PERRY MAKES A STAND
By Sam Blum TROY, N.Y. » Stopping 56 shots in a season-opening draw on Friday night was enough to get Chase Perry the ECAC goaltender of the week award. But even the mammoth number of saves didn’t top his personal best.
In high school, Perry once stopped 60 shots. And like Friday’s 1-1 tie with Ohio State, that game too didn’t produce a winner.
“Those are always fun ones as a goalie, seeing a lot of rubber,” Perry said. “A lot of those shots were perimeter shots. I’m able to see a lot of them, get my eyes on it. We didn’t win any of them. But we didn’t lose, I guess. Tieing, I always say, is kind of like kissing your sister.”
The weeks leading up to the season, head coach Dave Smith spoke of an open competition between Perry and freshman Linden Marshall. But Perry’s performance in two games against Ohio State seemed to solidify his stranglehold on the role, at least for the time being.
The Engineers travel to Buffalo for a game against Niagara on Friday night. Then head east to play RIT on Saturday in Rochester. Before the season started, Smith said he didn’t know the ceiling for his team — if they’d be able to compete at the top of the ECAC. Splitting two games on the road to a highly-rated program gave him and his team some confidence. And a lot of that had to do with seeing Perry’s ability in a live-game situation.
“Still undefeated,” Smith said with a laugh. “Most important thing is we got better. We got a lot better. Played to win. Played aggressive. ... I thought Chase played great. He was quiet in the net and made saves and used his big body to take away the angles and control his rebounds.”
Smith thought his defense was still fairly good, despite the high shot totals for the Buckeyes. The staff measures all the shots postgame to determine how many ‘Grade A’ scoring chances an opponent actually took. He thought Ohio State came in with a “throw everything at the net mentality”, and that was what resulted in the high tally for OSU.
The Engineers feel like, to an extent, they proved their capability in that weekend series. In two games at home last season against OSU, RPI was outscored 7-2 in two losses. And that was with a team that arguably has more established talent than what’s on the ice right now.
“I’m not surprised that we ended up playing them well and almost got a couple of victories,” Perry said. “We’ve got a very good team here, too. So, yeah, I wasn’t surprised at all.”
The next two opponents are ones that Smith will be fairly familiar with. They are both opponents that he typically faced off against while coaching at Canisius. The Purple Eagles do, though, have a new coaching staff. It’s been somewhat of a tour for Smith. His first weekend series was at his alma mater, Ohio State. Now he returns to the city where he coached the past 12 years. All while trying to build a new culture at RPI that showed its first signs of life last weekend.
“It was good to see in competition. You got to see Chase play quiet and confident in the net. You got to see Jared Wilson and (Mike) Prapavessis log a lot of minutes. Will Riley played strong against another team. We’ve gone from theoretical hockey to actual hockey and it feels great to have those experiences.”