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

[engineerhockeyfan]

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

Kids played hard tonight, didn't give up, and had some very nice scoring plays, but UMass is at a different level in terms of skating an skill. Solid goaltending kept RPI in the game early, as UMass had the first 10-12 shots on goal.

The boys may have played hard tonight, but they didn't play as a team. Also, you can slow down a faster team, but nobody on our team wants to throw a body check. I think I counted three decent body checks in the whole game by RPI. That is not going to slow down anyone. They show promise in spurts, but they cannot keep it up for the entire game. UMass is a better team, but only because they play for 60 minutes as a team, while we are running around not knowing where or who to pass to.
That may seem harsh, but that is what I have seen this season.

 

[Ralph Baer]

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

The boys may have played hard tonight, but they didn't play as a team. Also, you can slow down a faster team, but nobody on our team wants to throw a body check. I think I counted three decent body checks in the whole game by RPI. That is not going to slow down anyone. They show promise in spurts, but they cannot keep it up for the entire game. UMass is a better team, but only because they play for 60 minutes as a team, while we are running around not knowing where or who to pass to.
That may seem harsh, but that is what I have seen this season.

UMA also has better players on average.

 

[troyboy]

The boys may have played hard tonight, but they didn't play as a team. Also, you can slow down a faster team, but nobody on our team wants to throw a body check. I think I counted three decent body checks in the whole game by RPI. That is not going to slow down anyone. They show promise in spurts, but they cannot keep it up for the entire game. UMass is a better team, but only because they play for 60 minutes as a team, while we are running around not knowing where or who to pass to.
That may seem harsh, but that is what I have seen this season.

This was a classic trap game for UMass and credit our guys for keeping it close and giving themselves a chance but in the end we were out gunned out played and lost most of the hard battles and continue to give up truck loads of A+ chances. In the end a game against a team of this caliber shows us how far we are from being in any conversation. When we fired the last coach I didn't think the end game was a home birth for the ECAC's I was hoping for a top 20 team that was a part of said conversation that's doable but we are so far away from that we can't see it with the Hubell Telescope and I may be wrong but I see no help on the way...Happy New Year Everyone !

 

[Ralph Baer]

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

This was a classic trap game for UMass and credit our guys for keeping it close and giving themselves a chance but in the end we were out gunned out played and lost most of the hard battles and continue to give up truck loads of A+ chances. In the end a game against a team of this caliber shows us how far we are from being in any conversation. When we fired the last coach I didn't think the end game was a home birth for the ECAC's I was hoping for a top 20 team that was a part of said conversation that's doable but we are so far away from that we can't see it with the Hubell Telescope and I may be wrong but I see no help on the way...Happy New Year Everyone !

I don't think that the end game is a home berth either, but if we do that this year, it will show improvement. I think that is all we can hope for at this point. If we do that, I will hope for more next year although we will lose a lot of what little scoring we have.

 

[NAFTA123]

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

This was a classic trap game for UMass and credit our guys for keeping it close and giving themselves a chance but in the end we were out gunned out played and lost most of the hard battles and continue to give up truck loads of A+ chances. In the end a game against a team of this caliber shows us how far we are from being in any conversation. When we fired the last coach I didn't think the end game was a home birth for the ECAC's I was hoping for a top 20 team that was a part of said conversation that's doable but we are so far away from that we can't see it with the Hubell Telescope and I may be wrong but I see no help on the way...Happy New Year Everyone !

I am sure everyone would like to have seen a top 20 mention by now, but I think that might be a wee bit over zealous. Looking at current roster : 8 freshman (Helson injured) and 10 Soph that contribute in a major way to the building of this program day in and day out. There is one junior who does not contribute much to the score sheet and of the seniors, two are in and out of lineup/not being counted on for much ice time/scoring . I would guess that the other seniors would have been counted on to contribute much more in the way of scoring/play making to this point of the season. (would have thought a senior or two might have a breakout years, likely not happening based on point totals thus far).

My observations are that this team has more heart/desire than in years past, but are still very young. Team has certainly have shown glimpses of being a good, competitive team, and should have/could have a few for wins to show for their efforts. But, still not there on consistent 60 minute a night basis. Next couple years should be the tell tale sign of where the program is headed. Hopefully a home playoff round happens this year and it continues to build from there.

 

[Waite21]

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

RPI played UMass in the first game of the season, took a 1-0 lead after one period and wound up losing, 5-3, with the final goal coming into an empty net.

And RPI played UMass last night, took a 1-0 lead after one period and wound up losing, 5-3, with the final goal coming into an empty net.

I'm tempted to draw the conclusion that either both teams are playing the same as they did at the start of the year, both have improved to an equal extent, or both have declined to an equal extent.

I hope the second alternative is the one that applies, but I don't know. UMass fans don't seem to post on this forum, so there's no way to tell whether they think their team has been improving or declining.

 

[DavidNardolillo]

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

RPI played UMass in the first game of the season, took a 1-0 lead after one period and wound up losing, 5-3, with the final goal coming into an empty net.

And RPI played UMass last night, took a 1-0 lead after one period and wound up losing, 5-3, with the final goal coming into an empty net.

I'm tempted to draw the conclusion that either both teams are playing the same as they did at the start of the year, both have improved to an equal extent, or both have declined to an equal extent.

I hope the second alternative is the one that applies, but I don't know. UMass fans don't seem to post on this forum, so there's no way to tell whether they think their team has been improving or declining.

I think UMass fans would be wondering why the margin of victory wasn't larger. As I noted in my earlier post, UMass dominated the first period and could have put the game out of reach early (UMass had 12 of the first 13 shots on goal). They have a big series coming up in Denver this weekend that will be telling, but I think UMass is a national championship contender and showed it last night for large stretches. I think they are the most talented team RPI has played this year.

RPI did well to hang with them. It looked like Dave Smith shuffled the lines again and severely shortened the bench during the game, the top two lines seemed to have played at least 90% of the minutes in the 3rd period (I couldn't find ice time stats posted to confirm or refute my impression).

 

[DavidNardolillo]

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

The boys may have played hard tonight, but they didn't play as a team. Also, you can slow down a faster team, but nobody on our team wants to throw a body check. I think I counted three decent body checks in the whole game by RPI. That is not going to slow down anyone. They show promise in spurts, but they cannot keep it up for the entire game. UMass is a better team, but only because they play for 60 minutes as a team, while we are running around not knowing where or who to pass to.
That may seem harsh, but that is what I have seen this season.

You are right RPI is not physical enough, and 3 of the UMass goals were basic defensive lapses of the variety that continue to kill RPI, but the largest difference between the two teams is in the talent level. UMass is a much stronger skating team and has better skill players and it showed last night in the key moments.

 

[ServinisScores]

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

RPI is not a team built for physicality, and would get it's doors blown off trying to play that game. As much as I'd like to see them hit, that's not their game. They definitely need a talent infusion of just the basics - skating, passing and hockey sense. I hope the worm turns soon, it's a long road that still needs to be traveled.

 

[rpi82]

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

I am sure everyone would like to have seen a top 20 mention by now, but I think that might be a wee bit over zealous. Looking at current roster : 8 freshman (Helson injured) and 10 Soph that contribute in a major way to the building of this program day in and day out. There is one junior who does not contribute much to the score sheet and of the seniors, two are in and out of lineup/not being counted on for much ice time/scoring . I would guess that the other seniors would have been counted on to contribute much more in the way of scoring/play making to this point of the season. (would have thought a senior or two might have a breakout years, likely not happening based on point totals thus far).

My observations are that this team has more heart/desire than in years past, but are still very young. Team has certainly have shown glimpses of being a good, competitive team, and should have/could have a few for wins to show for their efforts. But, still not there on consistent 60 minute a night basis. Next couple years should be the tell tale sign of where the program is headed. Hopefully a home playoff round happens this year and it continues to build from there.

Overall the team is young, but the scary thing is that the top 5 scorers are all seniors. Our defense should keep improving and I actually thought they played a relatively solid game yesterday but they made a handful of egregious errors starting with the first goal where I think it was Babichuk retreated from the corner to protect the crease but didn't look around to pick up a man. That's a common problem we've had in multiple games.

BTW: Does anyone know what the review was about for UMass' third goal? I thought there should have been a penalty before they scored, but I thought they couldn't review penalties except to determine whether one that was called should be a major. Since nothing was called and I thought the resulting goal was pretty clean I couldn't figure out what they were doing. Then the ref came skating across holding up 5 fingers toward the UMass bench and I thought they had called a major penalty and I'd missed an earlier signal. But in the end the goal was good and there was no penalty, leaving me confused.

 

[DrDemento]

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

RPI is not a team built for physicality, and would get it's doors blown off trying to play that game. As much as I'd like to see them hit, that's not their game. They definitely need a talent infusion of just the basics - skating, passing and hockey sense. I hope the worm turns soon, it's a long road that still needs to be traveled.

Not sure what this team is built for. Certainly as you said, it is not physical play. But we are so often out skated (and often by a wide margin) that i also doubt we are built for speed. UMass beat us to almost 90% of the pucks. They seemed to be actually taking a shorter route to get anywhere.

 

[DrDemento]

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

Overall the team is young, but the scary thing is that the top 5 scorers are all seniors. Our defense should keep improving and I actually thought they played a relatively solid game yesterday but they made a handful of egregious errors starting with the first goal where I think it was Babichuk retreated from the corner to protect the crease but didn't look around to pick up a man. That's a common problem we've had in multiple games.

BTW: Does anyone know what the review was about for UMass' third goal? I thought there should have been a penalty before they scored, but I thought they couldn't review penalties except to determine whether one that was called should be a major. Since nothing was called and I thought the resulting goal was pretty clean I couldn't figure out what they were doing. Then the ref came skating across holding up 5 fingers toward the UMass bench and I thought they had called a major penalty and I'd missed an earlier signal. But in the end the goal was good and there was no penalty, leaving me confused.

You bring up a very interesting and important point since that goal was probably the deciding factor. I hope to watch the video of that third period again later as i completely missed the hit and injury to our #25. I think the refs did also which would not surprise me as they missed at least 3 blatant penalties in which one of our boys was either pulled down or simply interfered with (our play by play announcer Perry did not miss any of them!) Not sure what the 5 fingers being held up signified either.

 

[DavidNardolillo]

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

Overall the team is young, but the scary thing is that the top 5 scorers are all seniors. Our defense should keep improving and I actually thought they played a relatively solid game yesterday but they made a handful of egregious errors starting with the first goal where I think it was Babichuk retreated from the corner to protect the crease but didn't look around to pick up a man. That's a common problem we've had in multiple games.

BTW: Does anyone know what the review was about for UMass' third goal? I thought there should have been a penalty before they scored, but I thought they couldn't review penalties except to determine whether one that was called should be a major. Since nothing was called and I thought the resulting goal was pretty clean I couldn't figure out what they were doing. Then the ref came skating across holding up 5 fingers toward the UMass bench and I thought they had called a major penalty and I'd missed an earlier signal. But in the end the goal was good and there was no penalty, leaving me confused.

I agree with your assessment. As for the 3rd goal, I was in the crowd and didn't have a good idea at the time since there was no communication over the PA system. Watching the highlights back, the only thing I can guess is that it may have been a review to see if there was an illegal hit to the head of Mahshie in the buildup to the goal.

 

[DavidNardolillo]

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

I hope to watch the video of that third period again later as i completely missed the hit and injury to our #25. .

You can see the hit on Mahshie at the bottom of the near faceoff circle in this video: https://youtu.be/MlsG553oRLc?t=136

He gets a shoulder in the chin.

 

[Noresmen]

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

I agree with your assessment. As for the 3rd goal, I was in the crowd and didn't have a good idea at the time since there was no communication over the PA system. Watching the highlights back, the only thing I can guess is that it may have been a review to see if there was an illegal hit to the head of Mahshie in the buildup to the goal.

The review was to determine if they missed a penalty and if it was a major penalty. Had the officials determined they had indeed missed a major penalty (it can't be a minor) they could have then assessed the call of a major penalty. The goal though would have stood. RPI would only have received the benefit of a 5 min power play. The signalling of 5 to the benches was that there was not a penalty and that play would be 5 on 5.

As for this team and how it is built, the team doesn't have to be built to play physical. UMass isn't built that way, their players just hit. RPI doesn't except for some of the smaller players like Marrello, Polino or Gornal. We have defensemen that care more about caring the puck then playing physical. We have 6'+ forwards who have no idea what physicality is .... you don't have to hit to play a physical brand of hockey.

 

[DavidNardolillo]

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

The review was to determine if they missed a penalty and if it was a major penalty. Had the officials determined they had indeed missed a major penalty (it can't be a minor) they could have then assessed the call of a major penalty. The goal though would have stood. RPI would only have received the benefit of a 5 min power play. The signalling of 5 to the benches was that there was not a penalty and that play would be 5 on 5.

As for this team and how it is built, the team doesn't have to be built to play physical. UMass isn't built that way, their players just hit. RPI doesn't except for some of the smaller players like Marrello, Polino or Gornal. We have defensemen that care more about caring the puck then playing physical. We have 6'+ forwards who have no idea what physicality is .... you don't have to hit to play a physical brand of hockey.

Thanks for clearing up the confusion on the goal review. On the physicality piece, I think you are right and the frustration is really that we don't even try and apply any type of physical pressure on the forecheck for most of the game (even just finishing a check). Any team can do that.

 

[jericho]

You bring up a very interesting and important point since that goal was probably the deciding factor. I hope to watch the video of that third period again later as i completely missed the hit and injury to our #25. I think the refs did also which would not surprise me as they missed at least 3 blatant penalties in which one of our boys was either pulled down or simply interfered with (our play by play announcer Perry did not miss any of them!) Not sure what the 5 fingers being held up signified either.

Perry wasn’t on the air on Sunday

 

[troyboy]

Thanks for clearing up the confusion on the goal review. On the physicality piece, I think you are right and the frustration is really that we don't even try and apply any type of physical pressure on the forecheck for most of the game (even just finishing a check). Any team can do that.

When your not the quickest team you have to be very conscious of your spacing which is to say you have to open up your time and space so your not constantly getting walked it makes it harder to hit when your laying off guys. We gave UMass gaps you could drive a Zamboni through last night we did alot of chasing last night.

 

[rpi82]

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

The review was to determine if they missed a penalty and if it was a major penalty. Had the officials determined they had indeed missed a major penalty (it can't be a minor) they could have then assessed the call of a major penalty. The goal though would have stood. RPI would only have received the benefit of a 5 min power play. The signalling of 5 to the benches was that there was not a penalty and that play would be 5 on 5.

As for this team and how it is built, the team doesn't have to be built to play physical. UMass isn't built that way, their players just hit. RPI doesn't except for some of the smaller players like Marrello, Polino or Gornal. We have defensemen that care more about caring the puck then playing physical. We have 6'+ forwards who have no idea what physicality is .... you don't have to hit to play a physical brand of hockey.

Thanks for the clarification. I thought they could only review for a major if they called a minor first. Frankly, to me that rule doesn’t make sense as it means they are often looking at a minor penalty they can’t call. It was clearly worthy of a minor and, in my live action view, a major as well. It appeared the UMass player straightened up just before the hit causing his elbow or shoulder to hit Mahshie’s head. I don’t think his skates left the ice but it looked like the kind of attempt to hit high with contact to the head that they’ve been emphasizing.

The other play that I thought might be pretty bad was a hit on Gornall at center ice that looked knee-to-knee but I was partially obstructed on that.

I know Seth developed a reputation for getting on the refs that probably didn’t help us, but I wish Smith would explode once in a while when we get the short end of a few calls.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[DrDemento]

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

Perry wasn’t on the air on Sunday

After a couple of gimlets, i was hearing him very clearly!