RPI stays in the hunt for tournament bye, shuts out Quinnipiac 4-0
TROY, NY » The Houston Field House was rocking Friday night when the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Engineers hosted No. 14 Quinnipiac in the first of its two game homestand weekend. The last of the 2019-2020 regular season.
With the nationally ranked Bobcats in town and two crucial ECAC points on the line, the barn was buzzing with playoff atmosphere.
“Every point from here on out is really important down the stretch here,” said Senior Todd Burgess following the win. “We are playing it real tight, real simple, and I think we did our job tonight.”
RPI powered past Quinnipiac with a 4- 0 win on the back of an impressive 37 save shut out performance from goaltender Owen Savory. Savory’s effort earned him his fourth shut out of the season en route to player of the game honors.
“I think [Savory’s] been kicking it real well recently,” said Senior Captain Will Reilly on the team’s fourth shut out of the season. “It’s a lot of team defense and I think we have done a good job of keeping them to the outside and playing defense in all three zones. Hopefully we can keep that going.”
The shut out was the first time ever RPI has ever shut out Quinnipiac.
Reilly’s effort was not just on the back end, but on offense as well. Reilly scored the first RPI goal of the night 16:30 into the first period on the powerplay. Reilly got the shot at the top of the right circle and walked it toward the center, rifling a shot under Quinnipiac goalie Keith Petruzelli’s arm. The puck caught Petruzelli, but trickled into the back of the net anyway.
“I thought we good movement to start the powerplay to generate looks there,” said Reilly. “I thought Shane [ Bear] and Chase [Zieky] had good movement and then Chase slipped it to me. I figured the guy would go on one knee so I pump faked around him and there was a good screen by Polino in front so it was pretty easy to find a hole there.”
Despite Reilly’s goal coming so late into the first period, RPI chances piled up early in the first period. Those chances were something Head Coach Dave
Smith and the Engineers emphasized coming into this important ECAC weekend.
“It’s a 60 minute game. You want to be on top of your game for all 60 minutes,” said Smith. “You don’t want to dip your toe in the water and see what type of game it is going to be. We know how good Quinnipiac is. We know what we are capable of. I thought we came out and were ready to play from the first puck drop.”
In the second, Savory’s excellence shined through, along with the rest of the penalty kill, when RPI found themselves in the box on three separate occasions, forcing them to play a man down and back on their heels.
“Coach Mozier is spending a lot of time on the penalty kill. Tonight was a special teams victory,” said Smith. “The second period the kills were massive for the kill portion of it, but the ability to wrestle the momentumback was really important. The next shift after a penalty kill, it’s so important to get the puck down in deep and we went back to work, but then we take another penalty, so it’s hard to kickstart that engine again.”
Special teams continued to find success when Burgess scored his goal with seven minutes left in the game on the power play. Burgess took a feed from Reilly on the opposite side of the offensive zone and Petruzelli was unable to recover across, giving Burgess a gaping net for the second RPI goal of the night.
“Our power play did great tonight,” said Burgess. “Starting from the draws we did all the little things right and I think we were moving the puck well and creating good separation so that was big tonight for us.”
Jake Marello scored minutes later on an early empty net chance that Quinnipiac was hoping to use to generate some momentum back. Marello corralled the bouncing puck and sent it into the wide open net to help extend the lead. Tristin Ashbrook scored with less than a minute left to give the Engineers a four goal lead.
The win alongside a Colgate loss at Brown puts RPI in sole possession of fifth place in the ECAC standings with 22 conference points. In fourth is Quinnipiac with 24. With Princeton, Harvard, and Dartmouth still remaining on the schedule, RPI has the potential to continue to rise through the ECAC standings and earn a bye in the first round of the ECAC tournament (the top four times skip the first round and go right to hosting a quarterfinal matchup).
If the season were to end tonight, the fifth place RPI would host the last place St.Lawrence at the Houston Field House in the first weekend of March.
“I think at this time of the year, especially with how close the standings are, every game is playoff mentality,” said Will Reilly on the playoff atmosphere already at the Houston Field House. “I know for us we are trying to win every game, we are trying to get as many points as we can, and I think we did a good job of that tonight.”