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Tuesday, December 15, 2009

RPI Proves Me Deliciously Wrong

RPI, BIG win over BU last weekend. Tremendous! Way to break the non-conference slide!

A 5-3 come from behind win with RPI winning the third period (outscoring BU 3-0 despite being outshot 11-10) is a thing of beauty and something to build on as RPI heads into its Winter break before starting up again before NYE.

AAG, Tyler and Polacek all got points on the night and RPI got Merriman a win.

RPI continues with tough non-conference opponents after the break playing Michigan and probably MTU in the finale. Best of luck to the boys and happy holidays until we resume again!

Friday, December 11, 2009

Non-=Conference Fun

Oh SA, coach of the RPI Skating Engineers. Your coiffed hair, not a strand out of place. You and your hair have inspired, befuddled and third period(ed) your way around RPI fans now for several years. The team has looked good, bad, mediocre and possibly uplifting?

But one thing it has always looked to opposing non-conference teams is "easy pickings".

This year, in non-conference games (not including Union), RPI is 3-4-1 and has been outscored 23-20. Not bad right? Let's look back further. In 08-09 they were a stunning 1-10 against NC opponents (not including Union) and outscored 45 to 15! 07-08 was not much better. 3-6-1 (not counting Union/Colgate non-conference) being outscored 24 to 21.

Clearly, RPI has to get better in the ECAC first before addressing how good it is compared to the rest of the county but these statistics do not point to a good trend.

All of this is my way of saying that I expect the trend to continue tonight against BU. They have owned RPI in the past, are in a major hockey conference and I expect badness. Still, that is why they play the games.

4-1 BU over RPI.


As always, USCHO's prediction:

Rensselaer @ Boston University
Neither team is showing much these days. BU is coming off a dismal loss to archrival BC, but hey, so is RPI against Union. Honestly, I think that if the Engineers can show the same kind of jump that they did on Wednesday on the road Friday, they will take the Terriers quite by surprise. Optimistically, 4-3 RPI.

Monday, December 07, 2009

Ouch

Well that weekend kinda brought us down to Earth eh? So, is RPI a middle of the pack ECAC team? One might think so. 7-4 loss on aggregate to the C schools does not inspire one with confidence.

Also, York's GAA must have taken a real nose dive this weekend. Against Colgate, 2 goals on 16 shots in the first, 1 goal on 6 shots in the second and 2 goals on 6 shots in the third. This team seems to be more talented then the ones fielded over the last few years but they do not have the offense yet to overcome bad goaltending performances. I remain happy over the direction of the team this year but results like this last weekend's certainly give you pause.

Tuesday, December 01, 2009

HFH

Well it was great to get back to Upstate and to Troy to see the lads donning the Cherry and White to play. I have to say, I was impressed by the team speed and the passing. They could certainly skate circles around Bentley. Also a big positive was Tyler back into the lineup. He was a noticeable addition with his crisp passing.

I was less than impressed at the Union outing. Down 3-0, the lads rallied back hard in the third period but what happened in period 2? You are down by 3 and you manage 9 shots (1 for a goal)? Maybe it was due to the back to back nature of the games but Union is RPI's (in my mind) hated enemy, how do you not get up for that game?

The positive is that they did score 4 goals in a losing effort. Too many times over the last few years were we treated to a scoring deficit win or lose. At least when they lose, they go all in scoring wise.

Much turkey was eaten, much RPI was watched, who could ask for a better weekend?