet still not getting fatigued and cruising to a fairly easy win. Credit to RPI for keeping the score close, but Cornell clearly performs at a higher level and appears more than deserving of their current #3 national ranking.

RPI hits the road next weekend for a pair at Dartmouth (7pm Friday) and Harvard (4pm Saturday). WRPI will not have coverage of the road games, however audio and video will likely be available from the home teams. Check the RPI Athletics website closer to game day for links, or check Without a Peer on Twitter for score updates. The Engineers return to the Capital District the following weekend for a home-and-home with Union which will prove critical if the Engineers hope to make the playoffs.

-----

RPI vs. Colgate

ECAC Hockey Game – Houston Field House (Troy, NY)

1/6/12 – 3:00pm

RPI 4, Colgate 1

BOX SCORES:

USCHO: http://www.uscho.com/box/womens-hockey/2012/01/06/colgate-vs-rensselaer/

College Hockey Stats: http://collegehockeystats.net/1112/boxes/wclgren1.j06

RECAPS:

RPI: http://rpiathletics.com/news/2012/1/6/WICE_0106124448.aspx

Colgate: http://www.gocolgateraiders.com/news/2012/1/6/WHOCKEY_0106120648.aspx

Video Highlights (no audio): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFB5yeBks34

RECORD: 5-12-4 (2-5-2 ECAC)

-----

RPI vs. Cornell

ECAC Hockey Game – Houston Field House (Troy, NY)

1/7/12 – 3:00pm

Cornell 3, RPI 0

BOX SCORES:

USCHO: http://www.uscho.com/box/womens-hockey/2012/01/07/cornell-vs-rensselaer/

College Hockey Stats: http://collegehockeystats.net/1112/boxes/wcorren1.j07

RECAPS:

RPI: http://rpiathletics.com/news/2012/1/7/WICE_0107124430.aspx

Cornell: http://cornellbigred.com/news/2012/1/7/WICE_0107120838.aspx

Video Highlights (no audio): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vrLch-2vUs

RECORD: 5-13-4 (2-6-2 ECAC)

-----

ECAC Standings

                GP    Pts     Conf    All
Quinnipiac      14    20      9-3-2   13-8-2
Cornell         9     16      8-1     12-2
Princeton       14    14      6-6-2   7-9-4
Clarkson        10    13      6-3-1   12-6-4
Harvard         10    13      6-3-1   9-5-1
Dartmouth       10    12      5-3-2   8-5-2
St. Lawrence    10    11      5-4-1   10-7-3
Brown           9     7       2-4-3   5-5-6
Colgate         9     7       3-5-1   8-11-1
Rensselaer      10    6       2-6-2   5-13-4
Union           10    3       1-8-1   3-16-2
Yale            9     2       1-8     1-15

-----

Upcoming Games

Jan. 13 - at Dartmouth (7pm)

Jan. 14 - at Harvard (4pm)

Jan. 20 - Yale (7pm)

Jan. 21 - Brown (4pm)

Jan. 27 - at Union (3pm)

Jan. 28 - Union (3pm)

Homecoming Spotlight

2012-01-06T09:30:00.003-05:00

It was a dark December at Houston Field House - literally. Neither the men or the women had home games last month, and believe it or not, the last game played there was a win for RPI; a 2-1 victory for the women over Syracuse way back on November 26. The last men's game was a little less memorable and a little longer ago, a 5-1 loss to Union on November 15 - going on two months ago now.

Both teams make their returns this weekend with four ECAC contests. This afternoon at 3pm, the women return from their winter break - their first actual game in over a month - with a big one against Colgate, a team just in front of them in the league standings. That makes this a winnable game and an important one as well, since the Raiders have a game in hand over the Engineers.

Tonight, the men take center stage with the big spotlight of a national television audience against a team that certainly has an axe to grind with RPI - Dartmouth, the team that was first out back in March for the NCAA tournament, with the Engineers first in. RPI's two big wins over the Big Green last season were the difference makers. Will they have similar success this year, or will Dartmouth get their revenge? Come down to the Field House tonight at 7:30 (get there at seven or earlier!) to find out.

Tomorrow afternoon brings another huge challenge for the women with the Cornell Big Red, ranked #3 in the nation. RPI has lost 7 straight against resurgent Cornell, but they gave them all they could handle in Game 1 of last year's ECAC quarterfinals - just as they did with #1 Wisconsin in the first of two in November. Can they pull the upset and snag a golden point or two from a team that isn't giving many up this year? It'll be tough.

Finally on Saturday night, it's Harvard for the men, and the Crimson have been all over the map this season. They managed a tie last week at North Dakota (before being blown out the next night), something that is never easy even though this isn't exactly the Team Formerly Known as the Fighting Sioux's year.

Hockey is back in Troy, and the lights are shining tonight. Hopefully, the optimism of Friday morning doesn't have to give way, as it has frequently this year, to the disappointment of Sunday morning.

Come On Down

2012-01-05T14:04:00.000-05:00

As we slide back into the ECAC schedule - there's only one non-league game left and that's on Tuesday against American International, pray we win that one - I'd like to highlight the fact that tomorrow night's game against Dartmouth is going to be on national television.

Yes, that's right. To kick off college hockey on the newly branded NBC Sports Network (formerly Versus), Dartmouth at RPI. It's a bit of an honor, but there's also kind of a collection of problems.

1. The school is on winter break. That means there probably won't be a heck of a lot of students around.

2. The team isn't doing that great. That means there probably won't be a heck of a lot of only semi-interested people around.

3. Dartmouth doesn't travel very well. That means there probably won't be a heck of a lot of visiting fans around.

4. To bring this full circle, the game's on national television, which means that some people who are interested in watching the game will take the easier (and cheaper) route by staying home and watching on TV.

What does that add up to? In all likelihood, that's one empty Field House. And, to emphasize the point, it's going to be on national television. You can see the problem.

So we're asking our readers to do your part. Most of you in the Capital District, we know, will probably go to the game. You've probably got season tickets and we definitely hope most of you are with the team through thick or thin (if you haven't figured it out yet, this is thin). Just two simple requests.

1. Go to the game on Friday.

2. Invite someone to come with you. If you're too far out and can't go yourself, call a friend and suggest a night of hockey.

That's all. I'm sure we won't fill the place or anything, but it would at least be nice to put our best foot forward for the NBC cameras.

It's the first home game in six weeks. Come show your support. Watch the DVR after the game's over to see if you made it on TV.

Men's Hockey - UConn Holiday Classic (29/30 Dec)

2012-01-03T17:35:00.000-05:00

The unofficial start of the second half arrived with a great deal of promise for the struggling Engineers. With three weeks off and the team finally back to 100% health for the first time all season, hope seemed to be on the horizon. Unfortunately, the games turned out to be more of the same as RPI was savaged in the opening game of the UConn Holiday Classic, 7-2, and followed with a dismal consolation game, falling to Army 3-2.

UMass-Lowell
Lee/Neal/Schroeder
Laliberte/Higgs/Haggerty
Angers-Goulet/McGowan/O'Grady

Rogic/Malchuk/Tinordi

Curadi/Bailen
Leonard/Bergin
Leboeuf/Koudys

Diebold

The big news before the game was certainly the lineup. With no injuries to work around, Seth Appert was free to start whatever team he thought gave him the best chance to win for the first time all season, and the result was a number of seniors, especially Pat Cullen and Josh Rabbani, sitting in the stands. All seven freshman skaters started, as did freshman goaltender Scott Diebold. Matt Neal made his long awaited return to the lineup after missing more than two months with an ankle injury, and Ryan Haggerty came back after missing three games with the flu.

The optimism that came with the opening of the second half lasted precisely 43 seconds. That's how long it took the River Hawks to score, following a defensive breakdown that resulted in Lowell sending two forwards in alone on Diebold to make it 1-0. They made it 2-0 about 10 minutes later on a second defensive breakdown, and scored a shorthanded goal just two and a half minutes after that to make it 3-0. All three first period goals came as part of a lightning transition through the neutral zone that the RPI blueliners simply could not stop, leaving Diebold high and dry.

The Engineers tried to pick things up in the second period with Ryan Haggerty notching his team leading fourth goal of the season - yes, that's right - on the first opportunity of the middle stanza. The momentum didn't last long, however, as yet another defensive breakdown led to a Lowell goal just 30 seconds later, making the score 4-1 and immediately and visibly demoralizing RPI. Lowell picked up another goal about 10 minutes later to all but ice the game with almost a full half of the game left to be played.

Former RPI recruiting target Terrance Wallin - who reportedly had Lowell and RPI as his two finalists before choosing the River Hawks - made things worse three minutes into the third with his fourth of the season, making it 6-1. Zach Schroeder picked up his second of the year with just over three minutes left to play, but by that time it was far too late for anything to get going for the Engineers. Lowell added a power play goal with 10 seconds left just for good measure, and RPI limped away with a five-goal loss for the first time since the North Dakota NCAA game last year (which was six).

It was the first time since the "unspeakable Freakout!" two years ago that anyone had hung seven goals on RPI. The glaring issue was not between the pipes, as Scott Diebold frequently was left hanging by his defensemen and actually had a halfway decent appearance otherwise, although the goalfest left his numbers for the season significantly damaged.

Army, 2-0 losers to the homestanding UConn Huskies, became RPI's consolation game opponent.

Army
Angers-Goulet/McGowan/O'Grady
Laliberte/Higgs/Haggerty
Lee/Neal/Schroeder

Tinordi/Rogic/Rabbani

Smith

Leonard/Bergin
Curadi/Bailen
Dolan

Merriam

The response was immediate. Joel Malchuk was benched for the first time this season, and defensemen Pat Koudys and Guy Leboeuf were also yanked, resulting in only five defensemen dressing. Bryce Merriam got the start in net, and senior Justin Smith skated as the extra forward.

With the Black Knights coming in with just one victory on the season, this had all the hallmarks of a must-win game for RPI, if only to maintain some semblance of confidence moving forward.

Once again, the Engineers got off on the wrong foot by getting behind early. After both sides had failed to score on their first power play of the game, Army was first to the scoresheet by notching a power play goal on Matt Neal's second penalty of the first period to go up 1-0.

RPI's power play struggles continued into the second period, as an opportunity right from the get-go fell by the wayside. In fact, it was not until Army went down two men six minutes into the second that the Engineers were able to get on the board, tying things with Brock Higgs' first goal of the season, getting the monkey off his back but keeping the Engineers somewhat behind the eight ball, as their efforts at even strength proved futile for the remainder of the period. RPI dominated the second in shots, 15-2, yet could only muster the two-man advantage goal.

Matt Neal's first career goal also came on the power play, arriving three and a half minutes into RPI's fifth man advantage of the game, giving the Engineers the lead for the first time in the tournament, but once again, the momentum was fleeting.

Just over two minutes later, following an interference call against Bo Dolan that Dolan, Appert and most RPI fans in attendance thought was a bit of a phantom call, Army scored on the ensuing faceoff to tie the game at two.

The Engineers pushed forward in an attempt to retake the lead, but just as they picked up the pressure, a slap shot by Nick Bailen broke the glass behind the Army net, resulting in a delay of about half an hour while repairs were made. When play resumed, the momentum built by the pressure was gone.

In heart-breaking fashion, a weak shot by Army with only 93 ticks remaining on the clock eluded Merriam and gave Army the late lead. The Engineers did what they could to get things square again with the empty net, but they could not get one past Army's Ryan Leets, who made 29 saves on 31 shots for the victory. Merriam finished with just 13 saves on 16 shots, while the Engineers allowed 10 goals on 40 shots on the weekend.

RPI now limps home to begin the second half of the ECAC schedule, in desperate need of a bounce their way in order to salvage the season.

Other junk - Plenty of movement in the national rankings this week. RPI opponents on the chart this week are #5 Notre Dame (no change), #6 Colorado College (no change), #9 Colgate (up three), #12 UMass-Lowell (up five), #13 Cornell (no change), #14 Union (down four), #17 Ferris State (down six), and #20 Yale (down one). Also receiving votes were RIT (12) and Harvard (4).

RPI's three leading scorers - Nick Bailen, Brock Higgs and Ryan Haggerty - have scored 100% of their goals on the power play, accounting for 8 of RPI's 10 power play goals.

All of RPI's freshmen forwards - Haggerty, Jacob Laliberte, Zach Schroeder, Mark McGowan and Matt Neal - have now notched their first career goal.

Bailen, Schroeder, C.J. Lee, Alex Angers-Goulet, Mike Bergin and Curtis Leonard are the only remaining players who have not missed a game this season.

RPI's next game is their first home game since November - and it's a big one as it's not only a league game, it's also a nationally televised game as the first college game to air on the newly rechristened NBC Sports Network. Unfortunately, it comes at a time when students are not on campus, against a team that doesn't travel well and with the team struggling significantly, so this showpiece game could be played in front of a fairly weak crowd. If you can get to the Field House on Friday, please do so.

ECAC Standings (by win% in parentheses)

1 (1). Cornell - 13 pts (6-1-1)
2 (2). Colgate - 12 pts (6-2-0)
3 (8). Quinnipiac - 9 pts (3-4-3)
4 (3). Yale - 8 pts (4-2-0)
5 (4). Union - 8 pts (3-2-2)
6 (7). Harvard - 8 pts (3-3-2)
7 (10). St. Lawrence - 8 pts (4-5-0)
8 (9). Clarkson - 8 pts (3-4-2)

9 (6). Dartmouth - 7 pts (3-3-1)

10 (11). Princeton - 7 pts (3-7-1)
11 (5). Brown - 6 pts (3-3-0)

12 (12). RPI - 2 pts (1-6-0)

#17 UMass-Lowell vs. RPI
Non-Conference Game - Freitas Ice Forum (Storrs, CT)
12/29/11 - 4:00pm
RESULT: UMass-Lowell 7, RPI 2

BOX SCORES
College Hockey Stats
USCHO

RECAPS
RPI
USCHO
Troy Record
Albany Times Union
Lowell Sun

RECORD: 3-14-0 (1-6-0 ECAC, 2 pts)

Army vs. RPI
Non-Conference Game - Freitas Ice Forum (Storrs, CT)
12/30/11 - 4:00pm
RESULT: Army 3, RPI 2

BOX SCORES
College Hockey Stats
USCHO

RECAPS
RPI
Troy Record
Albany Times Union

RECORD: 3-15-0 (1-6-0 ECAC, 2 pts)

Upcoming games

06 Jan - Dartmouth
07 Jan - Harvard
10 Jan - American International
14 Jan - at #14 Union
20 Jan - at Brown

ECAC Power Rankings: December

2012-01-01T13:36:00.000-05:00

Well, it's time to pay the piper. The month of December is over, and with two more months left before crunch time, we take a look at how the league looks at this point in time. Throw the league standings out the window... here's how the ECAC stacks up right now. You'll hardly be surprised by who occupies the basement.

Happy New Year. Let last year be forgot, and never brought to mind.

(Last month's ranking in parentheses)

1 (3). Colgate (12-4-2) - What a month for the Raiders. They steamrolled Clarkson and St. Lawrence for four home points at the start of the month, fought to a 1-1 tie with high-flying Merrimack, then closed out with a solid win over Canisius last night. Colgate is on a seven game unbeaten streak (6-0-1) and have lost only twice since October. This time last year, Colgate was easily the worst team in the ECAC - so cheer up, Engineer Nation.

2 (1). Cornell (8-4-1) - The first two games this month for the Big Red pretty much confirmed our opinion of the Cornell style: boring. They featured a grand total of one goal in 120 minutes of game play - two less goals than the number of ECAC points they got out of those games, since the one goal was theirs. A rough loss on Thursday to UMass (despite the retention of Andy Iles, who was not selected for the World Junior team) was made up by a solid win yesterday over Paul Karpowich-less Clarkson.

3 (2). Union (9-5-5) - Other than a big road win at Merrimack, December was a bit of an injury-induced downer for the Dutchmen. It included a win over floundering RPI, but a pair of losses out in Colorado on the last two days of 2011 were a missed opportunity for Union to make a statement following an otherwise rotten December which got underway with two ties that a healthy team probably could have turned into wins.

4 (7). Quinnipiac (11-7-4) - The Bobcats are righting the ship in a big way following a dreary November. A loss last night at Nebraska-Omaha snapped a six game unbeaten streak, but Quinnipiac does appear to have its mojo back overall. Although most of their opponents were not exactly of a solid stature, the Bobcats did very well, going 3-1-2 in over the month. We'll find out for sure if they're contenders in the second week of January when they host Colgate and Cornell.

5 (6). Harvard (4-4-4) - Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, sometimes you tie. Harvard has that down to a science at this point, equally dividing the results among their first 12 outings. A 1-1-2 December doesn't seem terribly impressive, but all four games came on the road, and two were at North Dakota Friday and last night, a tough place to play even in a season like this where the ~~Fighting Sioux~~ are struggling.

6 (5). St. Lawrence (7-10-2) - The Saints have bounced back from a horrible start not only to the season but to the month of December as well. They endured a tough stretch at the Central New York teams and then against Clarkson, losing all three to start the month, but they currently ride a four-game unbeaten streak, including a pair of ties (and shootout victories) to claim Dartmouth's tournament, including a rollercoaster affair against Merrimack.

7 (8). Dartmouth (6-5-2) - The slimmest of margins separate the Big Green and the Saints, and right now that margin just happens to be the shootout loss last night in the championship of their own tournament. It was a 2-0-1 December for Dartmouth, but they weren't overly tested - all three games at home, two against Atlantic Hockey opponents. It's too early to know if they've improved from their difficult November.

8 (4). Yale (6-5-1) - Lost here at WaP amidst the Engineers' own struggles is the possible downfall of mighty Yale. Their shocking loss to Sacred Heart was followed up by a miserable December, in which the Bulldogs managed only a split with Brown, and added a loss to UMass to fall to a 1-4-0 record in their last four games. They host Bentley to ring in the New Year this afternoon in New Haven, and if they don't win that one... they're in some serious trouble.

9 (9). Clarkson (9-9-4) - A miserable trip to Florida last week underscores just how much the Knights rely on Paul Karpowich to keep them in games. The senior had previously started every game this year, and his backups were less than stellar, allowing 11 goals in two games. Worse for Clarkson is that they struggled even with the senior netminder in December, picking up a win against their archrivals from Canton but struggling otherwise, going 1-4-1 for the month.

10 (12). Brown (5-6-1) - The Bears move out of the doldrums thanks to a road win against an admittedly weaker than usual New Hampshire team on Friday, but a travel-partner split with Yale was also pretty big for Brown. When you're this far down the chart, a 2-1-0 month can be all it takes to look a little bit better, and they have the opportunity to show that they've put the awful losses of November behind them against Providence in the annual Mayor's Cup today.

11 (10). Princeton (4-9-4) - When your only win of the month is against a last place team, you had a pretty bad month. The Tigers did manage three ties, including a gutsy tie with a solid Northeastern team out in Minnesota on Friday, but just couldn't get over the hump with a second tie last night against Niagara. The offense is OK, but the defense is struggling; Princeton has allowed three goals or more in each of their last six games.

12 (11). RPI (3-15-0) - This is not pretty and it's only getting worse. To wit - with a full month worth of games more, the Engineers have fewer wins on the season than all six Ivies and five more losses than anyone else in the conference, going 0-5-0 in December with the defense going to pot in all five games. The offense is improving with at least two goals in each of the games, but they were outscored 23-11 in December.

Lost in the Desert

2011-12-31T10:10:00.003-05:00

The Army "juggernaut" rolls on. That's two losses in a row for RPI against the Black Knights.

Leet.

2011 can't end soon enough. The Engineers' total record this calendar year is 12-24-2, with fully half of those wins coming in January. Yeah.

Only three teams in the nation register worse in KRACH right now than RPI - American International, Alabama-Huntsville, and Sacred Heart. That means the Engineers, as of right now, are the underdog in every game they will play for the rest of the year, except for the AIC game in which they are slight favorites (at the moment).

In the Fetal Position

2011-12-30T08:37:00.004-05:00

A gutsy move to sit some upperclassmen in favor of younger players didn't quite pay off yesterday, but a lot of credit to Lowell - they're a solid team. They perfectly exploited a serious problem we've been having.

What was the problem? I think we might have talked about it recently.

Oh well. On to Army this afternoon. And if we can't beat Army... yeah.

Oh. Hockey. Right!

2011-12-29T09:02:00.001-05:00

Gosh... this was a first for us here at WaP. The last two winter breaks were full of RPI hockey goodness, what with Jerry D'Amigo playing in the World Junior Championships and, last year, the big exhibition against the US WJC team.

(For what it's worth, the Canadians are still cheering against whoever's playing the Stars and Stripes out of pure, unadulterated fear. They probably think D'Amigo will come back and squash them again.)

This year, with the team struggling and no one to dote on in the tournament... a little less going on. So we took a quick breather to recharge the batteries. But we're back, and the second half starts now.

There's great news to share - the team's finally at 100% injury wise, which is what we'd hoped to hear heading into the break. From Seth Appert's recent comments, it looks like the younger guys are going to get a bigger role going forward as well.

Hope springs eternal. Can the team wash away the stank of a horrible first three months? They can start this afternoon as they face nationally ranked UMass-Lowell in UConn's (almost literal) barn.

Let's get excited... nothing is over until we decide it is! Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?

Reality Check?

2011-12-16T15:00:00.000-05:00

Let's not mince words when it comes to the men's team. If the team continues on its current path, it will be the first season with fewer than 10 wins since 1982 (in which the team played 29 games), and the second worst winning percentage in the modern era of the program, following the 1966 season largely considered the worst in school history.

This is for a team that, coming into the season, had the pundits believing that despite the much ballyhooed losses of Chase Polacek and Allen York, RPI was going to vie for a first-round bye (4th in the coaches poll, 5th in the media poll). We weren't even that optimistic, but we thought sixth was a pretty strong likelihood.

A lot can change in two and a half months, but those pre-season projections don't lie - this should not be a team that could be considered one of the worst in program history. And at its base, that is what makes what has transpired to date all the more frustrating. In Seth Appert's first three years with the program, there was a lot of hemming and hawing over the Engineers' troubles (they were 31-68-14 in those years), but watching the games, it was apparent that the guys were just getting beat by better teams for the most part. Today, that isn't the case. 3/4 of this team has been on a 20-game winning NCAA tournament squad, many in integral roles.

There is a very recent comparison that can be made - Colgate, last year. The Raiders were chosen to finish 4th in the media poll (with 2 voters feeling they had the chops to finish first) and 5th in the coaches poll a year after a 4th place finish that ended with an ECAC tournament upset. They finished dead last, and for much of the season, it wasn't close. Their issue wasn't so much a problem scoring as much as it was keeping the puck out of their own net for much of the year, but the effect was the same. Colgate did salvage their season in March (requiring a pair of Game 3 overtime goals in the Capital District), but it was still mostly a lost season. That team had seven NHL draft picks, but was losing a star player in David McIntyre. As with Polacek and York, that absence alone certainly did not explain why a team with high expectations languished so miserably all year long, including a nine-game losing streak that was part of a 1-20-2 run from November to early February.

This year, while RPI has already matched their loss total from last season with 13 losses, Colgate has already matched their win total from last year before Christmas with 11 wins in 17 outings. Eight of the team's top nine scorers and both goaltenders were on last year's squad.

Fortunately, history isn't necessarily doomed to repeat itself. There's still time for the pendulum to swing in the opposite direction - but there's plenty of work to be done in order to achieve that.

Scoring - We've hashed this out pretty well, so let's just put this in historic context. The Engineers went 11 straight games without reaching what in college hockey is frequently the "magic" three goal mark - that is, if you can regularly pump three pucks to the back of the net, you're going to win more frequently than not. That's a school record for a single season. The last time they even went 5 straight games without reaching three was the dismal 2008-09 season (they did that twice), and they managed 9 straight in 2007-08, which had been the single season record before this year. The longest such streak in school history was a 12-game stretch between 1912 and 1916... but it was a very different game back then, of course.

There are absolute signs of improvement here, especially among the talented set of freshman forwards who appear to be adjusting well to the college game as the season goes along. Jacob Laliberte was hurt early on, but has been showing the ability that RPI fans have been waiting years to see over the last few games and has broken onto the scoresheet solidly. Ryan Haggerty was one of the earliest to "catch on" and is still the top goal-scoring forward on the team despite missing three games. Zach Schroeder and Mark McGowan potted their first career goals in the last two weeks after increasingly impressive performances.

Appert has frequently eschewed the use of the term "freshman" once the second half of the season begins, given that they have mostly gained the experience they need to be competitive by that point, so we'll have to see if the forwards are able to shoulder a heavier load going forward.

Finishing - Especially in October, it was apparent at times during the first half that the team wasn't playing all that poorly. We noted that they were basically doing everything right except for scoring goals. There were plenty of whiffs up and down on one-timer chances and rebound tries. That's certainly changing - the Haggerty goal at RIT was a great one-timed shot, and Schroeder and McGowan each put one home on textbook rebounders.

Including instances in which RPI allowed one or more empty net goals while being down by a single goal, the Engineers are 1-5 in one-goal games. With a little better finishing, we could have been looking at a team at least a little closer to .500.

Defensive breakdowns - The Engineers have only seven defensemen on their roster, and all but two are either freshmen or sophomores. Practically by definition, that's a young d-corps. Regardless, they have done a wonderful job for the most part of keeping the team in games, especially from the beginning of the season through late November. One or two times a weekend (and more frequently of late), however, we have seen defensive blunders creating odd-man rushes or straight up breakaway opportunities for the opponent, and those seem to be leading to goals more often than not. Worse, a worrisome number of these breakdowns have been from the two upperclassmen.

Goaltending - Bryce Merriam and Scott Diebold have done a fine job in net, all things considered. The one concern is on those defensive breakdowns, and perhaps this is the one area in which Allen York is missed. The goaltenders have typically been very solid when the defense is doing things right, but when hung out to dry we haven't seen a high number of "wow, he bailed them out there," type saves as York regularly made. Diebold is a freshman and has seen only four games in net. Merriam is a junior and could use a little more confidence in these situations.

Penalties - This, more than anything, may be the root of the team's current struggle. In interviews, Appert has said that the team must balance the physical game that they want to play with penalty discipline, and so far it seems that it's either one or the other. The penalty kill has been one of the shining lights on this team, and having a good penalty kill helps you maintain that physical presence by being a bit less apprehensive about dishing out that big hit, but when you spend too much time on the kill it keeps your offense from getting into a good rhythm and frequently keeps some of your better scorers off the ice.

RPI has been on the penalty kill an average of 5.5 times per game thus far. Although not all penalty kills last two minutes for whatever reason (some are majors, some start as an opponent comes out of the box, some end with a goal), that factors out to around 11 minutes of penalty kill per game, and it's not all at once. That's not good.

On the flip side, when the team isn't taking penalties, the physical aspect has not been as prevalent. A balance must be reached.

Upperclassmen - Gotta call out the juniors and seniors here. The top four forwards in scoring are all freshmen and sophomores. Not all of those juniors and seniors are supposed to be scorers - Alex Angers-Goulet and Joel Malchuk, for instance, have usually made their most important contributions defensively rather than offensively - but Appert has always pointed to his older players as the key leaders of the team. Some seem to be trying to do too much on their own, while others seem content to let others take the lead.

Injuries - It's worth mentioning that at no point during the season have the Engineers been at 100% healthwise which draws some comparison to Princeton two campaigns ago, who also underwhelmed despite strong pre-season expectations. Only eight players have played in all 16 contests - that compares to only four who made it through 38 games last season (Polacek, Helfrich, Bailen and Foss), but nine who made it through 39 games two years ago. Right now, the only known injuries are Ryan Haggerty (who we were told was sick but has missed the last three games) and Matt Neal (who's missed 11 straight with an ankle injury). Pat Cullen, Marty O'Grady, Brock Higgs, Jacob Laliberte, Mark McGowan, Greg Burgdoerfer, and Bryce Merriam have all missed at least one game due to injury this season.

Hopefully, the nearly three week layoff between Lake Placid and Storrs will help get this team to that elusive 100% readiness.

That's a lot to fix, but bear in mind - this team has the ability to fix it.

Men's Hockey - vs. Union (10 Dec)

2011-12-13T15:21:00.000-05:00

On the big ice at Lake Placid, the Engineers had one last opportunity to gain a little bit of redemption before going into a nearly three-week winter break. For nearly 35 minutes, RPI looked like they were ready to give Union a run for their money in the annual non-conference matchup, but a slew of bad penalties and rough goals buried the team and doomed them to their 13th loss of the season - the same number as all of last year - before Christmas, falling 5-2.

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

Tinordi/McGowan/Rabbani

Leboeuf/Bergin

Leonard/Bailen

Curadi/Dolan

Merriam

Not too many changes to the lineup from the Quinnipiac game - Merriam returned in net, Cullen returned to replace Burgdoerfer on the Laliberte line, and Guy Leboeuf returned in place of Pat Koudys, whose absence was not explained. Otherwise, basically the same lines. Ryan Haggerty remained out with what has been reported as a bout of the flu, missing his third straight game, while Matt Neal remained out for the 11th straight outing with an ankle injury.

For the fifth time in six games, the Engineers got the all important first goal. Following a very early penalty kill, RPI struck first just as their first power play of the game was expiring. A blast by Jacob Laliberte was redirected in front by C.J. Lee, the junior's first goal of the season (though it was originally noted as Laliberte's goal, which would have been his third in as many games).

While scoring the first goal hasn't been a problem lately, only once - in RPI's game against RIT, scoring twice on a major power play - have the Engineers been able to take control by going up 2-0. That was not to be on Saturday afternoon, either, as Union got the tying goal with just under five minutes left in the first period, depriving RPI of a much needed first intermission boost - the Engineers have never led after one period in 16 games thus far.

Union made it 2-1 four minutes into the second period, but the Engineers, to their credit, did not back off as they did after giving up the lead in Troy against the Dutchmen. On the counter attack, a shot by Matt Tinordi was initially saved, and Mark McGowan was there to rifle home the rebound, tying the game up at two with McGowan's first career goal.

As the period wore on and the Engineers killed another penalty, it was beginning to look like they had an opportunity to fight for a win in the third period, but then the specter of bad penalties came down and snuffed out any opportunity to stay in things.

A cross-checking penalty was called against Guy Leboeuf with about five and a half minutes left in the second period, and while arguing the call, Seth Appert was assessed an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty that for some reason was served by Guy Leboeuf as part of a new double minor. Making matters worse, Alex Angers-Goulet, one of the team's most crucial penalty killers, was called for boarding less than a minute later, giving Union a long 5-on-3 power play. It took more than a minute, but the Dutchmen eventually capitalized on the two man advantage, and then made it 4-2 with a minute and a half left in the period after a blown defensive assignment by Mike Bergin left Union with a breakaway which they capitalized on.

RPI got a pair of power plays early in the third period, but neither were even remotely successful. The Dutchmen added a third straight goal midway through the third to lock things down tight. RPI managed a total of 25 shots on goal in the game, and the Engineers got 10 on net in the third, but by that time they were already facing a deep deficit. Bryce Merriam made 27 saves in the loss.

Other junk - Want further proof of RPI's fall from grace? Union's win was their only game of the week, and yet they fell one spot and are now only ranked #11. Also ranked this week: #6 Notre Dame (split with Ferris State, up one), #7 Colorado College (split with Alaska-Anchorage, down one), #10 Ferris State (down one), #12 Colgate (tied Merrimack, no change), #13 Cornell (idle, up three), #17 UMass-Lowell (beat BC, lost to Northeastern, up one), and #19 Yale (lost to UMass, down two). Also receiving votes, Quinnipiac (45), Harvard (9), Clarkson (4) and RIT (3).

With 9 goals in the last 4 games - at least 2 in each for the first time since doing it 7 times in a row late last year - the Engineers offense is slowly improving, but is still among the bottom five offenses in the nation, all scoring under two goals per game.

The Engineers started the season by falling behind 1-0 in their first seven games and understandably went 1-6 during that stretch. They have since gone up 1-0 in six of the nine games since, but are 2-3 in those games, with the two being shutouts. The Engineers still have given up only one goal in games they've won, the first goal of the game in the second Minnesota State outing.

Matt Neal, who has played only four games due to injury, is the only freshman forward who has yet to record his first career goal. Freshmen have scored 7 of the team's 15 goals by forwards.

ECAC Standings (by win% in parentheses)

9 (6). Dartmouth - 7 pts (3-3-1)

10 (11). Princeton - 7 pts (3-7-1)
11 (5). Brown - 6 pts (3-3-0)

12 (12). RPI - 2 pts (1-6-0)

#10 Union vs. RPI
Non-Conference Game - Herb Brooks Arena (Lake Placid, NY)
12/10/11 - 4:00pm
RESULT: Union 5, RPI 2

BOX SCORES
College Hockey Stats
USCHO

RECAPS

RPI
Troy Record
Albany Times Union

RECORD: 3-13-0 (1-6-0 ECAC, 2 pts)

Upcoming games

29 Dec - vs. #17 UMass-Lowell (Storrs, CT)
30 Dec - vs. Army OR at UConn (Storrs, CT)
06 Jan - Dartmouth
07 Jan - Harvard
10 Jan - American International

Olympic Dreams

2011-12-10T11:00:00.000-05:00

Same pumpup as last year. Hey, it fits.

Rumor has it that both of Union's top goaltenders are questionable for tonight. If neither can go, their untested third string gets his shot. Do you believe in miracles?

I don't, not anymore really.

Here's something harder if the brilliance of John Williams isn't enough to get your blood pumping. You're welcome. (Content Warning - language)

I Shall Call Him... Mini WaP

2011-12-09T13:39:00.000-05:00

For your reading pleasure (or pain - we make no judgments here about your lifestyle), you can now take Without a Peer on the road with you.

We are delighted to announce that WaP can now be viewed with relative ease on your mobile device. Simply surf on over here with your smartphone and it'll automatically appear in a mobile friendly format.

Lookin' out for the little guy.

Also, not much has happened lately worth blogging about. Shoot us an email if you've got any ideas or news, or maybe if you're just bored... tomyousieve (at) gmail [dat] com.

Oh... one other thing... the podcast for yesterday's Slap Schotts (featuring WaP's Tom Reale) is available on demand at this link.

The Spirit of Radio

2011-12-07T14:35:00.000-05:00

In lieu of this week's podcast, tune in to Fox Sports 980 on Thursday at 11:05am as Without a Peer's Tom Reale joins Union radio man Brian Unger to discuss the Festivus Faceoff with the Daily Gazette's Ken Schott on "Slap Schotts," the weekly college hockey segment of Rodger Wyland's "Big Board Sportstalk."

Union is coming off a disappointing two tie weekend, which isn't horrible considering how beat up they were, but... they probably still should have picked up four points. And of course, we know RPI's troubles. Last year in Lake Placid, these teams had another classic, with Union scoring in the last 10 seconds of regulation to earn the tie. Then again, both teams were doing pretty well heading into that one.

Anyway, we'll be talking about that and I'm sure we'll probably talk a little bit about the Engineers' struggles to date as well.

If you're away from your computer, that's AM 980 on your radio dial - click here to see if it'll work where you are.

No Joy in Mudville

2011-12-06T17:28:00.000-05:00

Gordon Bombay: You think this is funny? You think losing is funny?
Les Averman: Well, not at first, but once you get the hang of it.
- The Mighty Ducks

There's honestly not much more to say about the last weekend. The women gave up 13 consecutive goals in four periods before (sort of) turning things around in the final two. The men took zero points from games that probably could have resulted in four points and managed to lose on Saturday almost literally at the last second.

They have a combined record of 7-24-4.

So hopefully, you'll excuse us if we are a little punch drunk at this point.

As self appointed court jesters, we're doing our best to find humor in all of this, even if it's dark humor. Gary and I both realized after the Quinnipiac game that as the season goes on, we get less and less annoyed at losing.

That's probably a bad thing.

Anyway, expect some more broader scoped stuff out of me in the coming weeks as we try to not sound like a broken record. Last year we were able to run a weekly feature on the PairWise Rankings. This year we're kind of... not. So expect some more "wide world of college hockey" if this trend continues. Which it probably will.

Men's Hockey - at Princeton & Quinnipiac (2/3 Dec)

2011-12-05T16:48:00.000-05:00

Things are officially getting worse for RPI even as certain elements get better. The offense, given the output of the games this past weekend, is certainly beginning to awaken from its slumber, hitting one-timers and getting to rebounds where they had not been earlier in the season. However, just in time for the offense to start firing, the defense became lax as the Engineers dropped their 11th and 12th games of the season - in 15 total outings - to move within one of last year's final number in the loss column during the first weekend in December. On Friday, three goals was not enough to overcome Princeton (5-3), while a last-second goal for Quinnipiac doomed the Engineers on Saturday (3-2).

Princeton
Angers-Goulet/Rogic/Malchuk
Lee/O'Grady/Schroeder
Higgs/Laliberte/Cullen

Tinordi/McGowan/Rabbani

Leonard/Bergin

Koudys/Bailen

Curadi/Dolan

Merriam

Friday's lineup featured the same exact group sent out against RIT with two exceptions - Bryce Merriam returned between the pipes, and Patrick Cullen returned from injury, replacing leading scorer Ryan Haggerty, who missed the weekend with an undisclosed illness.

The even strength drought finally ended about six and a half minutes into the first period as Jacob Laliberte finally notched his first career goal, unassisted, to put RPI ahead 1-0. It was the fourth straight game in which the Engineers had struck first.

The lead lasted for about four minutes before Princeton struck back on a shot Bryce Merriam probably would like back. Jack Berger put it just over Merriam's glove and in to tie the game at one, and the Tigers struck quickly just over two minutes later on the power play, picking up a bad clearance by Nick Bailen and converting just 23 seconds into their first power play of the night to go up 2-1.

RPI fought back three minutes later as Matt Tinordi notched his first goal of the season and second of his career on a putback of a Josh Rabbani tip, knotting things up at two. Before the second period was over, it was already just the second RPI game of the season in which both teams reached two goals.

Last year's ECAC rookie of the year, Andrew Calof, made the score 3-2 seven minutes into the second period with a goal on another RPI turnover, but RPI again fought back to tie the game before the end of the middle frame. Marty O'Grady scored his first goal of the season from C.J. Lee and Zach Schroeder to square things once more.

That was as close as the Engineers could get in just their second time on the year reaching three goals. Calof scored again seven minutes into the third period to put Princeton up 4-3, and with the net empty, the Engineers could not convert despite a number of excellent opportunities. A bad move by Bailen to keep the puck in the zone ended up giving it to Princeton, and Berger scored into the empty net to finish the game at 5-3.

An offensive awakening coupled with a number of bad defensive turnovers that previously had been limited to only about one per week. Merriam did not fare terribly well in net - he faced only 23 shots on the evening but allowed four goals.

Quinnipiac

Angers-Goulet/Rogic/Malchuk
Lee/O'Grady/Schroeder
Higgs/Laliberte/Burgdoerfer

Tinordi/McGowan/Rabbani

Leonard/Bergin

Koudys/Bailen

Curadi/Dolan

Diebold

Haggerty was not ready to return on Saturday and Pat Cullen was removed from the lineup, possibly not ready to return from his injury suffered against Union. The only other change was in net as freshman Scott Diebold picked up his second start in three games.

The first period started out horribly for RPI. They were kept pinned in their own end for much of the first 20 minutes, and late in the period were being outshot by an eyepopping 12-3 tally. An early power play opportunity went nowhere, followed by a goal five minutes later by Quinnipiac freshman phenom Matthew Peca, who put a bouncing puck past Diebold to put the Bobcats ahead.

Despite the lousy start, the Engineers were fortunate to get into the locker room tied at one as Jacob Laliberte followed up his Friday goal with another one five minutes after RPI went down. Bailen and Higgs assisted to make the score 1-1 heading into the break.

The major event of the second period was certainly a serious contact to the head incident involving freshman Luke Curadi. He put a Quinnipiac player to the ice and the referees quickly issued a five minute penalty and a game misconduct. A retaliatory penalty on Quinnipiac meant that the Bobcat power play was reduced to three minutes, but RPI ended up down two men before the end of the kill with a cross-checking call against Bo Dolan. The Engineer penalty kill, long one of the few bright lights, hunkered down and got back to five a side with no damage.

The Engineers took their second lead of the weekend four minutes into the third quarter as a Brock Higgs shot was saved by Quinnipiac's Eric Hartzell but picked up in the slot by Zach Schroeder, who forcefully launched the rebound into the open net for his first career goal.

Unfortunately, that was when the defensive issues from Friday began to creep in. Two and a half minutes later, sustained pressure in the RPI zone led to a goal after the Engineers failed to clear the puck on two occasions. That tied the game at two, and RPI could not regain the lead despite some decent pressure late.

Despite some very sloppy defense throughout - and repeated bailouts by Diebold, who shined with 35 saves, including 14 in the final period - the game appeared to be heading into overtime before the Engineers iced the puck in the waning moments. They gained a clearance, but then seemed to stop playing with intensity and the Bobcats, playing to the horn, went for broke. A bad attempt at taking out the puck carrier, Ben Arnt, left him alone with Yuri Bouharevich, who placed the puck perfectly into the net with just 2.4 seconds remaining on the clock, giving the Bobcats a 3-2 victory.

Ultimately, the Engineers lost a game they probably deserved to lose due to generally bad play for long stretches, but it was still a game they were very much in until the very end. It's a tough loss to swallow and an especially tough sweep to have to swallow given that both games were not only well within reach, but were downright winnable thanks to the rejuvenated offense.

Other junk - The reigning national champions, Minnesota-Duluth, are the #1 team in the nation this week following Merrimack's first two losses of the season at the hands of Providence. Ranked ECAC teams are #10 Union (tied Quinnipiac/Princeton, down one), #12 Colgate (swept Clarkson/SLU, up three), #16 Cornell (beat Clarkson and tied SLU, up one), and #17 Yale (split home and home with Brown, down three). Also ranked this week are #6 Colorado College (beat Denver, up two), #7 Notre Dame (swept by Northeastern, down five with one first place vote), #9 Ferris State (swept by Western Michigan, down three), and #18 UMass-Lowell (swept UNH, previously unranked). Also receiving votes were Quinnipiac (17) and Harvard (3).

RPI ultimately went 446:48 without scoring an even strength goal between Patrick Cullen's goal late in the 2nd period against Colorado College on October 28 and Jacob Laliberte's first career goal in the 1st period against Princeton on December 2. All five RPI goals this weekend were even strength, which doubled the team total for the season as a whole. They went 0-for-3 on the power play. That's right, only three power plays in 120 minutes. The penalty kill did OK, going 6-for-7 including the big major kill.

The abyss gets deeper now: the Engineers are in last place, and the rest of the league is four points clear - which means RPI could sweep a weekend series and they'd still only possibly be tied for 9th at best. Another problem: The next chance to do that doesn't crop up until after the new year. Next up is another game against Union on the big sheet at Lake Placid. The Dutchmen are banged up right now, but if things go the way they did this past weekend (and in the last game between these teams) it probably isn't going to matter. Then comes a tournament at UConn that looked like a cakewalk at the beginning of the season and now looks like another tough order as UMass-Lowell has looked very good this year.

ECAC Standings

1. Cornell - 13 pts (6-1-1)
2. Colgate - 12 pts (6-2-0)
3. Yale - 8 pts (4-2-0)
4. Union - 8 pts (3-2-2)
5. St. Lawrence - 8 pts (4-4-0)

6. Dartmouth - 7 pts (3-3-1)

7. Princeton - 7 pts (3-5-1)

8. Quinnipiac - 7 pts (2-4-3)
9. Brown - 6 pts (3-3-0)
10. Harvard - 6 pts (2-3-2)

11. Clarkson - 6 pts (2-4-2)

12. RPI - 2 pts (1-6-0)

RPI at Princeton
ECAC Game - Hobey Baker Memorial Rink (Princeton, NJ)
12/2/11 - 7:00pm

RESULT: Princeton 5, RPI 3

BOX SCORES
College Hockey Stats
USCHO

RECAPS

RPI
Troy Record
Albany Times Union
WXXA-TV Fox 23

RECORD: 3-11-0 (1-5-0 ECAC, 2 pts)

RPI at Quinnipiac
ECAC Game - TD Bank Sports Center (Hamden, CT)
12/3/11 - 7:00pm

RESULT: Quinnipiac 3, RPI 2

BOX SCORES
College Hockey Stats
USCHO

RECAPS

RPI
USCHO

Troy Record
Albany Times Union

RECORD: 3-12-0 (1-6-0 ECAC, 2 pts)

Upcoming games

10 Dec - vs. #10 Union (Lake Placid, NY)
29 Dec - vs. #18 UMass-Lowell (Storrs, CT)
30 Dec - vs. Army OR at UConn (Storrs, CT)
06 Jan - Dartmouth
07 Jan - Harvard

Women's Hockey - at Clarkson & St. Lawrence (2/3 Dec)

2011-12-04T21:39:00.002-05:00

RPI needed a strong showing in the North Country to help get their season back on track prior to a long holiday layoff, but they certainly didn't get it this weekend in a pair of dismal losses, getting thrashed 10-0 by Clarkson on Friday night before watching a comeback attempt fall far short in a 6-3 loss to St. Lawrence on Saturday.

Clarkson

Mahoney/Harrison/Vandegrift

Smelker/Cox/Horton

Sanders/Guillemette/Svoboda

Letuligaseona/Mankey

Castignetti/Vadner

Le Donne/Schilter

Marzario

O'Brien/Piper

A hat trick by Jamie Lee Rattray and a 5-goal first period were among the highlights for the Golden Knights as they dominated the Engineers in a manner that even the top teams in the country have not historically been able to do. Even in their 8-2 loss to #1 Wisconsin, RPI managed 29 shots compared to just 11 against Clarkson. The 10-0 win for Clarkson is the second largest margin in the program's history, behind an 11-0 victory over Sacred Heart, in the Pioneers' first Division I season.

While Clarkson didn't open the scoring until near the midpoint of the first period, they had racked up a five goal lead by the first intermission, with Juana Baribeau opening the scoring by putting home her own rebound. Rattray notched the next two goals, less than two minutes apart, before Vanessa Gagnon picked up another just over a minute later when she deflected a puck past Kelly O'Brien to make it 4-0.

With Piper sent in to relieve O'Brien, the Engineers took their first penalty of the game, and Clarkson capitalized on the opportunity with Katelyn Ptolemy fired one in from the point for a power play goal and the 5-0 lead.

O'Brien returned to the net for the second period, which saw the Golden Knights notch another two tallies. Danielle Skirrow redirected a slapshot from Jennifer Shields at 8:13 to make it 6-0, and Rattray completed her first career hat trick, carrying the puck to the net and putting it past O'Brien for a 7-0 lead.

Christine Lambert picked up another power play goal early in the third, and the Golden Knights added a shorthanded marker at 10:03 by Baribeau along with one more goal by Brittany Styner at 15:29 to close out the scoring with a 10-goal advantage.

At the final buzzer, the Engineers had been outshot 37-11, and the 10-0 margin was the Engineers' worst defeat since an 11-0 loss at Harvard in October 2006. There was really nothing positive at all to take from this one, rather one can only hope that this was the definitive low point of the season and there is nowhere to go but up.

St. Lawrence

Smelker/Cox/Horton

Mahoney/Harrison/Vandegrift

Sanders/Guillemette/Svoboda

Letuligaseona/Mankey

Castignetti/Vadner

Le Donne/Schilter

Marzario

Piper

While the Engineers put forth a much stronger effort on Saturday than they did the night before, it wasn't enough to stop the offensive output of St. Lawrence, who doubled up RPI in a 6-3 victory despite a 24-24 tally in shots on goal.

The Saints dominated the opening frame much the same as Clarkson had the day before, jumping out to a 3-0 lead behind a 10-3 edge in shots. Rylee Smith scored unassisted on a breakaway at 7:50 for the game's first goal, while Kelly Sabatine and Mel Desrochers added a pair of goals just over two minutes apart in the tail end of the first period to make it 3-0 heading into the locker room.

A SLU penalty just 10 seconds into the second period gave RPI a chance to get on the board, and Andie Le Donne scored the Engineers' first goal on the weekend just 24 seconds later, with a slap shot that beat goalie Carmen MacDonald to cut the Saints' lead to 3-1.

SLU opened that lead back up later in the second period as Sabatine and Michelle Ng notched a pair of goals to make it 5-1. RPI held the edge in shots, 11-6 in the period, but was outscored 2-1 in the period as they couldn't catch a break on the weekend.

RPI tried desperately to get back into the game in the third period, picking up a pair of goals in the first five minutes from Jill Vandegrift and Alisa Harrison, with Vandegrift putting home a rebound and Harrison scoring on a breakaway to cut the Saints' lead to 5-3.

Just 18 seconds after pulling Piper in favor of the extra attacker late in the third, the Saints got an empty netter from Smith to make it 6-3, a score that held up through the final buzzer. The Engineers again outshot the Saints, 10-8 in the third, but the effort was not enough to recover from falling in the hole early.

With the pair of losses on the weekend, the Engineers fall to 4-12-4 on the season, and 1-5-2 in ECAC play, leaving them in 10th place as most of the league breaks for the holidays. All is not lost for the Engineers, who are just a point behind 8th place Colgate and Brown, but play will absolutely need to pick up after the new year to salvage a shot at making the playoffs - a potentially tall order given the Engineers have six games to be played against Cornell, Harvard, and Dartmouth among the remaining league schedule. It's possible nothing will be more important than the four games against Yale, Brown, and Union (twice), which will truly be must-win affairs to be able to push ahead of the rest of the pack in the fight to reach eighth place and secure a playoff spot.

RPI returns to action just over a month from now, with a home series against Colgate and Cornell on January 6th and 7th of the new year. Both games will be at 3pm as the men will also be home facing Dartmouth and Harvard at 7pm each evening.

-----

RPI at Clarkson

ECAC Hockey Game – Cheel Arena (Potsdam, NY)

12/2/11 – 7:00pm

Clarkson 10, RPI 0

BOX SCORES:

USCHO: http://www.uscho.com/box/womens-hockey/2011/12/02/rensselaer-vs-clarkson/

College Hockey Stats: http://collegehockeystats.net/1112/boxes/wclkren1.d02

RECAPS:

RPI: http://www.rpiathletics.com/news/2011/12/2/WICE_1202111241.aspx

Clarkson: http://www.clarksonathletics.com/news/2011/12/2/WHOCK_1202115639.aspx

RECORD: 4-11-4 (1-4-2 ECAC)

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RPI at St. Lawrence

ECAC Hockey Game – Appleton Arena (Canton, NY)

12/3/11 – 4:00pm

SLU 6, RPI 3

BOX SCORES:

USCHO: http://www.uscho.com/box/womens-hockey/2011/12/03/rensselaer-vs-st-lawrence/

College Hockey Stats: http://collegehockeystats.net/1112/boxes/wrenstl1.d03

RECAPS:

RPI: http://www.rpiathletics.com/news/2011/12/3/WICE_1203111443.aspx

SLU: http://www.stlawu.edu/athletics/saints/women%27s+hockey/story/8641

RECORD: 4-12-4 (1-5-2 ECAC)

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ECAC Standings

                GP    Pts     Conf    All
Quinnipiac      10     15     7-2-1   11-7-1
Clarkson        10     13     6-3-1   10-4-4
Cornell          7     12     6-1     10-2
Harvard          8     12     6-2     6-4
St. Lawrence    10     11     5-4-1   8-7-3
Princeton       10     11     5-4-1   6-7-1
Dartmouth        8      9     4-3-1   5-5-1
Colgate          7      5     2-4-1   6-10-1
Brown            8      5     1-4-3   3-5-5
RPI              8      4     1-5-2   4-12-4
Union            8      3     1-6-1   3-13-1
Yale             8      2     1-7     1-14

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Upcoming Games

Jan. 6 - Colgate (3pm)

Jan. 7 - Cornell (3pm)

Jan. 13 - at Dartmouth (7pm)

Jan. 14 - at Harvard (4pm)

Jan. 20 - Yale (7pm)

Jan. 21 - Brown (4pm)

Point of No Return

2011-12-02T10:24:00.000-05:00

Every weekend is a big weekend in the ECAC, it seems, especially for RPI. This weekend, given the current state of the league standings, it's more of a "crossing the Rubicon" moment.

The men are in last place, there's not much that can sugar coat that, but they're playing a couple of teams are are not far away in 10th and 11th place Princeton and Quinnipiac, and a pair of wins would be enough to give them six points in seven games - the same tally as 7th place (and idle) Harvard. That's a move from last place to almost .500 and right back into the thick of things despite the horrid start, if they can grow on their offensive output from last week against RIT and actually bury some pucks at even strength.

The women, meanwhile, are finishing up the season series against the North Country in early December, a definite rarity. Right now, the Engineers sit in 10th place, out of a playoff spot, and while road games are always tougher to earn points than home games, they're practically a necessity now after picking up just one point in four ECAC home games to start the season. Two of those games were against Clarkson and St. Lawrence and while they didn't win or tie those games, they didn't exactly play poorly, either. The opportunity is out there to pull back into the hunt.

No special meaning for today's pump-up. Just a great song that'll get the blood pumping as both teams wrap their first semester league schedules.

ECAC Power Rankings: November

2011-11-30T14:28:00.000-05:00

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.

Hockey East Watch: November Update

2011-11-29T16:03:00.000-05:00

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.

Men's Hockey - at RIT (25 Nov)

2011-11-28T15:55:00.000-05:00

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

RPI
USCHO (with pictures)
Troy Record
Albany Times Union
Rochester Democrat and Chronicle

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)

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

2011-11-27T20:25:00.002-05:00

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:

USCHO: http://www.uscho.com/box/womens-hockey/2011/11/25/syracuse-vs-rensselaer/

College Hockey Stats: http://collegehockeystats.net/1112/boxes/wrensyr1.n25

RECAPS:

RPI: http://www.rpiathletics.com/news/2011/11/25/WICE_1125114239.aspx

Syracuse: http://suathletics.syr.edu/news/2011/11/25/WICE_1125113214.aspx

Video Highlights (no audio): http://www.youtube.com/rpiathletics#p/u/1/Ob9SCNIqQ3E

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:

USCHO: http://www.uscho.com/box/womens-hockey/2011/11/26/syracuse-vs-rensselaer/

College Hockey Stats: http://collegehockeystats.net/1112/boxes/wrensyr1.n26

RECAPS:

RPI: http://www.rpiathletics.com/news/2011/11/26/WICE_1126112306.aspx

Syracuse: http://suathletics.syr.edu/news/2011/11/26/WICE_1126112536.aspx

Video Highlights (no audio): http://www.youtube.com/rpiathletics#p/u/0/0wE6pm6zwVQ

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)

Stop the Bleeding

2011-11-25T09:21:00.000-05:00

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.

On Empty Nets and Admiral Ackbar

2011-11-23T07:25:00.000-05:00

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.

-------

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.

Today's Podcast: Chris Lerch

2011-11-22T10:23:00.000-05:00

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.

Men's Hockey - Union (15 Nov)

2011-11-21T13:44:00.000-05:00

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

RPI
Troy Record
Albany Times Union
Schenectady Daily Gazette

VIDEO
YouTube (highlights, no audio)
RPI TV (full game)

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)

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

2011-11-20T19:49:00.002-05:00

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:

USCHO: http://www.uscho.com/box/womens-hockey/2011/11/18/wisconsin-vs-rensselaer/

College Hockey Stats: http://collegehockeystats.net/1112/boxes/wrenwis1.n18

RECAPS:

RPI: http://www.collegehockeystats.net/1112/boxes/wrenwis1.n18

Wisconsin: http://www.uwbadgers.com/sports/w-hockey/recaps/111811aaa.html

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:

USCHO: http://www.uscho.com/box/womens-hockey/2011/11/19/wisconsin-vs-rensselaer/

College Hockey Stats: http://collegehockeystats.net/1112/boxes/wrenwis1.n19

RECAPS:

RPI: http://www.rpiathletics.com/news/2011/11/19/WICE_1119114243.aspx

Wisconsin: http://www.uwbadgers.com/sports/w-hockey/recaps/111911aaa.html

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)

To Be the Best...

2011-11-18T11:12:00.000-05:00

...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.

Times That Try Men's Souls

2011-11-17T11:34:00.000-05:00

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.

Early Returns

2011-11-16T10:17:00.000-05:00

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.

No Love Lost

2011-11-15T09:24:00.001-05:00

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).

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

2011-11-14T16:09:00.000-05:00

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)

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

2011-11-13T16:44:00.002-05:00

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.

-----

RPI vs. Brown

ECAC Hockey Game – Meehan Auditorium (Providence, RI)

11/11/11 – 7:00pm

RPI 2, Brown 2 (OT)

BOX SCORES:

USCHO: http://www.uscho.com/box/womens-hockey/2011/11/11/rensselaer-vs-brown/

College Hockey Stats: http://collegehockeystats.net/1112/boxes/wbrnren1.n11

RECAPS:

RPI: http://www.rpiathletics.com/news/2011/11/11/WICE_1111112649.aspx

Brown: http://www.brownbears.com/sports/w-hockey/2011-12/releases/20111111xj6wxf

Video Highlights: http://www.ecachockey.com/women/video/index

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

-----

RPI vs. Yale

ECAC Hockey Game – Ingalls Rink (New Haven, CT)

11/12/11 – 4:00pm

RPI 5, Yale 0

BOX SCORES:

USCHO: http://www.uscho.com/box/womens-hockey/2011/11/12/rensselaer-vs-yale/

College Hockey Stats: http://collegehockeystats.net/1112/boxes/wrenyal1.n12

RECAPS:

RPI: http://www.rpiathletics.com/news/2011/11/12/WICE_1112114338.aspx

Yale: http://www.yalebulldogs.com/sports/w-hockey/2011-12/releases/2011111230zuvd

Video Highlights: http://www.ecachockey.com/women/video/index

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

-----

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)

Game #11: Brown

2011-11-12T15:12:00.000-05:00

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.

<a href="http://www.coveritlive.com/mobile.php/option=com_mobile/task=viewaltcast/altcast_code=6382bbe6df" >Brown Bears at RPI Engineers - 12 November</a>

Game #10: Yale

2011-11-11T16:28:00.000-05:00

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.

<a href="http://www.coveritlive.com/mobile.php/option=com_mobile/task=viewaltcast/altcast_code=e97b91cf41" >Yale Bulldogs at RPI Engineers - 11 November</a>

Fade to Black

2011-11-11T09:25:00.000-05:00

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.

OK, Now Can We Panic?

2011-11-08T07:57:00.000-05:00

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.

Men's Hockey - at Clarkson & St. Lawrence (4/5 Nov)

2011-11-07T15:55:00.000-05:00

I considered simply copying and pasting Gary's recap of the women's games from the last weekend - after all, the opponents are the same, the results were the same, and quite frankly, the team's problems are the same. For the men, this past weekend was thought to be an opportunity to rebound from a difficult early schedule and show the league what it learned from a grueling October, especially with key players returning from the ranks of the injured. Instead, the death spiral continued, as the team played a terrible game in Potsdam on their way to a 4-1 loss to Clarkson, rebounding the next night to play better but without finding the back of the net, dropping 2-0 to a previously winless St. Lawrence.

Clarkson
Tinordi/Rogic/Malchuk

McGowan/O'Grady/Lee

Cullen/Schroeder/Rabbani

Angers-Goulet/Higgs/Haggerty

Bergin/Dolan

Leonard/Bailen

Leboeuf/Koudys

Merriam

The good news coming into the weekend was the return of centers Brock Higgs and Marty O'Grady to a team that was definitely low on healthy men in the middle but which had fought valiantly without them in games against national powers in Notre Dame and Colorado College. It was thought that their injection into the lineup, in addition to nominally weaker opponents than had appeared on the schedule to date in the North Country teams would be just the tonic that ailed the Engineers.

Although the team had a sloppy first period, things appeared to be looking up, both for the team's offensive outlook and the awful power play when freshman Ryan Haggerty scored his first collegiate goal just 16 seconds into RPI's first man advantage of the night. redirecting a blue line blast from Mike Bergin past Paul Karpowich to give RPI a 1-0 lead, their first of the season.

That goal, coming with just under two minutes to play in the first period, would ultimately be the brightest moment of the weekend for RPI. As the clock approached zero in the first, the Engineers visibly stopped playing with intensity, hoping to glide into the locker room with the early edge. Clarkson pounced, making a couple of nice passes out of their zone and burying the puck with 9.8 seconds left on the clock, issuing a dagger of a goal heading into the intermission.

A prolonged opportunity in the RPI zone midway through the second period put Clarkson ahead 2-1, and then things really started to get heated. Mark McGowan laid what appeared to be a clean hit on Clarkson's Mike Garlasco, but the hit came in a bad place as Garlasco hit his head against the stanchion between the Clarkson bench and the Clarkson penalty box, knocking Garlasco out cold. A scuffle ensued, and although the referee's arm hadn't been up before the scuffle, McGowan was assessed a five minute major for charging, though he was not ejected from the game.

Moments later, Clarkson's Kevin Tansey was slapped with a tripping penalty after an intentional knee-to-knee hit on Zach Schroeder, and the game threatened to get out of hand. Making matters worse, after the RPI power play failed to capitalize, a pair of terrible penalties taken by C.J. Lee (an open ice check on Karpowich) and Bryce Merriam (bear hugging a Clarkson player who'd just slashed him) led to a prolonged 5-on-3 opportunity for Clarkson in tandem with the McGowan penalty. The Engineers' penalty kill, as it has done for much of the year, stood strong and kept the Golden Knights off the board.

Another foolish penalty early in the third, this time to Guy Leboeuf for sizing up and then hitting a player who had his back to him the entire time, resulted in Clarkson's third goal of the game, and by that time, the anemic RPI offense didn't really appear close to snapping out of their funk. Clarkson sealed things with an empty netter, the seventh given up by RPI in six games, as they fell to their third straight 4-1 loss.

St. Lawrence
McGowan/O'Grady/Lee

Schroeder/Higgs/Haggerty

Cullen/Rogic/Burgdoerfer

Angers-Goulet/Malchuk/Smith

Rabbani

Bergin/Dolan

Koudys/Bailen

Leonard

Merriam

If there was any team struggling as much as the Engineers, it was certainly St. Lawrence, and the difficulties were similar - a very difficult October schedule. They came into the game with losses in their first five contests, including a 2-0 defeat at the hands of Union the previous night. The game was nothing if not desperate for both teams.

RPI's offensive woes continued on Saturday even if the all-around effort was more visible. Throughout the game, both teams blocked a high number of shots, keeping shot totals low. That didn't necessarily bode well for either side, both of which had been struggling to score, but the home team still broke onto the board seven minutes into the game by utilizing their talented top line that included sophomore Greg Carey and junior Kyle Flanagan. A nice pass by Carey to freshman Patrick Doherty in the slot left Merriam unable to reach the perfectly timed one-timer, putting St. Lawrence up 1-0.

A bad break left RPI in a 2-0 hole that, given the scoring issues, felt like 6-0. George Hughes ripped a shot that C.J. Lee tried to block, but the blocked shot only redirected in a way that Bryce Merriam did not expect, caroming into the net in the first minute of the second period.

RPI's bad penalty streak continued in the second period, as O'Grady, Bergin, Higgs, and Patrick Cullen all took a string of minors in the middle stanza, including the creation of a long 5-on-3 to kill with O'Grady and Bergin's penalties, but once more, the RPI penalty kill was strong. Overall, the penalty kill was 13-for-14 on the weekend - defense is not an issue with this team, by and large.

The Engineers got to be the beneficiary of a situation similar to the one they faced defensively on Friday night when Nick Bailen was trucked by SLU freshman Gunnar Hughes, who was slapped with a five for contact to the head and was ejected. Hughes' brother George picked up a slashing call moments later, and RPI had a long 5-on-3 power play. Unfortunately, they never truly came close to being able to score on the two man advantage, which fell by the wayside giving the Saints a boost.

Ryan Haggerty, it should be noted, played with an awful lot of heart. From day one, he's been out on the ice looking for opportunities to score, and late in the game his eagerness ended up costing him a minor for shooting the puck after the whistle and a misconduct. Flying toward the zone, he tried to pick up a pass in the air and exploit open ice on the left side of the goaltender, but the play was whistled offsides. He either didn't hear the whistle or was determined to give it a go anyway.

The Engineers fought hard for a goal with Merriam out of the net, but they could not put anything together in the game's final minutes. St. Lawrence did not score on the empty net, but won 2-0 regardless.

Other junk - Union and Yale swapped places in the USCHO.com poll this week. #9 Union (swept Clarkson and SLU, up four) and #13 Yale (lost to Cornell and beat Colgate, down four) are still the top two ranked teams in the league, but they are joined in the rankings this week by #17 Dartmouth (swept Quinnipiac and Princeton, previously unranked), #18 Colgate (beat Brown and lost to Yale, no change) and #19 Quinnipiac (lost to Dartmouth, tied Harvard, no change). Also ranked this week, #3 Colorado College (split with Nebraska-Omaha, down one), #7 Notre Dame (tied Northern Michigan twice, down one), and #8 Ferris State (swept Bowling Green, up two). Also receiving votes this week were Clarkson (53), Cornell (6), UMass-Lowell (4) and Minnesota State (4).

RPI couldn't have asked for a worse start to the ECAC season. Literally every other team in the league got at least one point out of the opening weekend, leaving the Engineers in last place by themselves. With one goal, RPI starts out at the bottom of the barrel offensively, trailing St. Lawrence who had only two goals on the weekend, both, of course, against RPI.

The 1-8-0 start is the worst in program history. The seven game losing streak is the longest since the infamous 10-game stretch in 2007-08 that was, incidentally, broken with a victory over St. Lawrence in Canton.

The penalty kill is 46-for-52, good enough for a tie with #1 Minnesota in 12th nationally at 88.5%. The power play, however, is now an awful 3-for-50, a 6.0% conversion rate that is better than only five other teams. That's worse than the famously epic 17-for-195 (8.7%) that the 2008-09 season produced, a final tally that left RPI next-to-last in the nation on the man advantage.

But most telling, in nine games, RPI has scored nine goals - and four of them were in their only victory of the season, meaning they've scored five goals in their eight losses. They've been shut out four times. It's not hard to see what the real issue is.

The path ahead certainly doesn't look much easier for the Engineers with Yale and Union coming to town, but nothing will matter until they start scoring goals, and at this point it obviously isn't a function of the teams they've been playing.

ECAC Standings

1. Union - 4 pts (2-0-0, +4 GD)

2. Dartmouth - 4 pts (2-0-0, +3 GD)

3. Quinnipiac - 3 pts (1-1-1)

4. Cornell - 2 pts (1-1-0, +3 GD)

5. Clarkson - 2 pts (1-1-0, +1 GD)

6. Colgate - 2 pts (1-1-0, even GD, 5 GF)

7. St. Lawrence - 2 pts (1-1-0, even GD, 2 GF)

8. Brown - 2 pts (1-1-0, -1 GD)

9. Yale - 2 pts (1-1-0, -2 GD)

10. Princeton - 2 pts (1-2-0)

11. Harvard - 1 pt (0-1-1)