RPI 2021-22 Restart

[hab]

After a dismal season and then a non-season, time to hit the Restart button. RPI 3, Syracuse 2. By my count, almost 1,000 days since we won one (932?). Only an exhibition but I'll take it! Neither team looked sharp, of course, given the circumstances, but still fun to watch.

 

[Cornholio]

Hockey is back and this is a win over a quality opponent, even if exhibition. Mercyhurst will be a tough road opponent and looks like they can score at will based on today's game. Nice write up on the website and good to see Blitz get the game-winner. It has been tough for the juniors on this team (first win ever in college, exhibition or not?) and lets see if this fuels some fire for the year.

https://rpiathletics.com/news/2021/...mens-hockey-edges-syracuse-in-exhibition.aspx

 

[sezenack]

Was a great game today. It's nice to see some scoring! One thing I noticed is that I thought both our o-zone and d-zone play were strong. However, I thought our play in the netural zone and in transition was very sloppy. They'll need to improve there if they want to compete with the better teams in the ECAC

 

[Ralph Baer]

After a dismal season and then a non-season, time to hit the Restart button. RPI 3, Syracuse 2. By my count, almost 1,000 days since we won one (932?). Only an exhibition but I'll take it! Neither team looked sharp, of course, given the circumstances, but still fun to watch.

I also got 932.

 

[Ralph Baer]

Highlights which is just the goals https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIEOyZ78n40

 

[Ralph Baer]

After a dismal season and then a non-season, time to hit the Restart button. RPI 3, Syracuse 2. By my count, almost 1,000 days since we won one (932?). Only an exhibition but I'll take it! Neither team looked sharp, of course, given the circumstances, but still fun to watch.

Not even halfway to the football team's streak of 2198 From 10/17/59 to 10/23/65. (1 tie included on 10/10/64.)

 

[DrDemento]

Not even halfway to the football team's streak of 2198 From 10/17/59 to 10/23/65. (1 tie included on 10/10/64.)

please do not remind me of that period of time!! You and I both experienced a good portion of that. I thought we had ended the streak when we scheduled Nichols College for Homecoming and had them beat 20-6 with minutes to play only to have them score twice and tie it at the end. i believe we finally ended that streak against Middlebury (28-14??) But that indeed was a painful time. hopefully our girls will not even come close to that streak. From what i saw this week, they should be able to win some games and be competitive most of the time. I cannot comment on much of their pipeline but I am very familiar with at least one recruit listed.

 

[Cornholio]

Never to celebrate misery, but with RMU shutting down and RPI picking up Wagner, along with the extra year of covid eligibility to all NCAA players looking like it helped RPI recruit better might have given the team enough talent to compete. The fact of the matter is there are more D1 women's hockey programs than true D1 talent to go around, so the 'rich' programs gobble up all the talent and the historically weaker programs can't get enough. This is very different than the mens side (who have more talent than programs to go around). Wagner is a legit game changer for RPI on both ends and assuming the team can stay healthy (knock on wood) this team should be competitive in every game this year. Even though it was an exhibition and is only a single game, Syracuse played last year and their entire roster is nearly returning while RPI did not even practice and basically had a roster turn-over from 2 years ago. It does give reason for optimism.

 

[hab]

Curious about the comment that RPI did not even practice last year. I have been curious about what the team did last winter and any information that you or others could provide would be appreciated.

 

[sezenack]

Curious about the comment that RPI did not even practice last year. I have been curious about what the team did last winter and any information that you or others could provide would be appreciated.

They did literally nothing. Her Majesty refused to let them practice, train or use any RPI facilities outside of going to class

 

[hab]

They did literally nothing. Her Majesty refused to let them practice, train or use any RPI facilities outside of going to class[/QUOTE
Wow! I had no idea things were that extreme. How depressing that must have been for these young athletes. A college athletics career is short enough in normal times.

 

[hab]

Anyone see, or have comments on the 2 losses at Mercyhurst? I did not see the games. Good to see that the games were close, but depressing to see the continuation of RPI's inability to score. At this point I would take it as a positive step forward to see them lose a game by something like 6-4.

After watching the team religiously through the dark, dark year of 2019-2020 (and many previous years) I have some unsolicited advice on how to improve their offensive performance...but I will save that for a future post. And, to be clear, I am not among those who would like to see a coaching change at this point.

 

[sezenack]

Anyone see, or have comments on the 2 losses at Mercyhurst? I did not see the games. Good to see that the games were close, but depressing to see the continuation of RPI's inability to score. At this point I would take it as a positive step forward to see them lose a game by something like 6-4.

After watching the team religiously through the dark, dark year of 2019-2020 (and many previous years) I have some unsolicited advice on how to improve their offensive performance...but I will save that for a future post. And, to be clear, I am not among those who would like to see a coaching change at this point.

I did not see the games either unfortunately

 

[Cornholio]

Did not see the games either - why can't every school just do what RPI does with RPI TV and make the games free to watch and on youtube? I am an RPI fan for 2 reasons: 1) RPI TV lets me actually watch the games for free and without signing up for accounts and all that garbage and 2) I have a soft spot for the small private schools trying to play with the 'big boys' in D1 (I went to a similar school waaaay long time ago). The women's game needs all the exposure it can get.

So after looking at the stats and reading summaries, here is my take-away:
Good: Outshot Hurst in 1st period in both games by quite a bit. So we seem to have enough talent to compete, and maybe more - we seemed to outplay Hurst in both 1st periods.
Good: Kept Hurst to just 2 goals (one in OT) in both games when they put up 6 on RIT. Again, would seem to say we have enough talent to compete and solid goaltending.
Bad: Got outshot in the 3rd by quite a bit and took a lot of 3rd period penalties in both games. That says either we don't have depth or are not conditioned well.
Bad: Even though getting shots not scoring. That says we lack creativity or puck motion to move the goalie or something. Hopefully just snakebit these two games.

Could be worse - we could be Lindenwood or RIT fans....

 

[Reddington]

RPI TV is a great women's hockey broadcast. BU comes a close second. Blitz will score some for the Engineers this year.

 

[hab]

Solid take on the stats Cornholio!

Here is my take on their offensive struggles, for what it's worth. One thing that is severely lacking in the women's game, at the college level, is the willingness of players to crash the net. By "crash", I don't mean interfering with the goalie, but just aggressively parking yourself at the top of the crease and defying the opposition to move you without taking a penalty. RPI needs to identify one player on each line who will relish that role. Goals will come! They may be as a result of you banging in a rebound, or they may be a lucky bounce off of you or a defender, but they will come.

I have watched RPI womens hockey for many years, and so often I have thought about Julie Welte, from the transition years from D3 to D1. She was not the fastest player on the team, by any means, but she understood the game and was incredibly competitive and she was impossible to move from the front of the opposition's net...and as a result she scored a lot of goals. This team needs to find one or two or three Julies.

 

[Cornholio]

Looks like the goaltending will be solid this year:

https://rpiathletics.com/news/2021/9/28/womens-ice-hockey-rampado-tabbed-by-ecac-hockey.aspx

Now if we can just get some goals. The one position in women's hockey that is 'above average' with regards to the men's game is goaltending - there seems to be a lot of really good goalies out there.

 

[D2D]

Big congrats on your exhibition win, and also for hanging in there as loyal fans during what's been an incredibly difficult stretch.

 

[hab]

Big congrats on your exhibition win, and also for hanging in there as loyal fans during what's been an incredibly difficult stretch.

Nice comment, thanks. I do think that RPI is one of those hockey colleges where there is a very loyal fan base in good years and bad. We love the game. No illusions, 'though, we have a long way to go to rebuild.

 

[VGK]

Curious about the comment that RPI did not even practice last year. I have been curious about what the team did last winter and any information that you or others could provide would be appreciated.

Late to the party, but indeed there were no official practices until April. By that time, there were only 5 girls left on campus. The canadians never came back for second semester, and a lot left spring semester early (if they even returned in January). These 5 girls got to officially practice I think 3 or 4 times and that was it.

In October (and perhaps in spring too? I can't recall now), they did off campus "captain's" practices at a few various rinks. I want to say they could only go once, maybe twice a week. That was it. It took many car trips to get all the girls to the rinks, hahaha. I know they also did one pond hockey for fun in January with a few of the mens team as well.

As far as when they were all at home (after thanksgiving and thereafter), I know they all did the best they could to find ice time at their local rinks for whatever they could get in, mens pick up hockey, practices with their old teams, whatever they could find - they did.

I'm very hopeful that with time and continued practice, we will see a great increase in how they gel and play together and the obvious - become more conditioned.