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RPI Off-season

Does anyone know which, if any, of our 11 seniors from last year might be returning for one more year as grad students? They should all have one remaining year of eligibility due to the missed COVID year. I think that all of last year's 5 grad students would have used their 4 years.

Last year we had a very large roster (31) and my understanding is that the NCAA will now put a cap of 26 on rosters. We have 8 new recruits coming in. If all seniors (and grad students) are leaving that would give us a roster size this year of 23 (31+8-11-5). My hope is that we will see some of last year's seniors back wearing the cherry and white for another year.

We do know that seniors Byrum and Taylor-Walters signed pro contracts, (along with Grad Students Zahirnyi and Hardy).
 
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Thanks for this Cornholio. This is generally really good news: Phillip, Erbanova, Kaiser, Larsen, Papineau all returning! Five really strong players! I am especially happy to see Erbanova coming back. She has had such bad luck with injuries and I would love to see what she might do with a full season. It is interesting that some of the players who were indicated as not returning were nevertheless noted as entering into masters degrees at RPI. Maybe just a decision that they want to stay at RPI but it is now time to focus more on academics and not hockey.

If my math is right, the team will need to reduce their roster by 2 players to get down to 26...but it is a nice problem to have.
 
hab said:
Thanks for this Cornholio. This is generally really good news: Phillip, Erbanova, Kaiser, Larsen, Papineau all returning! Five really strong players! I am especially happy to see Erbanova coming back. She has had such bad luck with injuries and I would love to see what she might do with a full season. It is interesting that some of the players who were indicated as not returning were nevertheless noted as entering into masters degrees at RPI. Maybe just a decision that they want to stay at RPI but it is now time to focus more on academics and not hockey.

If my math is right, the team will need to reduce their roster by 2 players to get down to 26...but it is a nice problem to have.
Click to expand...

The new scholarship and roster limits, if approved, would be for the 25-26 season.
 
I am a bit confused, some of the players whom hab said are back are on the video (e.g., Phillip and Kaiser), or did I have to listen to the whole video?
 
Ralph Baer said:
I am a bit confused, some of the players whom hab said are back are on the video (e.g., Phillip and Kaiser), or did I have to listen to the whole video?
Click to expand...

At about the 1 minute mark they say that before honouring the graduating seniors they want to highlight 5 seniors who will be returning for another season: Phillip, Erbanova, Kaiser, Larsen and Papineau.
 
hab said:
At about the 1 minute mark they say that before honouring the graduating seniors they want to highlight 5 seniors who will be returning for another season: Phillip, Erbanova, Kaiser, Larsen and Papineau.
Click to expand...

I heard the same thing and hope it is true. As always, I am looking forward to the start of the season but have a bit more optimism than usual. This team looks like they might be a better defensive group. My biggest concern is replacing Rampado in goal and we should find out rather quickly how that works out.
 
AlwaysCold2 said:
Asst Tara Connelly to Dartmouth. Connolly Joins Women’s Hockey Staff as Assistant Coach - Dartmouth College Athletics (dartmouthsports.com)
RPI will certainly miss her eye for recruiting amazing goalies
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This news is very concerning. She goes from Asst Coach at RPI to Asst Coach at Dartmouth, a slightly weaker program. It is difficult for a fan to judge coaching ability at a distance, but I have always been impressed by Connolly...she seems to know the game and seems to be well regarded in the hockey community, and did a great job of boosting the Engineers. What does it say about the RPI program that she would make a move like this? Can we not compete on salaries? Ben Murphy left earlier, and that was less of a surprise. He was not here long, probably had little identification with the program and was shopping for something else. But losing Connolly hurts.
 
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rpi82 said:
Unlike the men, who generally come from about 4-5 junior leagues that we know pretty well, I find assessing women's recruiting classes to be a bit of a mystery. Coming from high school, prep school, U18-U22 teams, the old PWHL (not the newer professional one), athletic academies, other nations and transfers from schools that are powerhouses down to those that are barely D1, it's hard to do any sort of analysis of their bios to set my level of optimism for the coming year. This seems like a pretty good class, but maybe Hab can give a better assessment. Then again, women's hockey has changed an awful lot since his dear daughter took on the challenge of leading the Tute into D1 so if he chooses to punt I'd understand.
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Sorry I did not see your post earlier. I am not totally sure but I seem to recall from at least 5 years ago that one of the Helgeson girls was thinking of coming to RPI. I believe they are twins and one was a forward and one a defensive player. I could be wrong since I do not tend to look things up but I seem to recall that last name as a member of a men's national championship team in either the late 80's or early 90's.
 
DrDemento said:
Sorry I did not see your post earlier. I am not totally sure but I seem to recall from at least 5 years ago that one of the Helgeson girls was thinking of coming to RPI. I believe they are twins and one was a forward and one a defensive player. I could be wrong since I do not tend to look things up but I seem to recall that last name as a member of a men's national championship team in either the late 80's or early 90's.
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The twin (Sophie Helgeson) who was supposed to come as a freshman is coming now for her last season. Her father was a soph on Wisconsin's 1990 NCAA championship team.
 
Ralph Baer said:
The twin (Sophie Helgeson) who was supposed to come as a freshman is coming now for her last season. Her father was a soph on Wisconsin's 1990 NCAA championship team.
Click to expand...

Again not sure - going only by memory from 5 years ago - thought her sister was going to Quinnipiac as a forward. I lose track if they do not show interest in coming to Troy. I think even if we are only getting Sophie for 1 year, we are getting a prize!
 
DrDemento said:
Again not sure - going only by memory from 5 years ago - thought her sister was going to Quinnipiac as a forward. I lose track if they do not show interest in coming to Troy. I think even if we are only getting Sophie for 1 year, we are getting a prize!
Click to expand...

Yes, her sister went to QU where she stayed for two years before going to SHU. https://www.eliteprospects.com/playe...oogle_vignette

NZ gave Sophie 4.25 *'s which is much above what we usually get.
 
Lots to look forward to with this class...but as usual our prospects need to be tempered by the reality that every team will be improved (that is the nature of women's hockey these days...it just gets better each year)
My rough assessment (with apologies to the players who will exceed my expectations).
Defence: Trnkova, Larsen, Helgeson should provide a solid core, and if Ervenova is healthy (fingers crossed) that makes a pretty good top four. Would be great if a couple of the other D's stepped up to have a great season.
Forwards: Kaiser, Phillip, Papineau, Christoff (love her hard nosed style of play), Cioffi, Skoda, will all get a lot of time on the ice. Beaudoin, Bailey and others have great potential. But a lot of uncertainty about who will populate the third and fourth lines.

Always tough to evaluate the freshmen and transfers, which is why I have not tried. But hopefully 2 or 3 of them will become fixtures on the lineup.
And that leads us to the big question. Goaltending. Big skates to fill. Ambrass has a strong background. And it is tough to evaluate Keating and Mirek. Only those who have watched them in practice (I have not) will know whether they are ready to be #1or #2 goalies.
I wish that the team had arranged a tougher pre-conference schedule to develop the team's skills for the always tough ECAC conference play.
 
I should have mentioned my biggest concern for the upcoming season: zero assistant coaches on board at this point!
 
I have been a supporter of Vines as head coach, and still am. I think that he has done a lot to develop the team and should be given more time.
However....there are three glaring weaknesses that he needs to correct:

1. he needs to prove that he can recruit and retain assistant coaches who will develop player skills, recruit new players, and potentially be successors
2. he needs to find a way to recruit players at top levels (e.g. US and Cdn U18). He is not alone in this failure...his predecessors were no better
3. he needs to build relationships which will result in some tough non-conference match-ups which will develop the team's skills.

What do these three things have in common? There needs to be a vision for a much higher level of competitiveness for the Engineers, and a plan to execute on that vision. I am not sure that the vision is there? It seems that we are stuck with an identity that is D3+, rather than D1.
 
Hab- As usual I agree with most everything you have posted. I do think that we will be a much better team defensively and can only help that can make up for any weakness in goal early in the season. I am hopeful that as the season progresses we find the goalie situation improving as someone settles in as the #1 and as they gain experience, become as dependable as they will need to be once we get into the always tough ECAC part of the schedule. I do think scoring will have to be more by committee than we have come to see over the past seasons but if the defense shows itself to be as good as i am expecting, we might not need as much in most contests. We may see a team that just keeps games low scoring and tight and perhaps then, anything can happen each time.
I am more concerned with the coaching situation and agree that the lack of assistants poses a real problem. Not sure where to put the blame for this but although I like coach Vines, he has to shoulder much of that responsibility. In any case, really looking forward to seeing this team on the ice. on paper they have quire a bit going for them and the size to match up with anyone. But then again as we have always said, this game is not played on paper.
 
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