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RPI 2013-2014 Season

Re: RPI 2013-2014 Season

Ended up being a great game for the Engineers, putting up 41 shots to Union's 11 and taking a 4-1 win after Union kept it close through two.

Frustrating game through the first two periods as RPI was outshooting Union 32-10 after two but only up 2-1 with Union finally breaking through on a long 5-on-3 late in the first. Can't really afford to let a team hang around like this when you're controlling so much of the play, and certainly can't be going down 5-on-3 when you're otherwise dominating play.

Most of the game was in the Union end but their goaltending was pretty good, especially given that starter Lundberg did not come back out after the first period and was not on the bench. Dahl was solid in relief for the most part with a couple hiccups in the third.

Union was held to one shot in the third period and aside from 1-2 minutes in the RPI zone, the entire third was spent in the Union end.

Hopefully RPI will keep up the momentum tomorrow and come out hard looking for the sweep.
 
Re: RPI 2013-2014 Season

I thought it was a complete 60 minute game for the women. Hopefully the boys who were there watching (pretty much the whole team) saw what that's like. The 1 SOG in the 3rd by U came with 18 seconds left. The women's forecheck was crushing for RPI and as Gary said just about the whole 3rd period was played in the U's end. What a pleasure it is watching Alexa Gruschow. She alone is worth the price of admission.
 
Re: RPI 2013-2014 Season

Two strong weekends in a row for the Engineers. Coming away with four points against Union is no longer easy...the Dutchwomen looked very good at times in today's game. I don't usually like to single out individual players but I have to say that Smelker was a dominant force on the ice today, just relentless forechecking. Watched the game on Union's video, with WRPI's audio. WRPI analysts provided some excellent between-periods analysis of RPI's season and outlook. The only thing that I would take issue with is that they implied that it was an easy game for OBrien. She may not have had a huge number of shots to face but came up really big on a number of occasions in the third when Union had opportunities to make it close.

BTW, cudos to the RPI pep band who made it feel like a home game, despite a very large pro-Union home crowd.
 
Re: RPI 2013-2014 Season

Very different game today compared to yesterday. Where yesterday's game was basically all RPI from start to finish, I though Union played a much stronger game today and did a great job of clogging up passing and shooting lanes in their own zone.

The longer the game went on with no score, the more it started to feel like a trap game where Union would pick up a goal and Lundberg would then carry them the rest of the way. Was very happy when Wash scored (twice) but even then it felt a little tenuous until Smelker's ENG, with Union refusing to quit and several PP opportunities for the Dutchwomen giving them a chance to get back in it.

The PK was huge, killing 9 out of 10 on the weekend (and more specifically all 8 today), only allowing the 5-on-3 goal Friday. Given how Union actually has the 5th best PP in the nation despite their record, that's no small feat.

O'Brien played a large part in that stat today, making a couple of big saves on the PK to keep Union off the board. There were a couple of point blank rebound chances in particular where she reacted very quickly to take away good scoring chances. Good for her to pick up her third shutout of the season.

Riding a 4-game unbeaten streak, it'd be good to see RPI pick up points on the road at Dartmouth and Harvard next weekend. Dartmouth has struggled and has primarily been picking up their points against teams in the bottom four; it's a game the Engineers should look to win if they want to stay ahead of the fight for 8th place.

Harvard will be a tougher challenge (having just defeated Cornell this weekend) but the Engineers have beaten them once already this season and the Crimson also dropped a game to Yale last weekend. Anything's possible.
 
GRussinko said:
Harvard will be a tougher challenge (having just defeated Cornell this weekend) but the Engineers have beaten them once already this season ...
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That is part of what will make it more challenging for RPI. Because it won that earlier game, the Crimson figure to be more focused than usual for the rematch. That factor may be offset by the Engineers being more confident versus Harvard.
 
Re: RPI 2013-2014 Season

FOUR POINT WEEKEND *clap clap clapclapclap* It's amazing what two wins can do:

Mean Point Total: 21.82
Range - 2nd - 10th
Mean Rank - 6.4
Median Rank - 6th
Mode Rank - 6th
Home Playoffs - 2.2%
Playoffs - 96.5%
Most likely opponent - @Clarkson (26.2%)
 
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Re: RPI 2013-2014 Season

ARM said:
That is part of what will make it more challenging for RPI. Because it won that earlier game, the Crimson figure to be more focused than usual for the rematch. That factor may be offset by the Engineers being more confident versus Harvard.
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Agreed - lots of factors will play into that rematch.

I will say that it seems to be coming along at the right time for RPI as it appears they may have finally put together some combinations that are starting to click with each other. The chemistry between linemates has been much better over the past couple weeks.

The next two weekends will be very telling in how we can expect the rest of the season to go for the Engineers. If they can beat Dartmouth and pick up a few points against Harvard/SLU/Clarkson, then go on to beat Yale/Brown/Colgate, they would likely find themselves pushing fighting for the 4-6 range instead of 6-8. It would be nice to avoid a trip to Harvard or Cornell to start the playoffs.

They're only five points back of 4th place QU currently with two games in hand, and one point shy of 5th place Princeton with the same two games in hand. RPI plays essentially the same schedule as QU and Princeton with an extra pair against SLU and Clarkson, though they'll make up the games in hand next weekend against Dartmouth and Harvard.

The tricky part is that SLU is only one point back of RPI and gets two more games against Union. A head to head win against SLU would be huge for the Engineers in trying to stay ahead of them. Yale and Dartmouth aren't far back either. It's going to require picking up points regularly to keep ahead of the pack chasing at their heels.
 
GRussinko said:
The tricky part is that SLU is only one point back of RPI and gets two more games against Union. A head to head win against SLU would be huge for the Engineers in trying to stay ahead of them. Yale and Dartmouth aren't far back either. It's going to require picking up points regularly to keep ahead of the pack chasing at their heels.
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I see RPI/SLU/Princeton/Yale as all being very similar in terms of talent/potential. That lot isn't far behind Quinnipiac. The team(s) that can put it together and play the best hockey over the final few weeks moves up. I don't see anything as an upset when those teams meet H2H.
 
Re: RPI 2013-2014 Season

Following tweets I noticed that we received a commitment back in December from D/F Josefine Hansen of Shattuck-St Mary's for 2015.
Link: https://twitter.com/Mojo2theJojo/status/413696195437944832.

The other link in Manley's tweet is to a Hansen's teammate Melissa Samoskevich who also congratulated Hansen. She has sadly no apparent connection to RPI. Also it was via a tweet from Amanda Kimmerle, not the one from Manley, that I found out about Hansen. Although I saw Manley's tweet last month, I didn't follow the link.

stats http://ssmhockey.org/girls-prep-stats/

Interestingly, Hansen played on a Danish team in a European tourney http://www.eurohockey.com/club/5337-denmark.html?league=797. It must be the same person since the birthdate is the same as on SSM's site. I wonder if we will raise another national flag at the HFH. (The Danish flag's colors are appropriate. :D )

A post on the 2015 commitment thread in response to my request for info http://board.uscho.com/showthread.p...-Commitments&p=5860442&viewfull=1#post5860442.

Melissa Boik (RPI '09) is the Assistant Coach of the girls prep team and Sydney O'Keefe (RPI '11) is the Assistant Coach of the U16 girls team at SSM http://ssmhockey.org/staff/. They probably played a big part in the recruitment effort.
 
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Re: RPI 2013-2014 Season

Ralph Baer said:
Following tweets I noticed that we received a commitment back in December from D/F Josefine Hansen of Shattuck-St Mary's for 2015.
Link: https://twitter.com/Mojo2theJojo/status/413696195437944832.

.
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Not often that we hear about a commitment for the women's team this far in advance. Interesting that in all 3 seasons that she has been at Shattuck she has been listed as F/D. I wonder what position she will play at the college level? Last year at Shattuck she played in 61 games :eek:, had 9 goals and 17 assists and 22 PIM. Previous year, in a mere 48 games :rolleyes:, she had 4 goals, 18 assists and 12 PIM. Certainly looks small, especially for a D, but to be in grade 11 and on the prep team at Shattuck you need to have talent.
 
Re: RPI 2013-2014 Season

hab said:
Not often that we hear about a commitment for the women's team this far in advance. Interesting that in all 3 seasons that she has been at Shattuck she has been listed as F/D. I wonder what position she will play at the college level? Last year at Shattuck she played in 61 games :eek:, had 9 goals and 17 assists and 22 PIM. Previous year, in a mere 48 games :rolleyes:, she had 4 goals, 18 assists and 12 PIM. Certainly looks small, especially for a D, but to be in grade 11 and on the prep team at Shattuck you need to have talent.
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And I rounded up when I converted 156 cm to feet and inches on the chart which is in the men's recruit thread. :) Katie Daniels was listed as 5'3". I think that she was the smallest defenseman whom we have had recently. From this year's stats I would think Hansen has been used mostly on defense. On their schedule http://ssmhockey.org/2013-14-girls-prep-schedule/ some games are listed as being webcast. So we can watch on 2/2 and 2/15 if we remember.

I am in agreement with you about playing on SSM's prep squad.
 
Re: RPI 2013-2014 Season

Looking at the RPI recruits for 2014-15 and 2015-16 seasons what stands out to me is the huge opportunity that exists here for a top goaltender to step in to a starting role in the 2015-16 season (either as a sophomore or freshman). With both O'Brien and Piper graduating in 2015 the opportunity is there for a strong recruit to grab 3 or maybe even 4 seasons as a starting goalie for the Engineers. I'm sure that it is a priority for the coaching staff and I hope they won't settle for anything less than the best.
 
Re: RPI 2013-2014 Season

hab said:
Looking at the RPI recruits for 2014-15 and 2015-16 seasons what stands out to me is the huge opportunity that exists here for a top goaltender to step in to a starting role in the 2015-16 season (either as a sophomore or freshman). With both O'Brien and Piper graduating in 2015 the opportunity is there for a strong recruit to grab 3 or maybe even 4 seasons as a starting goalie for the Engineers. I'm sure that it is a priority for the coaching staff and I hope they won't settle for anything less than the best.
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For all we know, we do already have one or both goalie replacements. As opposed to men's recruits, which we usually find out about the day that they occur, it is harder to find out about women's recruits. Witness that both Hansen and Orzechowski had posted tweets that they had committed weeks before the fact appeared here. OTOH, things are improving.
 
Re: RPI 2013-2014 Season

My main hope for the Engineers for this season is that they will knock off one of the big four in the ECAC quarter-finals and advance to the tournament, and I think they have the talent to do that, and possibly more. This weekend will be another good test, to see if they can build on the positive momentum of the last two weekends. To prove that they are a contender they should beat Dartmouth and be competitive at Harvard. I'm looking for 2 points, more would be great, less would be a bit of a disappointment. However, Dartmouth will be tough, as they really have their backs against the wall. Has the Big Green ever missed the playoffs?
 
Re: RPI 2013-2014 Season

Disappointed in the results from this weekend (0-2 vs Dartmouth and Harvard) but I can't be disappointed in the effort or the quality of play. Two very well played games and very entertaining to watch. If RPI has a weakness it might be their tendency to give up too many odd-man rushes. Too many situations in today's game where we had only one D ( or none) back. It only burned them once, however, on the first Harvard goal. But in a tight game like this, once can mean the difference.
 
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