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Friday, December 02, 2011

Connecticut Swing

I used to live in Jersey (ssshhh, don't tell anyone) and always anticipated the RPI swing through to Princeton and then up to the Q. Now living on the West Coast it is all the same to me as I follow RPI by Internet and by box score.

Not just for selfish reasons but I also enjoyed the swing because RPI traditionally has played well against Princeton and has taken their fair share of games from the Q during the SA era. This year will be a bit different as RPI has been "struggling" while P and Q have been bouncing along. Still, I think there is a gleam in RPI's eye after the last two weekends. Perhaps this team is finally rounding into form.

While the start of the season was certainly disastrous, most of those games were NC games and if RPI can put together a little run with in the ECAC, then be in decent position for the playoffs. I have nothing to base this on, no statistics, no W-L arcs but I think the lads in Cherry and White will split this weekend and get them back into all things ECAC.

As always, here is USCHO's take:

Rensselaer at Princeton
A last place finish entering December wasn't the way RPI was looking to start after making the NCAA tournament last year.   Princeton hasn't been much better, but I'll take the home team here. The Tigers are led by a junior class that has accounted for 14 of their 22 goals.
Princeton 3, RPI 2

Rensselaer at Quinnipiac
I'll be stringing this game for the Albany Times Union.  So in the spirit of Monday Night Football, should I abstain from making a pick? Nah, I'll go for it. This is definitely an important  game for two teams that I'm sure have no desire to remain near the bottom of the conference. The big difference? Quinnipiac is 8-6-2 overall, while the Engineers are just 3-10.
I'm going to give a slight edge to the host Bobcats, although I wouldn't be surprised to see it go either way.
Quinnipiac 3, RPI 1

2 comments:

Mike T. said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Mike T. said...

I was at the QU game and it was super disappointing to walk out of arena having lost with 2 seconds left.