Men's Hockey - Brice Alaska Goal Rush (16/17 Oct)

Right off a big upset of #1 Boston College, the Engineers were off to Alaska for a pair of games against the two teams from the Last Frontier. 0-3 all time against those schools on their home turf, RPI did quite a bit to put themselves into a position to succeed on both nights, but couldn't follow through, as uneven play and penalties in the third periods against both the Seawolves and the Nanooks doomed the Engineers to move to 0-5 against Alaskan teams in Alaska, falling 4-3 to UAA on Friday and 4-2 to UAF on Saturday.

Alaska-Anchorage
Liljegren-Bubela-Ohrvall
Melanson-Tironese-Nanne
Bourbonnais-Schroeder-Gillespie
Wood-Fulton-Clary

Bradley-Prapavessis
Wilson-Reno
Moore-Hampton

Kasdorf

A fast-paced but even first period between the Engineers and Seawolves was mostly a feeling-out for both teams, the first whistle not coming until the period was nearly half over. Shots were only 10-9 in favor of UAA, but the Seawolves earned the game's first goal with about five and a half minutes left in the opening frame as UAA's Dylan Hubbs scored to put the nominal home side ahead 1-0.

The second period was much more to RPI's liking, a dominant period for the Engineers that saw them taking a lead into the final 20. Evan Tironese scored his first collegiate goal five minutes into the second to tie the game, striking on a great give-and-go with linemate Lou Nanne. Not long after Tironese's goal, UAA began getting into a bit of penalty trouble, taking a tripping call and a kneeing call for back-to-back man advantage opportunities for the Engineers. Late in the latter penalty, RPI got a glimpse of the future as Meirs Moore, competing in his first collegiate game on the blue line as the Engineers' power play quarterback of the future, notched his first college goal to put RPI ahead 2-1.

RPI came out slow for the third period and they paid for it almost immediately. Austin Azurdia took advantage of an opening to tie the game at two just 1:24 into the third period. Seconds later, A hooking penalty to Milos Bubela put RPI on the penalty kill, a place they'd been with some frequency starting just a minute after Moore's goal had put them ahead. The Bubela penalty was killed off, and Bubela himself would score during a penalty kill minutes later to give RPI the lead back at 3-2. But a march to the box that included Nanne and Tironese gave UAA an opening, and during a 4-on-3 on Fairbanks' Olympic-sized ice surface, Seawolves freshman Wyatt Ege struck to tie the score, then just three minutes later hit again with a laser of a shot that put UAA up for good at 4-3.

Kasdorf was pulled for the final 1:15, but RPI could not find the tying goal, and despite a solid early 40 minutes, the Engineers had to swallow a loss due to poorly timed penalties and an overall sub-par effort in the final period.

Alaska
Liljegren-Bubela-Wood
Nanne-Tironese-Ohrvall
Bourbonnais-Schroeder-Gillespie
Melanson-Fulton-Clary

Bradley-Prapavessis
Wilson-Reno
Moore-Hampton

Kasdorf

Fresh off a solid performance against UAA, Jake Wood was graduated to the top line, while Drew Melanson, who has struggled to find his pace early this season, was moved to the grind line. With both Alaska schools winning on Friday night, the title was definitively out of reach, but RPI still had their sights set on what could have at least been a worthwhile victory.

The Engineers were the ones who pounced on Saturday night against the actual hosts. An early penalty against the Nanooks was cashed in on quickly by Riley Bourbonnais, who netted his team-leading third goal of the season just six seconds into the man advantage off a faceoff win by Tironese to put RPI up 1-0 3:25 into the game. Five and a half minutes later, Wood scored his first of the year on a shorthanded breakaway. With Zach Schroeder off for tripping, a UAF shot was blocked at the blue line and Wood pounced on it, giving him a long breakaway that he put home to put the Engineers up 2-0 nine minutes into the game.

From there, however, it was a slow bleed for RPI. The Nanooks had two power play chances late in the first period, including one that carried over into the second. The Engineers eventually went 6-for-6 on the penalty kill, but the penalties certainly helped swing momentum at inopportune times. The carried-over penalty helped UAF establish control early in the second period, and the home team cut the lead in half with a goal by Tayler Munson at 5:30 of the middle frame.

Another RPI penalty early in the third period set the table for the tying goal. While the Nanooks didn't score on the tripping penalty to Jared Wilson, they did put one past Jason Kasdorf 10 seconds after the penalty expired, so it's not too much of a stretch to say that the penalty at least put them in a good spot to create a scoring opportunity. Colton Sparrow's first goal of the season tied the game up, then UAF took the lead on a 4-on-4 tally four and a half minutes later as Peter Krieger scored his first of the year.

RPI looked fairly beaten at that point, even just down a goal. The Nanooks poured on the shots all night long, especially in the third period where Kasdorf made an incredible 21 saves to keep the Engineers alive. They were given a golden opportunity with 1:46 left as Zach Frye took a roughing call for UAF, but with Kasdorf out of the net on the ensuing draw in the Nanooks zone, UAF won the faceoff and proceeded to shoot the puck the length of the ice and directly into the net for the 4-2 win on Munson's second goal of the night.

Kasdorf finished with a career-high 47 saves on 49 shots, an effort that led to his being named goaltender of the tournament despite RPI's two losses.

The Engineers will be looking for a bit of home-cooking and perhaps a bit of whatever magic they had against Boston College as they come home to face another Power 5 conference ranked opponent in Michigan. It should be a raucous crowd at least for Saturday, as the game is expected to be sold out. It's not a must win by any stretch of the imagination, but they're going to have to show a little more heart up front against a top-level opponent.

RPI vs. Alaska-Anchorage
Non-conference Game - Carlson Center (Fairbanks, AK)
10/16/15 - 8:00pm

RESULT: Alaska-Anchorage 4, RPI 3

BOX SCORES
College Hockey Stats
USCHO

RECAPS
RPI
Troy Record
Fairbanks Daily News-Miner
KTUU-TV

RECORD: 1-2-0

RPI at Alaska
Non-conference Game - Carlson Center (Fairbanks, AK)
10/17/15 - 11:00pm

RESULT: Alaska 4, RPI 2

BOX SCORES
College Hockey Stats
USCHO

RECAPS
RPI
Troy Record
Fairbanks Daily News-Miner

RECORD: 1-3-0

Upcoming games
24 Oct - #11 Michigan
30 Oct - at #18 Union
31 Oct - #18 Union (Black Saturday)
06 Nov - at Clarkson
07 Nov - at #17 St. Lawrence

North of 60

And here... we... go.

The season's fully open now, and it's time to get rolling. Tonight and tomorrow, the women face off with a Robert Morris team that was thrashed by Colgate twice two weeks ago. That would be the same Colgate that claimed the last playoff spot last season. Where are the Engineers now? Well, a couple of wins over the Colonials would go a long way to proving that they're going to be in the mix when February rolls around.

The men, meanwhile, embark on their longest possible road-trip as they take a trip to the Last Frontier to showdown with the two Alaska schools in the annual Brice Alaska Goal Rush in Fairbanks. Only about 9 1/2 hours of daylight this time of year in central Alaska, and RPI's going to want to offer even less to opposing snipers if they're going to earn their first bit of hardware since the '14 Mayor's Cup (and first tournament win since the final RPI Tournament in 2010 - which would be the first trophy from outside the Capital District since the '95 ECAC crown).

Last week's win over Boston College and the women's sweep of RIT was meaningless if RPI can't build upon that experience as we start to approach the first league games. It's time to open fire.

Know Your Enemy: Alaska Anchorage

For the second time in Seth Appert's tenure at RPI - and the third time in 11 seasons - the Engineers take a long October road trip to the Last Frontier for an early season trip to one of the two Alaska fixed-schedule tournaments that open the season on top of the world. On back-to-back nights, RPI will do battle against the two Alaskan teams entering their third season as WCHA league-mates. The first night, the Engineers do battle against the more southern of the two teams by taking on Anchorage, a squad they've only seen sparingly since the Seawolves took on RPI in their first ever game on the east coast.

Alaska Anchorage
Nickname: Seawolves
Location: Anchorage, AK
Founded: 1954
Conference: WCHA
National Championships: 0
Last NCAA Appearance: 1992
Last Frozen Four: None
Coach: Matt Thomas (3rd season)
2014-15 Record: 8-22-4 (5-21-2 WCHA, 10th place)
Series: UAA leads, 2-1-0
First Game: November 23, 1981 (Troy, NY)
Last RPI win: November 23, 1981 (Troy, NY)
Last UAA win: October 16, 2009 (Fairbanks, AK)

2015-16 game: October 16, 2015 (Fairbanks, AK)

Key players: D Blake Leask, sr.; D Austin Sevalrud, sr.; F Blake Tatchell, sr.; D Chris Williams, sr.; F Brad Duwe, jr.; F Hudson Friesen, jr.; F Dylan Hubbs, jr.; D Chase Van Allen, jr.; F Matt Anholt, so.; F Austin Azurdia, so.; D Jarrett Brown, so.; F Anthony Conti, so.; F Tad Kozun, so.; G Olivier Mantha, so.; F Jeremiah Luedtke, fr.; F Jonah Renouf, fr.; F Nathan Renouf, fr.

Hockey at Anchorage got its start in 1979 under the guidance of Kelvin "Brush" Christiansen, who not only spurred the creation of a varsity program but would also serve as the team's head coach for its first 17 seasons, seeing the program through its birth through rocks and shoals and to its highest peaks thus far.

During their first season, the Seawolves participated in the Anchorage Senior League, playing only eight games against NCAA competition - all against the school's rivals from Fairbanks. UAA went 8-0 against the Nanooks in their opening year, for an officially undefeated NCAA record in 1980. The following year, playing a more full Division II schedule, UAA fell to Army in Anchorage to open the season, with the Cadets being the first non-Alaskan opponent to take on the Seawolves. Midway through the 1980-81 season, UAA ventured outside of Alaska for the first time for a six-game road trip to take on Division III programs in Minnesota and Wisconsin.

UAA's first ever trek to the east coast of the continental US took place in November 1981, starting with a game at Houston Field House against the Engineers ending in a 6-4 win for the home team. That trip was mostly against established Division I programs, and while the Division II Seawolves played well, they ultimately left empty-handed. But early in the program's development, Anchorage gained a well-earned reputation as a quality Division II side.

Division II, however, suffered from a lack of numbers. The defections of UMass-Lowell and Merrimack to Division I when Hockey East was formed helped precipitate an end to the D-II national championship, a serious blow to a UAA program that had managed a winning record in each of its first five seasons. But rather than move to a Division III schedule as many other D-II teams chose, Christiansen instead took the bold step of moving the Seawolves to Division I - a dicey prospect given the travel necessities from Alaska to the lower 48, and especially without a natural conference for UAA to join.

Christiansen led the way in creating an experiment of sorts - the Great West Hockey Conference. Banding together with three other formerly D-II teams from the far west (Alaska-Fairbanks, Northern Arizona, and U.S. International from San Diego), UAA sought to keep travel costs low by helping to grow the sport's western outposts.

Unfortunately, the Great West didn't last terribly long. Northern Arizona dropped its varsity program after the league's first year, and U.S. International dropped its team two years later. Meanwhile, the expansion of college hockey along the west coast never materialized. A two-team league being unfeasible, the two Alaska schools returned to the ranks of the independents.

But while the program was looking for a new home, it began to reach new heights even as the travel costs began to mount. With the NCAA tournament recently expanded to 12 teams in 1988, an at-large bid was earmarked for independent teams, and the Seawolves managed to cobble together a full enough and successful enough schedule to qualify with an at-large bid to the NCAA tournament in the 1990, 1991, and 1992 seasons. In 1990, UAA was blown away in two games by Lake Superior State, but the 1991 tournament brought the Seawolves to arguably their highest point as a varsity program.

Just over a decade after beginning play, Anchorage traveled to Boston College as huge underdogs against the Eagles. In a two-game, total goals series, the Seawolves managed not just one win, but two, taking down BC 3-2 and 3-1 to advance to the quarterfinal round, one step from the Frozen Four. They fell 8-5 and 5-3 to the eventual national champions from Northern Michigan, but UAA had put its stamp on the Division I map.

The following year, UAA again fell to the eventual national champions, this time dropping a single-elimination game against Lake Superior State, 7-3. Their "in" to the tournament was abolished the following season, giving greater urgency for the Seawolves to find a conference to play in. After one more year as an independent, UAA was invited to join the WCHA, giving the program some much needed schedule stability but requiring an increase in the number of trips between Alaska and the lower 48.

Having established the program he started in one of the nation's top conferences, Christiansen retired in 1996, three years into UAA's tenure in the WCHA. Under his guidance, the team had only five losing seasons - three of which were his WCHA years. But under his successors, the Seawolves would struggle to find any footing at all within the conference - a catch-22 of having the league as a safety latch for the program, but the super-competitive nature of the league making it difficult for UAA to find success.

Christiansen's successor, Dean Talafous, managed to crack 10 wins only twice in five years. John Hill then did this twice in three years, but those seasons bookmarked a horrible 2002-03 campaign in which UAA managed just a single, solitary win through an entire season, that one win coming in the very first game of the season against Fairbanks. The record winless streak to end the season was a mind numbing 35 consecutive games.

The following year, UAA made a playoff breakthrough by upsetting Wisconsin in the first round of the WCHA playoffs, then taking down Colorado College in the play-in game of the WCHA Final Five. Hill then left to return to an assistant's role at Minnesota, and Dave Shyiak took the helm. The same usual script continued: a bottom-of-the-barrel finish, a first-round matchup on the road, an early exit. Other than a historic two-game upset sweep at Minnesota in 2011 which sent UAA to the Final Five for a second time, that script followed exactly the same throughout Shyiak's tenure through 2013.

The reasoning was fairly simple. UAA was a minnow in a league of sharks, at a serious disadvantage in recruiting given the distance of the school from the core of the league in Minnesota and Colorado. In each of its 19 seasons in the WCHA, the Seawolves had finished with a losing record, only once coming as close as two wins under .500. But as Shyiak departed in 2013, that metric began to shake a bit. As the college hockey landscape shifted with the advent of the Big Ten and the NCHC, the sharks of the WCHA mostly swam off for those conferences, leaving a playing field that UAA could better handle.

2013-14 was a landmark season for UAA's post-independent existence. With Matt Thomas now coaching, the Seawolves finished with a winning record for the first time since 1993, and although they still had to travel on the road for the first round of the playoffs, they at least played their first ever playoff series in Alaska by taking on arch-rivals Fairbanks, one of the new arrivals in the WCHA following the shakeup. They won that series in three games, then took Ferris State to overtime in the WCHA semifinals - literally a goal away from playing for an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament.

Last year, however, the Seawolves backslid a bit. For the third time in four seasons, and the 10th time since joining the WCHA, UAA finished a season with fewer than 10 wins. The new WCHA may prove to give Anchorage more than a fighting chance eventually, but it's clear the program still has obstacles to overcome.

Two current members of the Washington Capitals, Curtis Glencross and Jay Beagle, played their collegiate hockey at UAA, but neither stuck around very long, both leaving after their sophomore seaasons. Among UAA alums who had more than just a cup of coffee in the NHL, none stayed for four years.

As bad as they were last season, UAA was still arguably better than RPI when one looks at the raw numbers. The Seawolves outpaced the Engineers in goals per game and had better defense and special teams. Tatchell paced Anchorage in scoring with seven goals and 15 assists, while Azurdia tied for the lead in goals with eight.

Among the more interesting additions to the UAA roster this year are the Renouf twins, Jonah and Nathan. The Ontario natives enrolled at Quinnipiac last season (where they love twins - see also the Jones twins), but for some reason never saw action in a game and transferred to Alaska-Anchorage. We'll have to see if there was a good reason Rand Pecknold never had them in a game, but they appeared ready to be solid contributors at the Q heading into last season, so if that potential blossoms in Anchorage instead, they could be big additions for the Seawolves.

The ice in Fairbanks is Olympic-sized, as it is in Anchorage. That's not a killer - RPI won a game they played on Olympic ice last year in New Hampshire - but it's an advantage for UAA. They are the nominal home team, although Fairbanks partisans who come out for the game may find a sudden affinity for the Engineers they never knew they had thanks to the bitter rivalry they share with Anchorage. RPI is likely to be improved from last year. If UAA can claim the same thing it should make for a great game, all things considered. As we'll surely mention throughout this series, having a netminder who has a proven ability to steal a game is a benefit the Engineers enjoy, but don't be surprised to see this as a spot where Alec Dillon may make his RPI debut as well.

Hacking the PairWise

What happens when you combine a mathematically defined system for selecting the NCAA field, the oldest technological university in the English-speaking world, and two weeks of waiting around to see if said university (or Institute, if you prefer) is going to get a bid to the tournament?

Well, you get this: a program that runs all of the permutations heading into the final three days of games before the field is chosen.

Reilly Hamilton, an enterprising CompSci/Economics major from RPI's Class of 2012 (and a key component of RPI TV's broadcasts as president), took it upon himself to write a program that essentially played the remaining 19 games to each potential overall result, then weighted those results using KRACH, the best statistic available for determining the likelihood of one team beating another (which we've discussed here before).

Those results can be found here. They include numbers for every team that is either still playing or can still potentially make the tournament. If your team isn't listed here... sorry. Your season's definitively over.

Now, this isn't perfect for a couple of reasons. First, in these calculations, KRACH doesn't change as the games are played. To do that would require a whole new set of calculations taking up a heck of a lot more time... and the games start tonight, so time is something we don't have a lot of. The second is that KRACH really doesn't have a good way of predicting the likelihood of a tie, and there are two games this weekend - the ECAC and CCHA consolation games - that could potentially end in a tie. But they are at the very least a rough estimate of the likelihood of teams making the tournament, and what seed they're likely to be.

The unweighted listings are very simple: they are a list of the total number of scenarios that could result after the 19 games this weekend are played.

Since we're an RPI-centric site, here are the Engineers' results. They are in the tournament in permutations listed in green, out in the ones listed in red.

Seed	Weighted	Unweighted	Permutations
10	0.0005%	0.0058%	68
11	0.4574%	1.5599%	18401
12	7.8356%	12.7865%	150836
13	19.9679%	24.7119%	291514
14	28.6039%	27.0253%	318803
15	24.5002%	8.2914%	97809
Seed	Weighted	Unweighted	Permutations
13	0.0062%	0.5383%	6350
14	0.3022%	4.4988%	53070
15	5.2459%	13.6443%	160955
16	11.2954%	6.4567%	76166
17	1.7260%	0.4508%	5318
18	0.0583%	0.0299%	353
19	0.0005%	0.0004%	5

As you can see, RPI could finish as high as 10th in the PWR, but that's not only highly unlikely (68 possible scenarios out of 1,179,648 overall scenarios), the situation is also fairly fanciful, because the weighted percentage is less than the unweighted percentage.

A simple way to explain this is to look at Colgate's tournament chances. Given that they will only be in the tournament if they win the ECAC title, their unweighted chances of making the tournament are 25%, because in 25% of the possible scenarios, they win the ECAC tournament. However, not all teams are created equal, and in the scope of the entirety of the season, their chances of actually winning the tournament isn't really great.

With that said, the Engineers, according to this model have an 81.3656% chance of playing next weekend. Slightly better than 4 in 5? What's not to be excited about there? It's not a given, which would be better, but beggars can't be choosers. Their unweighted chances are 74.3808%, which means that even if you treated every scenario as being equally likely, they're still in almost 3 times out of 4.

This analysis proves what we already knew about teams that are already in the tournament: Yale, North Dakota, Boston College, Miami, Michigan, Denver, Union, Merrimack, and Minnesota-Duluth can't miss the tournament.

It also shows that the bandied about scenarios of Notre Dame or New Hampshire missing the tournament are extremely fanciful. Barring something extremely, extremely unlikely, both teams are in.

Nebraska-Omaha, for all of its problems, is also almost certainly in.

That leaves the teams that are firmly on the bubble, and that's RPI, Western Michigan, Colorado College, and Dartmouth. Depending on the number of upset champions, there will be between 0 and 3 at-large bids that will go to these teams, discounting the fact that BU, Alaska-Anchorage, and Maine are also alive in this group but with much worse chances of making it. Of that group, the Engineers stand the best chance of emerging in the tournament field. That's a wonderful place to be.

So special thanks to Reilly Hamilton for putting in the time and effort needed to create this program. He has promised some updates over the course of the weekend, and we'll be glad to bring them to you here.

Go Seawolves (tonight)!