RPI 2025-2026

Skate79 said:

Oh thanks. Like, we're chopped liver?

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Sorry. Harvard and Dartmouth are both good teams. I made a similar mistake earlier in this thread when I sounded shocked by RPI's loss to Holy Cross....not realizing that HC has a pretty good team this year as well. It just demonstrates that i haven't been following college hockey as closely this year as I have done in the past. Feel free to ignore my posts until I get back into it.

hab said:

Sorry. Harvard and Dartmouth are both good teams. I made a similar mistake earlier in this thread when I sounded shocked by RPI's loss to Holy Cross....not realizing that HC has a pretty good team this year as well. It just demonstrates that i haven't been following college hockey as closely this year as I have done in the past. Feel free to ignore my posts until I get back into it.

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hab, you're no more at fault than we Crimson fans are for thinking that RPI was a pushover.

thirdtime's . . . said:

hab, you're no more at fault than we Crimson fans are for thinking that RPI was a pushover.

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We are not a scoring powerhouse and we have our deficiencies on defense which allows some rather weak goals. But you are correct, we are not a pushover. Mostly because when we lost 2 very physical players (Trnkova and Skoda) their roles on the ice have been ably replaced by others like Keating, Toye, Bailey and several others. We may lose many more games than we win, but there are a large number of ladies who are nursing some bruises as they skate off the ice after playing against us.

hab said:

Sorry. Harvard and Dartmouth are both good teams. I made a similar mistake earlier in this thread when I sounded shocked by RPI's loss to Holy Cross....not realizing that HC has a pretty good team this year as well. It just demonstrates that i haven't been following college hockey as closely this year as I have done in the past. Feel free to ignore my posts until I get back into it.

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You're forgiven. Heck, the ECAC doesn't look like it has a dominant team this year. Outside of Cornell, perhaps?

Skate79 said:

You're forgiven. Heck, the ECAC doesn't look like it has a dominant team this year. Outside of Cornell,

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Sad, but true. The final 4 this year might be all from WCHA!
. But it will be a very unpredictable and competitive battle for ECAC championship. And I do not see Cornell as being dominant.

Frustrating finish today - worked hard to forge a 3-0 lead on the road against a good Brown squad. held the lead late but allowed one goal before Brown pulled the goalie with 4 minutes left and scored twice to tie in regulation. In OT we just showed a complete lack of understanding the concept of 3 on 3 hockey. Virtually never touched the puck for the first 2 minutes and when we did, coach calls for a line change without total control of the puck and gives up the winning goal as we did not complete the change of personnel on the ice. Settling for an OT loss 4-3 when you have a 3-0 lead late in the third is something that simply should not and can not happen.

DrDemento said:

Frustrating finish today - worked hard to forge a 3-0 lead on the road against a good Brown squad. held the lead late but allowed one goal before Brown pulled the goalie with 4 minutes left and scored twice to tie in regulation. In OT we just showed a complete lack of understanding the concept of 3 on 3 hockey. Virtually never touched the puck for the first 2 minutes and when we did, coach calls for a line change without total control of the puck and gives up the winning goal as we did not complete the change of personnel on the ice. Settling for an OT loss 4-3 when you have a 3-0 lead late in the third is something that simply should not and can not happen.

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Agree with you. Where was Kendall Davidson?

But one thing that continues to stand out for me is the support the players have for each other. The Brown TV announcers were very impressed by it and they noted the coach creates that atmosphere.

25+years said:

Agree with you. Where was Kendall Davidson?

But one thing that continues to stand out for me is the support the players have for each other. The Brown TV announcers were very impressed by it and they noted the coach creates that atmosphere.

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Absolutely agree. This team plays, wins or loses together as a team. You can see it with every game. My own feeling however is that the girls create that atmosphere themselves.

DrDemento said:

Absolutely agree. This team plays, wins or loses together as a team. You can see it with every game. My own feeling however is that the girls create that atmosphere themselves.

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Doctor, I always enjoy reading your insightful posts, but I have to respectfully disagree with this. The culture in a locker room is deeply enhanced and developed by the leadership at the top. It filters down and permeates throughout the team. If team's have strong leadership in the locker room, this culture exists and everyone is on the same page supporting each other ... if there is not strong leadership in the locker room, dissension exists and you have a fractured team. This strong team cohesion may result in more wins, however, there are other very important factors which determine wins/losses.

sk8tronthepond said:

Doctor, I always enjoy reading your insightful posts, but I have to respectfully disagree with this. The culture in a locker room is deeply enhanced and developed by the leadership at the top. It filters down and permeates throughout the team. If team's have strong leadership in the locker room, this culture exists and everyone is on the same page supporting each other ... if there is not strong leadership in the locker room, dissension exists and you have a fractured team. This strong team cohesion may result in more wins, however, there are other very important factors which determine wins/losses.

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Cannot find a single thing in this post to disagree with but from what I have seen that leadership from the top for this year and the last few years has been mostly coming from the senior classes. It has to really difficult to have losing records year after year but somehow the girls always try to give an upbeat outlook during interviews and offer encouragement throughout the games and sincere congratulations as they cheer on the others on the team. Having watched every game for many years I wish I could say I seem the same from the coaching staff. If I am missing something I offer my apologies.

Linn Mattsson RW from Djurgårdens IF for 2026.

Interesting that she has played 3 years on what appears to be Djugardens' highest team and contributed little offenseively, but has 5 points in just 2 games on the 19U team. She also had two goals last year in the WJC-18 tournament.

This must be a highlight video for Mattsson (#22 for Sweden, #11 for DIF) judging by the ttile and the first few seconds.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0aT1bZ8TU0

Of course it is in Swedish, and besides that there are a lot of fadeouts.

The competition she faces is not good… she will be just another player in the NCAA

Can Kendal Davidson be the first person to win the mayors cup for both teams?

R.I.P Coach Burke. Just heard about this. My family and I appreciate all the things you did for my youngest daughter.

John Burke coached the Engineers for 14 years: 2 years in D3; one in D1 Independent; and 11 years in ECAC. He led the Engineers to their only three winning seasons as a D1 team: 2005-2006 (independent) and '08-09 and '09-'10 in ECAC.

hab said:

Ouch...that is painful. Just pulled a hamstring trying to jump back on the Engineers bandwagon after a road sweep of Dartmouth and Harvard. OK, it was only Dartmouth and Harvard, but still....this team seems to be developing quite well.

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Engineer fans are too easily satisfied. One good weekend and we think things have turned around. What is it....11 straight losses since this? Most of them have been lopsided losses.

hab said:

Engineer fans are too easily satisfied. One good weekend and we think things have turned around. What is it....11 straight losses since this? Most of them have been lopsided losses.

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Can't say I'm surprised. How many wins do you think they end with this year?

I was at the game on Saturday and I'll start off with the good: overall, which others have stated here before, the team seems to be positive with each other on the bench, they killed off 5 out of 6 penalties and RPI won more faceoffs. And that is about it.

Now for the bad and the ugly: RPI could be a good team with some small adjustments and I don't know for the life of me how the coaches don't see things in video review and make adjustments. Do they even do video breakdown? I found it curious how they seemed to be running some kind of neutral zone trap against a fast, skilled team. Brown skated around them like they were standing still. Because they were. The team's passing across the board is atrocious. Hardly any tape to tape passes, the forward lines seemed like they have no chemistry. Not sure if that's because of whatever system Vines has them running or because the players are just not creative offensively. RPI dumps the puck in more than a 90's men's hockey team, and if they threw it on net a few times instead, they might have more than 15 shots on goal the whole game.

Brown (and probably every other team with a coach worth their weight) seemed to figure out quickly that RPI's only breakout consists of their D rimming it up the boards to the wing, or reversing it for another rim up the boards to the other wing. So what did Brown do? Pinched a defenseman down on the wing so RPI couldn't successfully breakout, or, if the wing somehow caught the pass, they hurriedly threw it into the skates of the center, while the weak side wing is on the far wall in the neutral zone standing still. No wonder the offensive opportunities are so few and far between. They can't even get the puck out of their own zone. Half the time, the RPI D seemed to not even look to see who the puck would be going to. It's just rim it and pray, or off the glass and right to the other team's defensemen in the neutral zone for an easy transition back into the RPI zone. Or it was an icing. For a team that wins a lot of faceoffs, you'd think they'd have more puck possession time but no.

RPI took 6 penalties. While I didn't think all the calls were warranted, that along with terrible passing, says to me that accountability and standards are severely lacking. Practices HAVE to be part of the culprit here as well. What kind of drills are they running? Are they practicing at game speed because I'd be willing to bet the answer is no. They were almost always half a step too slow in making decisions and that starts at practice.

Sorry for the blistering analysis, but really not sure how the team ever improves while Vines is at the helm. Sad to see RPI hockey in such a downward spiral but I guess longtime fans are used to it by now. :-/ Time to send out an SOS.