Aaaaaaand Back!

Hello everyone- with RPI's season about to get underway, I figured the blog should get back to business as well. Sure there were things that happened in the offseason in terms of recruits and all of that but with the warm weather, I guess I wasn't in the hockey blogging mood.

I am also going to do a better job in providing RPI hockey links on the side of the board and more photos of the guys as culled from the web this year.

Season Overview:
I think this year will be a real turning point year for RPI. Last year was a disaster of sorts as SA had the boys ready to play for 2 periods but then had some epic collapses in the third periods. I think the losses in the early going to tough teams kindof deflated the confidence a bit and the Cherry and White had a so-so ECAC run. This season, things are different, other than the Catamounts as the first game in Quebec this weekend (please tell me your experiences in the comments!) RPI has a pretty ho-hum schedule until January when they play BU and Denver. Hopefully they will have some confidence built up by then and can really turn it on in the second half.

The team will look to Mathias Lange again this year to help shepard them through the schedule. I never agreed with splitting the goalies and York being a freshman, hopefully they will be able to ride Lange the whole year. Consistency is the watch word with this team and that also applies to the defense.

RPI has a lot of sophomores and juniors on the blue line this year and hopefully they are now fully on board with the system and will help out Lange as much as possible.

Tyler Helfrich (your my boy Blue!) and Halpern are going to be looking to anchor an impossibly young starting lineup. I really have no idea what to expect from the variety of underclassmen on the wings this year. Appert was known as THE recruiter for that Denver program and his recruiting classes have been in the top 15. You hope that you can see the hype being justified with all of these freshmen running around.

Predictions:
The goal this year is to get home ice for the ECAC playoffs and try to ride that to Albany. Then, with momentum, hopefully taking the crown and getting into the NCAA's. Honestly, I think this team is a year away from the NCAA's but I remain hopefull.

Win the Governor's Cup (Against Union then Colgate)
Win Black Friday (Against Harvard)
Lose the Holiday Tourney (Lose to Mercyhurst but beat Princeton)
Lose the Denver Tourney (Lose to BU but beat CHC)
Win the Big Red Freakout (Against Yale)
And Beat Frickin St Lawrence on Senior Night.

Go Red!!!!