RPI Hockey splits weekend with loss to Clarkson and win over St. Lawrence
TROY >> The RPI Men’s Hockey team split the weekend starting with a 6-0 loss to Clarkson before scrapping together a late win over St. Lawrence, 3-2.
Now 3-1 in ECAC competition and 3-4 overall, the Engineer’s sit atop the ECAC rankings, followed by Union and Cornell.
Let’s take a deeper look into the weekend, and more specifically, that special teams unit we love so much.
Little to be Seen from the Kill
After praising the penalty kill last weekend, the Engineer’s had a change of heart and didn’t rack up nearly the same amount of penalty minutes. RPI tallied just two minutes Saturday night on the man disadvantage and just six Friday night against Clarkson.
The penalty kill unit killed off the lone St. Lawrence advantage Saturday and allowed one goal Friday on Clarkson’s three chances.
The unit has allowed just five goals over 31 chances so far this season, have a penalty kill percentage of 80.6 percent, putting them in the
middle of the pack in NCAA DI penalty kill rankings.
“Powerplay goes plus one and the penalty kill shuts them out and again that’s the difference in the game,” said Head Coach Dave Smith following the win Saturday. “The refs did a really good job of letting both teams play.”
Power to the Play
The game winner for RPI Saturday was off of Jacob Hayhurst’s stick on the powerplay. That was Hayhurst’s first goal of the year surprisingly, and Smith noted the progress he thought the powerplay made.
“We talked about that in our pregame scrum during the week. I like where we are, we practice the right things, but we didn’t do it Friday night,” said Smith. “We saw more of that tonight on the powerplay tonight. What we scored on is something we’ve been practicing. It looks like a simple hockey play but those guys have gone through those reps and done it.”
The RPI power play unit is now four for 27, working with 14.8 percent success rate, which sits on the lower end of NCAA DI rankings.
Fresh Faces
Several freshman saw the ice this weekend. Patrick Polino needed to sit out Friday night due to a penalty last weekend that forced him to leave the game, and both Jaren Burke and Will Reilly were sidelined over the weekend.
Freshmen Kyle Hallbauer, Nick Bowman, Danny DiGrande were all in the lineup against St. Lawrence Saturday. All have dressed this season so none made a debut, but did small things on the ice that made them stand out in one way or another.
“We won that game with three freshman defense,” said Smith. “Will Reilly logs the most minutes of anybody on our team and not having him in there and finding a way to win and the amount of injuries we have right now that’s a big time character win.”
“I saw Kyle Hallbauer, who I don’t think you guys have seen enough of, try to show unbelievable feet, hands, and a shot. He’s got talent and looked very comfortable in I think his third game, but we play who is playing well and we rotate guys through and they took their turn playing well.”
RPI freshman Tommy Lee, Ottoville Leppänen, Ture Linden, Jake Johnson, Brady Ferner, and Jakub Lacka have all been mentioned at one point or another, rounding out a ten man freshman class including goalie Owen Savory.
Ain’t No Mountain High Enough
Yes, the ECAC ranking is exciting for the Engineer’s and yes, the sweep of Union last weekend is the reason for that spot, but, it is time to move on.
RPI and Union are the only teams in the ECAC with four conference games played so far in conference, and that’s because half of them were played against each other.
All ECAC team have played at least two games, most have played three, and only two have played four games.
It is still way too early to count chickens before they hatch. Would continued success against ECAC teams be exciting? Absolutely. But a team rebuilding, like Coach Smith has noted time and time again, is going to take the smaller victories in stride and pride themselves on progression week to week, day to day, and shift to shift, regardless of what standings say.
The sweep over Union gave RPI attention across college hockey. It was exciting, but, did it put a target on the team’s back?
“I think we know what we are, we know what we have, so we are going to go out and compete no matter what,” said Forward Jake Marello. “I think teams will respect us a little bit after a sweep and we are just going to get up and compete like we do.”
Good Moe’s Hunting
I write this with great sorrow. The “Moe’s Minute” counter is now zero for six.
But, Donovan Ott was just a second too late Saturday night from scoring before the buzzer ending the second period.
We are getting there boys, it’s so close I can taste my one free taco.