Engineers ready for big weekend
RPI to skate against Harvard, Dartmouth
TROY>> Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute has its season on the line this weekend.
Tonight, the Engineers play against a team they rarely score against, let alone beat, in No. 9 Harvard, and on Saturday, RPI gets another team with whom they are tied for the crucial fourth-place spot, Dartmouth.
The 18th-ranked Engineers, 14-10- 6 overall, are winless in three games since their wild 4-3 comeback victory at Brown three weeks ago, and were shut out in two of those losses and blew a 2-0, third-period lead in the other.
Speaking of shutouts, speaking of a hard time scoring, games against Harvard jump right off RPI’s yearly ledger.
Since Jason Kasdorf and the Engineers blanked visiting Harvard 3- 0 on Feb. 1, 2013 — current senior Mark Miller scored two goals — RPI is 0- 4-2 against the Crimson. Three of the four losses were by shutout and the teams played to a 0- 0 tie at Houston Field House earlier this season, one week after Merrick Madsen blanked the Engineers in Notre Dame’s Shillelagh Tournament championship game. It hasn’t mattered if the Crimson goalie was Raphael Girard, Steve Michalak or (now) the freshman Madsen, RPI has had a tough time finding the Harvard net.
Rensselaer enters the weekend with a 6- 4- 6 ECAC Hockey record for 18 points, good for a fourth-place tie with both Dartmouth (9-7- 0) and St. Lawrence (8- 6-2). The top four finishers in the league earn a bye in the preliminary round of the playoffs.
Harvard (9- 4-3, 13-7-3) sits in a second-place tie with Yale (9- 4-3).
While the third period has been a problem for the Engineers all season — they’ve been outscored 38-21 in that stanza — the third period was their best in the scoreless tie. They just couldn’t score one goal to win the game.
Rensselaer coach Seth Appert and the Engineers haven’t discussed that game while preparing for the tough Crimson this week. “Not once,” Appert said. It was mentioned the Engineers handled All- ECAC left winger Jimmy Vesey and right winger Kyle Criscuolo in that game, though it should be mentioned their usual center, Alexander Kerfoot, missed that game.
“For sure, Jimmy Vesey is one of the best players, if not the best, in the country,” Appert said. “But they have a lot of good players and I don’t think you can get too consumed with Jimmy Vesey and then they have a lot of other good players who can beat you. Are we
aware of Jimmy Vesey — absolutely. He’s a fantastic player and could be the Hobey Baker (Award) winner this year.”
“And we also don’t want to be too concerned with just trying to be defensive,” Appert continued. “We’re the best defensively when we’re on the attack. The best defense you can have is to play in the other team’s end. I think that’s something we didn’t do a good enough job in the third period both nights ( last weekend), especially late in the games. That’s something we did better earlier in the games.”
Puck protection and possession are always important but since RPI has not been strong in those areas lately, both will be even more important tonight and Saturday night.
“Well, we have been playing too much time in our ‘ D’ zone,” said j unior forward Jake Wood.
“The more you have the puck, the more you’re apt to score,” sophomore right winger Lou Nanne said.
The Engineers won’t be consumed either by their scoring frustrations against Harvard, or the more recent lack of production, and will draw confidence from the scoreless tie in which the Engineers nearly scored several times during the third and overtime periods.
“Yeah, they’re a great team,” defenseman and captain Chris Bradley said.
“They’ve got a great group of forwards and ‘ D’ corps, they’re very talented. At Notre Dame, they kicked us around a bit, so we made it a point the following weekend (when Harvard was at Houston Field House) to take care of business the way it should have been handled.
“We’ve been working a lot on ‘ D’ zone coverage and backchecking this week,” Bradley said.
“We’re going to take a lot of pride in those areas and clean it up and hopefully have a successful weekend.”
“We just have to play our game (for 60 minutes),” said Apper t , who spoke of last weekend’s 3- 0 loss to St. Lawrence, which was scoreless nearly 15 minutes into the third period, and 4-2 defeat to Clarkson, in which RPI led 2- 0 eight minutes into the third.
“We did a good job ( last) weekend of giving ourselves a chance to win, put ourselves in good position. ( Then) in the last 10 minutes we got away from what we’re really good at and what made us win a lot of games like that all year. This week’s (at practice) just been a reminder of how good we are and what we do well when we’re at our best.
“We’re better on the attack,” Appert said.
“We’re better when we’re playing a smothering, fast, aggressive style, forechecking, backchecking, ( defensive) zone. We don’t want to sit back and be a passive team.”