RPI Hockey 2019 - 2020 Part II: Moving on with 2020 Vision!

[fr. joe]

Re: RPI Hockey 2019 - 2020 Part II: Moving on with 2020 Vision!

Very challenging game coming up on Friday with Quinnipiac. They are a very good team (11-5-2 in conference) who has had our number ever since they joined the ECAC. Have we beaten them maybe twice in the last eight years? We've played them oh so close but have come up short in those finals scores.

I think we can beat them if we play our game and Savory is strong. The team has played well in January and February (North Country sweep, Mayor's Cup, Dartmouth and Colgate)... to come away with points against Quinnipiac, we must truly earn them.

And in our drive for a high seed home ice, points against Quinny is important...

[fr. joe]

Re: RPI Hockey 2019 - 2020 Part II: Moving on with 2020 Vision!

After tonight's action, here's how the ECAC looks:

1 Clarkson 30
2 Cornell 30 (Galajda: has played all but 17 mins this season)
3 Quinnipiac 24 (scored 5 in 3rd to beat SLU)
4 Harvard 23 (tied #7 Yale and #9 Brown this weekend)
5 RPI 19 (tiebreaker over Colgate)
6 Colgate 19 (tiebreaker over Dartmouth)
7 Yale 18 (tiebreaker over Dartmouth and RPI)
8 Dartmouth 18
9 Brown 14 (playing #2, #3 and #6 next two weeks)
10 Union 11 (playing hard but losing tight games)
11 Princeton 7
12 St Lawrence 3 (win vs Union, tie vs Yale)

More to follow...

[fr. joe]

Re: RPI Hockey 2019 - 2020 Part II: Moving on with 2020 Vision!

Here's how the last two regular season weekends shape up in the race for RPI, Colgate, Yale and Dartmouth:

RPI 5th place with 19 points
hosting Quinnipiac and Princeton, visiting Harvard and Dartmouth

Colgate 6th place with 19 points
visiting Brown and Yale, hosting Clarkson and St. Lawrence

Yale 7th place with 18 points
hosting Cornell and Colgate, visiting Princeton and Quinnipiac

Dartmouth 8th place with 18 points
visiting St. Lawrence and Clarkson, hosting Union and RPI

Buckle up those seat belts, it's going to be quite a ride!

[DrDemento]

Re: RPI Hockey 2019 - 2020 Part II: Moving on with 2020 Vision!

Here's how the last two regular season weekends shape up in the race for RPI, Colgate, Yale and Dartmouth:

RPI 5th place with 19 points
hosting Quinnipiac and Princeton, visiting Harvard and Dartmouth

Colgate 6th place with 19 points
visiting Brown and Yale, hosting Clarkson and St. Lawrence

Yale 7th place with 18 points
hosting Cornell and Colgate, visiting Princeton and Quinnipiac

Dartmouth 8th place with 18 points
visiting St. Lawrence and Clarkson, hosting Union and RPI

Buckle up those seat belts, it's going to be quite a ride!

It would appear from this that Dartmouth has the easiest schedule left of the 4 teams. Colgate almost the same. Yale and RPI the most difficult. I would guess that if we get anything more than 4 points in the last 4 games we are on fairly sound footing for 5th or 6th. 4 points could be testy but might work for 6th. Anything less and we would need considerable help not to fall to 7th or even 8th. the good news is that we are in this kind of position for the first time in several years, fighting for a high first round spot. the bad news, and I knew this was going to be the case, that lost point, a sure victory snatched from us and only getting a tie in Princeton, has come back to haunt us. That single point would have made so much of a difference in trying to maintain 5th (or even in a late season surge for 4th).

[Ralph Baer]

Re: RPI Hockey 2019 - 2020 Part II: Moving on with 2020 Vision!

It would appear from this that Dartmouth has the easiest schedule left of the 4 teams. Colgate almost the same. Yale and RPI the most difficult. I would guess that if we get anything more than 4 points in the last 4 games we are on fairly sound footing for 5th or 6th. 4 points could be testy but might work for 6th. Anything less and we would need considerable help not to fall to 7th or even 8th. the good news is that we are in this kind of position for the first time in several years, fighting for a high first round spot. the bad news, and I knew this was going to be the case, that lost point, a sure victory snatched from us and only getting a tie in Princeton, has come back to haunt us. That single point would have made so much of a difference in trying to maintain 5th (or even in a late season surge for 4th).

Virtually every team loses points it should have gotten (even in 84-85, we lost vs. SLU), and we have also gotten points when we were overmatched.

[DrDemento]

Re: RPI Hockey 2019 - 2020 Part II: Moving on with 2020 Vision!

Virtually every team loses points it should have gotten (even in 84-85, we lost vs. SLU), and we have also gotten points when we were overmatched.

Although that statement is certainly true in general, we were at that game and watched as it was simply taken away form us. We did not lose the point as much as it was taken. In reference to 84-85, we were also at that game and we outplayed SLU badly but simply could not take advantage of many of the chances created. We were beaten the year before in Troy by Jon Casey in two games in which we vastly were superior. Just not the same. In all of those games mentioned the officials did not affect the outcome as they did in Princeton. Sure we could have killed off the 3 penalties called and it would have been moot. As we left the arena to drive home we both felt the game was stolen from us and we rarely fell that way. But those calls were made and the game ended as a tie, not because we were outplayed. hopefully it will be just an unimportant blip on the radar.

[RPI fan 4 life]

Re: RPI Hockey 2019 - 2020 Part II: Moving on with 2020 Vision!

All this talk about the Princeton game reminds me about the Brown game at HFH. We were 2 seconds away from earning no points in that game and came out of it with 2 points. We don’t score in those final seconds, and we’re at 17 points looking up at the other 3 teams and trying to stay ahead of Brown for the final home ice spot.

[NPC19850330]

Re: RPI Hockey 2019 - 2020 Part II: Moving on with 2020 Vision!

Anything can happen on any given night. I'm sure we all expected Harvard to come away with 4 points; they got 2. Were those "taken away"?

At the end of the day, we must play 60 minutes every night. Not 20, not 40, not 50, not 59, but 60. Anything short of that, and we leave points vulnerable on the table. Can we end up taking them when it's all said and done? Perhaps. Is it possible to play a hard 60 minute game and come away empty? Yes. However, chance favors the prepared mind. Let's do everything we can to better ourselves, no matter how the effects around us play out.

[DrDemento]

Re: RPI Hockey 2019 - 2020 Part II: Moving on with 2020 Vision!

Anything can happen on any given night. I'm sure we all expected Harvard to come away with 4 points; they got 2. Were those "taken away"?

At the end of the day, we must play 60 minutes every night. Not 20, not 40, not 50, not 59, but 60. Anything short of that, and we leave points vulnerable on the table. Can we end up taking them when it's all said and done? Perhaps. Is it possible to play a hard 60 minute game and come away empty? Yes. However, chance favors the prepared mind. Let's do everything we can to better ourselves, no matter how the effects around us play out.

Not exactly my point. it is one thing to lose a game. It is a bit different for me when we lose a point or a game not because of poor play but due to intervention from officials. this is not to say that we have not benefited from this type of thing at times in the past. i am merely pointing out how we felt walking out of Baker Rink this year. We lost a point, surely. But we FELT that the 5 consecutive penalties call upon us, 3 in the third period, for offenses like closing a hand on the puck or holding the stick were a bit unusual given the calling of the game previously. playing short handed for 6 minutes in the third period certainly led to one goal and lost opportunities for us to score. As it turns out we are one of the least penalized teams in the nation and certainly a bit out of character for us to take 10 minutes of penalties in the last 30+ minutes against a team that we held a 2-0 lead.
i am in no way indicating that we win or tie some games in which we have had fortunate calls. Just saying how we felt leaving that one game this year. hopefully, in the scheme of things, it will mean nothing but as of right now, it sort of looms a bit large. (end of rant)

[DrDemento]

Re: RPI Hockey 2019 - 2020 Part II: Moving on with 2020 Vision!

All this talk about the Princeton game reminds me about the Brown game at HFH. We were 2 seconds away from earning no points in that game and came out of it with 2 points. We don’t score in those final seconds, and we’re at 17 points looking up at the other 3 teams and trying to stay ahead of Brown for the final home ice spot.

Absolutely correct. And if brown was a tad closer to a home ice position I am sure they might feel similarly if the officials had given us the opportunity to tie or win.

[NPC19850330]

Re: RPI Hockey 2019 - 2020 Part II: Moving on with 2020 Vision!

Not exactly my point. it is one thing to lose a game. It is a bit different for me when we lose a point or a game not because of poor play but due to intervention from officials. this is not to say that we have not benefited from this type of thing at times in the past. i am merely pointing out how we felt walking out of Baker Rink this year. We lost a point, surely. But we FELT that the 5 consecutive penalties call upon us, 3 in the third period, for offenses like closing a hand on the puck or holding the stick were a bit unusual given the calling of the game previously. playing short handed for 6 minutes in the third period certainly led to one goal and lost opportunities for us to score. As it turns out we are one of the least penalized teams in the nation and certainly a bit out of character for us to take 10 minutes of penalties in the last 30+ minutes against a team that we held a 2-0 lead.
i am in no way indicating that we win or tie some games in which we have had fortunate calls. Just saying how we felt leaving that one game this year. hopefully, in the scheme of things, it will mean nothing but as of right now, it sort of looms a bit large. (end of rant)

This sort of swallowing the whistle until the 3rd period thing is something I've heard since I started following RPI hockey. You would think if this were the case, by now, teams would have adjusted to it and played a bit tighter down the stretch. So even if your complaint is true, and I'll give you the benefit of the doubt since I didn't even listen to that game, we have no one to blame but ourselves. If they're going to want to make those calls, give them no reason to do so.

One thing I've seen, when compared to previous years, is that the officiating has actually been a heck of a lot better than in recent years. I don't know if it's a new crop of staff, perceptions of our team changing given some animosity that seemed to occur between the league and our previous coaching staff, or maybe I'm just looking at games from a less biased standpoint. One thing I do know, based on the expectations I have for officiating in this league, they've been above average across the year.

[DrDemento]

Re: RPI Hockey 2019 - 2020 Part II: Moving on with 2020 Vision!

This sort of swallowing the whistle until the 3rd period thing is something I've heard since I started following RPI hockey. You would think if this were the case, by now, teams would have adjusted to it and played a bit tighter down the stretch. So even if your complaint is true, and I'll give you the benefit of the doubt since I didn't even listen to that game, we have no one to blame but ourselves. If they're going to want to make those calls, give them no reason to do so.

One thing I've seen, when compared to previous years, is that the officiating has actually been a heck of a lot better than in recent years. I don't know if it's a new crop of staff, perceptions of our team changing given some animosity that seemed to occur between the league and our previous coaching staff, or maybe I'm just looking at games from a less biased standpoint. One thing I do know, based on the expectations I have for officiating in this league, they've been above average across the year.

Over the 57 years of following RPI hockey and having attended close to 1000 games (watched on the web perhaps another couple hundred), my wife and I have pretty much seen it all. Bad calls going either way, bad ice surfaces, fluke plays that could never be repeated, last second goals, numerous goals called back, goals even awarded without a puck going into the net. we have seen consistent good officials and some that were on the opposite side of the fence that will remain nameless (except for Mike Noeth and Pierre Belanger and the Murphys both John and Dan). We have seen home cooking officials with such obvious bias that even the casual observer would flinch at the calls.
So this was nothing new. We felt as we did for the reasons we felt them, simple as that. Never thinking that one point early this year would be of any importance since we had very little expectation that this year's team would find itself and be as competitive as it is. Our feeling about the officiating in that game is merely what we have. Is it the end of the world for this season? Of course not. Will it turn out to be the defining moment of the season? Of course not. After all is said and done, will it even be remembered by anyone? I hope not. But that does not mean our feeling that a point was not so much lost as it was taken away will change.

BTW - love your input and insight on the threads

[NPC19850330]

Re: RPI Hockey 2019 - 2020 Part II: Moving on with 2020 Vision!

Also, one thing I'll also mention after taking a look at the box score of the aforementioned Princeton game: We had a power play in overtime. Something which you rarely see at any level of hockey unless it's egregious. And it's not like it was one of those even-up things we've seen in years past where it's only about 15 seconds; it was a minute and a half. Sure it's not the full two, but that's more than enough time to set something up to get a goal, especially if the PPGA that was previously cited happened at the one minute mark of the penalty. Based on that, if the refs were out to screw anyone, it was Princeton. Moral of the story: Let's quit pointing fingers and focus on our play. This help or hinder means nothing if we can't get the job done.

[DrDemento]

Re: RPI Hockey 2019 - 2020 Part II: Moving on with 2020 Vision!

I am sure there are still some Providence fans around who have a very similar feeling about a game in March 1985. i am fairly sure they felt the officials missed an off sides call that might have changed the game

[DrDemento]

Re: RPI Hockey 2019 - 2020 Part II: Moving on with 2020 Vision!

Also, one thing I'll also mention after taking a look at the box score of the aforementioned Princeton game: We had a power play in overtime. Something which you rarely see at any level of hockey unless it's egregious. And it's not like it was one of those even-up things we've seen in years past where it's only about 15 seconds; it was a minute and a half. Sure it's not the full two, but that's more than enough time to set something up to get a goal, especially if the PPGA that was previously cited happened at the one minute mark of the penalty. Based on that, if the refs were out to screw anyone, it was Princeton. Moral of the story: Let's quit pointing fingers and focus on our play. This help or hinder means nothing if we can't get the job done.

Your point is well taken. Bad officiating is simply that. not necessarily biased. If you look at the shot totals for that OT, RPI dominated and on the power play almost won it 3 times. I did not really indicate that the 5 consecutive penalties called on RPI in the second and third period were a bias. Just a couple of unusual calls that we felt undeserved. The reasoning behind the calls remains with the officials and we shall never know. Perhaps they felt they were deserved or simply keeping the game competitive.