WEEKEND RECAP: RPI Hockey lose two against ECAC opponents
TROY >> The RPI Men’s Hockey team dropped two games on the road this weekend to two ECAC, nationally ranked opponents.
Friday night, Quinnipiac handed RPI a 3-0 loss, which was followed by a 4-1 loss to Princeton Saturday night in New Jersey. RPI is now 3-3 in the ECAC and 3-6 overall.
The youthful inexperience reared its head against two ECAC programs that currently sit atop NCAA Div. 1 Hockey.
“They made us look young tonight,” said RPI Head Coach Dave Smith following Friday night’s’ loss to Quinnipiac. “That’s a lesson that if we want to be where we think we can be, we need to come out and not get pushed around to start the game and throughout the game.”
Let’s take a closer look at the weekend and see what happened.
Shots, Shots, Shots … Not for Everybody
RPI shooting chances were
limited this weekend. The Engineer’s shot total on the weekend was just 32 over the two games.
RPI generated 12 shots against Quinnipiac and 20 against Princeton. 12 shots against Quinnipiac overtakes the 15 shot performance against Union on October 26 as the lowest shooting numbers this season.
Though, RPI did win that Union game 5-3.
A lot of RPI shots are generated right outside the crease from rebounds off of point shots, but RPI struggled to even get those point shots off Friday night.
“We were just too slow,” said Smith. “We didn’t shoot when we had the chance and we were looking for a better play. If you take that long to take a shot and make a play, it’s going to be blocked.”
Physical Play
RPI has began to embody a certain tough, hard nose, chippy brand of hockey lately, which comes with the territory of being one of those teams that wants to score goals off of buzzing around the net and pestering the goalie in close.
“I think that’s how we have to play,” said Tommy Grant back in October following RPI’s loss to UConn. “I think we have to have an edge to our game. We’ve got a skilled team but I think it helps us get going when guys are hard on pucks and maybe starting stuff with the guys, finishing checks, and playing with that edge.”
That edge was missing Friday, and it may have had something to do with the speediness of the Quinnipiac team. Simply, you can’t hit what you can’t catch.
“We had to win body battles away from the puck that we didn’t win tonight,” said Smith. “We didn’t get to the top of the crease and we didn’t create time and space for ourselves.”
Corner battles for loose pucks and the battles out in front of the net went predominantly to Quinnipiac.
Guys like Brady Wiffen and Billy Jerry, both big centers who muck it up in front of opposing goaltenders for screens and position battles, were just not affective Friday.
Mashall...Linden Marshall
Goaltender Linden Marshall had a pretty great game Friday night. Several odd man rushes and breakaways could have easily made the game five or six goal differential, but Marshall gave the Engineer’s a fighting chance.
Marshall made 35 saves in the loss.
Turn to Saturday
A three goal first period for Princeton led to freshman Owen Savory leading the Engineer’s out of the tunnel to start the second period to relieve Marshall.
Marshall made 20 saves on 23 shots in the first period, Savory made 19 saves on 20 shots in the final two periods.
Marshall now has a 3.65 goals against average with an .895 save percentage.
Savory played the third period in game one of the regular season against UMass this season when the Engineer’s lost 6-1. Savory allowed one goal in that period. That is the limit of Savory’s college hockey experience up to that change.
After the three goal first period for Princeton, the Tiger’s and Engineer’s played to a 1-1 draw in periods two and three.
Smith has said before that the net is always open. I don’t think Smith is the type of coach who will make a change to “shake things up.” I think he will always play the best goalie from that week’s set of practices. He has also said it is easy to put a goalie under the microscope when teams are losing games 2-1 and 1-0 and the goalie is asked to play near perfection.
Marshall being pulled won’t have any effect on future games. If Marshall is the best goalie this next week of practice, he will start against UMass-Lowell. If Savory is the best goalie, he will be in net. Boring take, I know. *** RPI gets a quick break before returning to action with a home and home series with UMass-Lowell; first in Lowell on November 23 and then back to Troy for November 25.