Here we are on the verge of another ECAC weekend, and I haven’t posted anything about last weekend’s triumphs for RPI. And here we are on the verge of Senior Night and the last home games of the regular season, and I still don’t know what to think or what to expect from these Engineers. They are either huge overachievers or huge underachievers, and I still can’t figure out which!
Last weekend was probably the strongest and most consistent pair of games I’ve seen them play this year. In my opinion they played Harvard pretty evenly all night long and outright dominated Dartmouth. The defense was strong and committed and the offense, while not stellar, was considerably improved. Scoring chances were definitely up both nights and even if most of them didn’t yield points, there’s something to be said for the old adage that the best defense is a strong offense. The more time you spend in the attacking zone, the less opportunities your opponent has to score.
The guys were quite happy with their weekend, especially coming off the disappointing Freakout performance the previous Saturday. The tie at Harvard was a good one because it was created by Brock Higgs’s extra-attacker goal with just over a minute to play. And in the win at Dartmouth, RPI withstood similar late-game extra-attacker pressure from the Big Green to keep their 2-1 lead and get the win.
It should be noted that the Engineers still haven’t found a way to get over that 2-goal scoring hump. Even in their two best weekends – the sweep at Yale and Brown and this most recent 3-point weekend – they never scored more than two goals. (The third goal at Brown was an empty-netter, so not a real indicator.) Luckily Bryce Merriam has continued his stellar play, discounting that same off-game in the Freakout that much of the team shared, and has made two goals enough in quite a few games.
So here we are on the brink of another – can you guess? – big weekend for the Engineers. They have once again managed to be tied with one of the teams they’re facing, though Princeton is their Saturday night matchup so that may change before game time. As it stands right now, Yale and Dartmouth are both catchable too, with each two points ahead of RPI. In fact the whole ECAC is tightly bunched this year and we can expect a lot of moving around in the two remaining weekends. Despite my earlier dire predictions, RPI is not totally out of the running for an eighth-place finish and home ice to start the playoffs yet, though having two of the top three teams on their schedule for next weekend isn’t going to help their chances. Still, this is the ECAC and anything can happen. After last weekend, I won’t be so quick to count our boys in cherry and white out until the dust settles and it’s really over. Let’s go, Red – keep moving up!
It’s apparently just going to be a season of two steps forward, one step back for the Engineers.
There’s no way to dress it up – it was a dismal and disappointing Big Red Freakout for the RPI players and their fans. If I had somehow been unsure that the players were just as bummed as we fans were, it would have been made very clear at the Ice House reception after the game by the hangdog expressions on their faces and even the apologies being distributed by some of them along with their hugs.
RPI has lost four of the last five Big Red Freakouts now. If we hoped last year’s thrilling victory over Yale was the beginning of a new BRF unbeaten streak, we were doomed to be disappointed. And if we hoped that Friday night’s exciting comeback from a two-goal deficit to tie Cornell was the beginning of another step forward after the loss to Clarkson last weekend, we were also doomed to be disappointed.
With only six regular-season games remaining, RPI’s chances of climbing into the number eight spot and earning home ice were dealt a severe blow this weekend. My statistician (Nick) tells me that we have now been mathematically eliminated from any chance at first place in the ECAC. Okay, no shock there for sure, but it’s still not fun to be the first team eliminated. Our chances of finishing in 12th place have climbed back to 67%, almost three times that of the next-closest team, Brown, and our chances of finishing in the bottom four are at 99%. And to add insult to injury, Union has virtually cemented a top-four finish (98%) and has a 53% chance of winning the league. Sigh.
If you want lots more facts and figures that put this difficult season into perspective, check out Ed Weaver’s article from the Monday Troy Record. It was only in the print edition – not online – but it’s available through our website now (http://www.rpihockey.net/article.php?id=3213). Here’s a depressing sidenote from the story: according to Weaver, Colgate coach Don Vaughn actually backed off toward the end of the game, sitting his star player and using his fourth line on the power play, to avoid embarrassing RPI even worse than they did. And the article hints that the referees may have been trying to go easy on RPI as well. I’m not sure that sounds like a good thing to me – being thought so pathetic that the opposition – and the refs! – actually take pity on us. Sheesh.
Oh well, ever onward. Next weekend the boys will be on the road to Harvard and Dartmouth and we’ll be following them. Before that, though, I still owe you all some thoughts on the helmet stickers the boys have been accumulating as the season goes on. Stay tuned.
It’s Big Red Freakout weekend! The most exciting weekend of the year at Houston Field House, no matter how the season is going. The BRF wasn’t a sellout last year as it usually is, and according to today’s Record there are still seats available for this year’s edition, but it will certainly be close to a full house tomorrow night and the joint will be jumping for sure.
I’m assuming that the Engineers will continue their recent greatly improved play and that even the mighty Cornell and the surprise first-place contender Colgate will have their hands full this weekend. These two teams and have been battling with Union for the ECAC lead and each has held the number one spot at times this season, so I won’t be so bold as to predict an RPI victory over either, not even in the Freakout. But I’m certainly not ruling it out either. In the Freakout, the crowd is always RPI’s seventh man, providing the boys give us even the littlest hint of something to cheer about. And in the last few games, even last Saturday’s loss to Clarkson, they gave us plenty to cheer about, without question.
So we want NOISE this weekend! There’s an unspoken agreement in play for the BRF: the Engineers promise to give it everything they’ve got and to make it a good game, even going up against these two ECAC powerhouses. If they do that, our side of the bargain is to give it everything we’ve got too and really rock the rink! Let’s go, Red – it’s Freakout time!
(P.S. – At least two posts next week for sure, I promise – one on the games and one about the stickers the Engineers have been adding to their helmets all season long.)
I’ll bet you all thought with the Engineers’ HUGE sweep last weekend that I’d be posting early and often this week, didn’t you? Well, except for those of you who actually know me, that is. Okay, full disclosure time – as much as I love RPI hockey generally and our Engineers particularly, and as much as I enjoy writing about it and them, I am a procrastinator extraordinaire. I truly thought this past Sunday that I would get a blog post up by Monday but, as usual, life intervened.
But you don’t want to do me out of my post-road-weekend-sweep buzz, do you? C’mon, let’s hear some cheering for the boys in cherry and white and their big accomplishments! It was a great effort on all their parts, especially Marty O’Grady who had a goal at Brown and two goals – the only two goals – at Yale, and even more especially Bryce Merriam. Bryce made 36 saves Friday night to shut out Brown, and stopped 45 of 46 for the win at Yale. That’s 81 for 82 on the weekend, for an astounding .988 saves percentage! Amazing.
Do you think maybe the boys did it just to show me up (or shut me up!) for suggesting in my last post that a 12th-place ECAC finish might be inevitable this season? I don’t know whether I should be apologizing abjectly for my gloomy outlook or keeping it up in hopes of pushing them to even better results! Seriously, I am dishing myself up a big portion of crow for that suggestion. That same website I quoted, PlayoffStatus.com, now puts RPI’s chances of finishing in 12th place at 70% as opposed to the 92% they predicted before last weekend. If RPI wins tonight’s game, those chances will drop to 50%. That’s because even though the Engineers are still alone in last place, they have snuck up on St. Lawrence and are trailing them by just two points. And in an interesting and exciting twist of fate, guess who RPI’s opponent is in tonight’s game, their first since their weekend sweep? It’s St. Lawrence of course, with Clarkson waiting in the wings for tomorrow night.
So (and do I ever NOT say this?) it’s another big, big weekend coming up for the Engineers! The biggest question, as it’s been all season, is whether they can find some more offense and if so where will it come from. Truthfully, it was the defense – as played by the whole team – that made the difference last weekend. When it comes to offense, they are still stuck at that two-goal-a-game hump (the third at Brown was an empty-netter) that they can so rarely get over. Unless we’re expecting .988 saves percentages from Bryce and Scott Diebold every weekend, RPI won’t be making any big moves until they solve that problem. It’s wonderful to see so many different players getting on the scoreboard lately, but it also points up the fact that RPI has no go-to-guy, no one who can be counted on for a goal or two or three every weekend. Scoring by committee is fine when it works, but it sure would be nice to have a couple of guys who were in double digits for goals scored by now!
But for the moment, let’s savor the victories from last weekend and cheer for the boys as they try to take that ECAC winning streak to three and grab a share of 11th place. Let’s go, Red!
There’s no other way to look at Saturday’s loss to Union, I’d say. It was not only a loss, but by pretty much everyone’s estimation a poorly played game from the Engineers. And the everyone I’m talking about includes Coach Appert and any of the players who spoke publicly. A quote from Nick Bailen in the Troy Record pretty well sums it up: “Obviously, it’s real bad right now for us … We take a step forward, then we take a step back and this was a huge step back for us.”
I can’t disagree with that, but I’m not sure I buy into the idea that the boys aren’t working hard enough and don’t want it badly enough. Not executing well enough, okay, but they sure as heck look like they’re working their butts off out there to me. And it seems ludicrous to suggest that at this point they don’t want to win badly enough to give pretty much anything to make that happen.
Is anyone beside me finding it hard to believe that we’re not halfway through the ECAC season yet? Somehow RPI’s struggles have made this season seem long already and it seems like they’ve been struggling from behind for a very long time. Yet they won’t reach the midpoint of the ECAC season until after they play Brown Friday night. There is, therefore, a lot of ECAC season left to play and a lot of time for good things to happen. I think even the most loyal RPI fans will have to admit, though, that the good things we can hope for and look for at this point will have to be both modest and modified from our early-season hopes.
Any chance of a first round bye in the ECAC playoffs has pretty much vanished now, as has any realistic hope of a post-season appearance beyond the ECAC. In truth, a middle-four finish and home ice in the first round of playoffs is a long shot at this point. Not impossible, but not very likely either. PlayoffStatus.com, which calculates post-season probabilites for all Division I teams, currently gives RPI’s odds of finishing the ECAC season in 12th place as approximately 92%. Ouch. And yes, as David pointed out in his comment recently, it is embarrassing for long-time RPI fans.
Any grand goals for this season are long shots to be sure at this point. But there are 26 young men working hard and trying to find reasons to keep going out there, to keep hoping, to keep their morale up. My biggest hope for the season now is that those young men begin to accomplish some things they can take pride in – whether it’s a solitary win here and there, more scoring, better special teams play, or just improved play on a personal level for each of them. I don’t want these guys, especially the seniors, to take nothing but disappointing memories away from this season.
I say forget the points, the goals, and the standings now. The players need to just concentrate on being the best players they can, and at this point I just want to support them in that. It may even lead to a surprise or two before the season ends, but at the very least it will lead to us being as proud as ever of our Engineers and, in the long run, of being RPI hockey fans. Let’s go, Red – it’s not over.
The next task up for the boys in cherry and white is figuring out how to best use their modest gains from the past week as they take on a much harder task tonight.
They have a loss, a tie and a win in their last three games, which on the surface is a pretty satisfactory .500 performance. It only takes a slightly closer look to realize that the win was a non-conference one over a dismal American International team and the tie came after giving up a rare (okay, in this season unheard of) early two-goal lead.
But the consensus seems to be (and I agree) that they played well over those three games, better in fact than they have in quite a while. And it’s undeniable that a big part of their problems lately has been lack of confidence, gripping their sticks too tight and just generally letting the slump get to them. As much as they would have liked to take more ECAC points last weekend, playing well and coming up with one point was a positive step. And no matter who it was over, a win is just what they needed.
Talking to them after the AIC game, it was very clear that they too realize that these last games were only a first step, but I could tell they very much saw it as a step in the right direction. They will need to find a lot more in themselves somewhere to beat Union tonight, but they will definitely go into this game feeling better about themselves and believing they can do it.
And hey, it can’t hurt that Union is probably tired (and maybe even a little windburned!) after beating Harvard at Fenway Park in Boston last night and bussing back home immediately afterward. At this point, we’ll take any advantage we can get! Let’s go, Red!
Tonight’s game snuck up too fast on me – I’ve barely digested the weekend games yet!
Most everyone seems to agree that the boys played better this past weekend than they have in quite a while. They even came away with an ECAC point on Saturday from their tie with Harvard. Okay, okay, I know – but this is turning into a season when we have to get excited about the little things.
I actually thought they played better in Friday night’s matchup with Dartmouth than they did against Harvard, though both games were an improvement from other recent efforts. In the Dartmouth game, they even managed to get over that nearly impossible hurdle of scoring more than two goals! And they outshot the Big Green 31-27. That was perhaps the most significant difference between the two nights. Against Harvard, the Engineers only managed a ridiculously puny 13 shots. All the more credit to RPI for getting two of those 13 across the goal line, but still. Four shots on goal in the first period, only one in the second (!) and five in the third period. That would be a dangerous pattern to repeat.
But of course, the Engineers are not going to repeat that performance. They ARE learning and improving, and they are going to demonstrate that tonight against American International. (The power of positive thinking at work here!) And then they will put what they’ve learned into action this coming Saturday at Union. That’s the plan – or at least that’s what I told them the plan is, and they agreed. Let’s go, Red!
As we head into what could be yet another pivotal weekend for the Engineers, I thought some of you might be interested in a webpage I found. The College Hockey News website offers statistics for each NCAA team, similar to College Hockey Stats but with the addition of each player’s +/- rating. RPI’s are pretty bad, but that has to be taken with a grain of salt because when a team is struggling to score goals no one is going to have a good +/-. Still interesting to look at though.
What I really wanted to point out, though, is that on the schedule page for each team, the next few upcoming games have a “Compare” link that gives a fairly detailed comparison of how the team matches up with their opponent. RPI’s schedule is at http://www.collegehockeynews.com/schedules/team.php?td=48.
It looks to me like we match up pretty well with Dartmouth and should have a good shot there, but that Harvard will be tougher. American International doesn’t look like any pushover either, but it’s harder to compare with an Atlantic Hockey team because they haven’t played many tough opponents.
At any rate, here’s hoping RPI can pick up some points this weekend and give themselves an all-important confidence boost heading into the rest of the ECAC season. Let’s go, Red!
Has anyone else noticed that as the losses pile up for our poor Engineers, I’m dragging my feet more and more about getting these posts up? I usually subscribe to the “if you can’t say anything good, don’t say anything at all” philosophy, but that doesn’t work so well if you’re trying to keep a blog going.
It’s not so much that there isn’t anything at all good to say – there are always some positives, at least for us fans in cherry-red colored glasses. The problem is that those positives are pretty much overwhelmed by the negatives right now, especially by the big negatives of the mounting losses and the discouraging records, both conference (1-6-0) and overall (3-15-0). I start to feel a little silly talking about how well I thought this or that individual player did in a game, or how good it is to see this or that guy get on the scoreboard, or get back on the ice after an illness or injury, when the overall picture is so overwhelmingly gloomy.
Those positives are no less real for being overshadowed by the gloom, though. It WAS great to see Brock Higgs finally get a goal in the Army game last week. He was already leading the team in assists – if he can find the back of the net more consistently himself, that could make a big difference in the Engineers’ fortunes for the remainder of the season. It WAS great to see Matt Neal finally get back on the ice after he missed more than two months with an injury, and great to see him score his first career goal in the Army game too. It was great to see Ryan Haggerty back and scoring against UMass-Lowell after he missed three games with his illness. As the team’s leading goal-scorer, even if his total is only four, he was sorely missed. And it was great to see the power play percentage continue to rise as the boys scored three times in 11 power play opportunities.
Only time will tell if any of these positives lead to getting things back on track for RPI. It’s going to take a really good game or two and probably a couple of lucky breaks before any of the guys start to loosen that chokehold they all have on their sticks by now. I know – c’mon, we ALL know – that they are better players than what we’ve seen lately, better players than their record shows. I’m just hoping and praying that something happens to get them turned around and playing like we know they can SOON! Let’s go, Red – we’re still with you.
I know it’s been over a week since the Festivus Face-Off game at Lake Placid, and longer than that since I’ve posted anything. Sorry – holiday preparations intervened. And, sadly, it was another of those games that leaves me scratching my head over what to write anyway.
It started out well – the RPI fans were loud and into it, the teams were playing pretty evenly, and RPI even drew first blood midway through the first period. It brought back memories of some great RPI games in Lake Placid a few years ago.
Early in the second period the score was 2-1 Union, but RPI came back to tie it on Mark McGowan’s first career goal – and a pretty one it was! – but that was about the last bright moment for RPI. Several penalties in quick succession killed their momentum and the tide began to turn Union’s way.
Many of the people I talked to felt the referees did not do RPI any favors in that game, in fact quite the opposite. My family and I did think there were a couple of questionable calls – Mike Bergin’s cross-check and Alex Angers-Goulet’s boarding calll stood out to us – but we also heard fans booing calls that we were certain were justified. And the sad fact is that only one of Union’s five goals was scored on the power play, so there’s no direct connection to be made between the number of penalties called on RPI and the loss. There’s always the more nebulous question of momentum, confidence, and players tired from penalty-killing, of course. But in a recent Troy Record article, Coach Appert himself said that the team is not playing the way they need to play to win, and that the defense in particular came up short in Lake Placid.
The semester break is here. The boys have gone home for a little R&R and when they get back, they’ll have a couple of solid weeks without classes to concentrate on hockey. They say they are ready to turn their season around, and with two non-conference games on the schedule before league play resumes, this is the time to work hard and get any problems straightened out. I’m looking forward to seeing the much-improved 2012 Engineers!
