What If: Wait Until Next Year

* August 2010: Brandon Pirri and Jerry D'Amigo sign NHL contracts shortly before the beginning of their sophomore seasons

Taio Cruz - Break Your Heart


For a program that was in desperate need of salvation, Brandon Pirri and Jerry D'Amigo seemed like godsends - and despite a bitter ending to an otherwise successful season, better days were certainly on the horizon. Given all the things RPI fans were expecting to happen in the offseason following the team's bitter Game 3 loss to last-place Brown, the 2010-11 season was full of all kinds of hopes and dreams.

The first three seasons of the Seth Appert era were difficult to say the least. Making it clear early on that he intended to start essentially from scratch and build the program into prosperity with his own recruits, the team went 31-68-14 between 2007 and 2009, bottoming out in the third season with a .282 winning percentage that was the second lowest in the modern era, ahead of only the 3-19-0 season of 1965-66.

That 2009 result was deflating for a lot of RPI fans. After all, the new coach by that point was now at the head of a team that was comprised more than half of its roster with players he had recruited. There was little question that sophomores Chase Polacek and Tyler Helfrich were the heart of the offense, but team defense continued to suffer by and large.

Hope, it seemed, was on the way in the form of three prized forward recruits that had been landed just ahead of that dismal season. The first was a small forward from Ontario who could score in bunches, Jacob Laliberte, who committed in February 2008. Then came two big names at the almost same time - Jerry D'Amigo, who would play the 2008-09 season for USA Hockey's Under-18 program, who committed in July, and then the talented Brandon Pirri, a somewhat larger forward from Ontario who could also score in bunches.

Laliberte, who would have turned 19 just before the 2009-11 season got underway, was eventually pushed back a year, but the arrival of D'Amigo and Pirri as boosters for Polacek, Helfrich, and freshman standout Patrick Cullen certainly mitigated that move significantly, with interest piquing after Pirri was selected late in the second round of the NHL Entry Draft that summer, followed by D'Amigo's selection in the sixth round, not to mention the head-turning he did at the US Junior camp in Lake Placid that summer.

The season got off to a slow start as RPI put together a 1-2-1 record in its first four games and then posted lackluster wins against Sacred Heart and American International on back-to-back nights. A dramatic come-from-behind win in Schenectady over Union was overshadowed the next night by a loss to Army on Halloween night which concluded a lackluster October.

Hope began to spring in November with the ECAC schedule getting underway, as the Engineers whipped off wins against Yale, Brown, and Clarkson to start the league season 3-0, the first time the team had accomplished the task since the ECAC championship season of 1995. They then jumped out to a 1-0 lead over St. Lawrence, only two give up two goals in the span of 1:49 in the third period to lose 2-1. That would be the first of six losses in the team's next seven games, including four ECAC games, which sunk those early high hopes, especially given that the other three league games were all in Troy.

In December, D'Amigo was invited to join the US junior team in Canada, and he not only played, he starred on a team that defeated Canada for the gold medal. By the time he returned to Troy in January, his stock had risen significantly, and it coincided with a rise in the team's performance.

Things slowly cranked back up in mid-December. After an upset over BU in Boston, RPI took down Michigan in the first round of the Great Lakes Invitational and then swept the Quinnipiac/Princeton road trip. Between New Year's Day and Freakout, RPI put up a 7-3-2 record that put the team right back in contention for a first round bye. By this point, people were well aware of D'Amigo and Pirri as potential rookie of the year candidates, and Polacek was becoming a legitimate Hobey Baker candidate himself.

Then came Freakout, which was also senior night, and the Engineers could not have played more poorly. With sophomore goaltender Allen York out with an injury, Princeton destroyed RPI 7-0 and dealt a serious setback to the Engineers' first-round bye hopes. A one-point weekend in Central New York sealed the Engineers' fate, they would be the sixth seed after losing a tiebreak with St. Lawrence for fifth place.

Then, the Brown debacle. After a terrible third period performance in Game 1 put RPI down in the series, a 4-1 win in Game 2 forced the a deciding Game 3 - but the Engineers were flat as could be in that contest, falling behind 3-0 early in the third period. Two third period goals were too little, too late, and the turnaround season ended with an upset loss.

But, fortunately, another talented freshman class was waiting in the wings, chock full of defensive strength and, of course, Laliberte.

In August, as the team was getting ready to congeal again for the season, word came from Lake Placid - where D'Amigo was training again for the World Juniors - that the rising sophomore had gained a good 20 pounds of muscle during the offseason, and that Toronto, who had drafted him a year earlier, was impressed with his Rookie of the Year season and previous WJC exploits. After camp ended, D'Amigo was offered the money, and he signed.

It was certainly a blow to the team to lose D'Amigo that early - after his successful freshman year, few thought he would stay through his senior season, but almost no one thought he'd leave before his sophomore year - but conventional wisdom had it that as long as Pirri was in the mix, RPI was going to be OK. Then Pirri was a conspicuous absence at captain's practices, and before long, he had signed a professional deal as well.

The departure of the freshmen actually made up two of a series of events we deemed the "summer from hell" that drastically changed the 2010-11 Engineers from what expectations had been at the end of the 2009-10 season. Assistant coach Jim Montgomery left the program to restart the Dubuque Fighting Saints in the USHL, prized defensive recruit Nick Quinn first pushed his arrival in Troy back a year and the decommitted altogether (ending up in the OHL), and Laliberte had his arrival in Troy pushed back for a second year in a row. That let a lot of the air out of high expectations for 2011 that had some pegging RPI as the top contender to Yale's dominance of the league table.

Pirri's departure was chalked up to the roster issues that Chicago, the Stanley Cup champions, had after being forced to let go of many of its role players to be able to afford some of the hefty contracts they'd taken on to make their championship run, but in all likelihood, D'Amigo's departure only hastened Pirri all the more. D'Amigo ultimately struggled in the AHL in 2011, eventually being sent to play in the OHL, while Pirri spent nearly the entire season in the AHL, save a single NHL game which extended RPI's streak of alums playing in the big leagues.

Despite diminished expectations, the Engineers still ended up having a phenomenal 2011. They chased after and picked up the team's first NCAA bid since 1995, and were nearly unbeatable at home - they won their first seven home games in a row, and didn't have a regulation loss at home until the final week of the regular season - which, as it turned out, could have helped them gain the first-round bye if they'd have had any other result in that contest. Overall, RPI went 14-3-1 between mid-November and early February, a showing for much of the season that helped them back into the NCAA tournament despite a 2-6-1 conclusion to the year.

How would the 2010-11 Engineers have fared if the "summer from hell" had never taken place? What if Toronto had told D'Amigo to hone his skills in Troy for another year to see if his skill level would catch up with his bigger size?

D'Amigo had a difficult first season in the pros, but it may have been portended by a rough WJC camp that summer, which had been chalked up to the attention Toronto had been giving him at the time. He may have been destined for a down year, but night-in and night-out at RPI is still a touch easier than the AHL or even the World Junior camp. Polacek managed to be a Hobey Baker candidate for a second straight season even without the pair, and Allen York came into his own as a top-tier goaltender as well.

Whatever kind of seasons Pirri and D'Amigo would have had in Troy in 2011, you have to think their presence would have boosted the Engineers in close games that were either tied or lost. That by itself likely would have been enough to boost RPI into a top four position in the ECAC playoffs, and probably would have made an NCAA bid more of a sure thing rather than the edge-of-your-seat waiting game that took place for two weeks after being upset by Colgate (which may have helped them get the bid, ironically).

Without considering how RPI would have fared in the ECAC tournament, the boost would surely have been enough to improve the team's draw for the NCAAs. Being matched up with the odds-on favorites for the national championship is never easy (and unfortunately, York wasn't in a good position to channel his inner Jon Casey against North Dakota).

Could that have produced at least the team's first NCAA goal since George Servinis, or perhaps even a first round win? I'd like to think that adding Pirri and D'Amigo to the NCAA roster combined with a less difficult first round opponent would have made the first likely, and the second one very, very possible.

Some have wistfully commented that given the actual turnout of the 2011 season, RPI could have been a Frozen Four team if not for the "summer from hell." It's certainly going too far to peg that as some kind of sure thing, but even to be able to say that such an event was even in the realm of the possible is an intriguing "what if" to chew on.

Beyond 2011, there's little likelihood either player would have ever been playing this season, as seniors, for the Engineers. After the 2010 season, most figured Pirri would stick around one more year, and D'Amigo two at the most.

To some extent, we are still seeing the fallout from the departure of Pirri and D'Amigo today through the depleted nature of this year's senior class. It's had a certain effect on recruiting, in all likelihood, too. While the fab frosh electrified Troy and got boosters dreaming of bigger things, their one season did not have the same impact as a player like Chase Polacek, whose career was overlooked by the NHL, allowing him to be a solid four-year contributor in Troy - or even Jeremy Welsh, who was a freshman at Union during Pirri and D'Amigo's lone year at RPI. Arguably, Welsh contributed more to Union's success by being undrafted and staying three years than Pirri and D'Amigo contributed at RPI.

As a positive aspect, though, their early success and quick professional attention at least portrayed RPI as a place serious hockey prospects could consider as a place to develop both the mind and body - something, however, that would have been enhanced had they stayed an extra year.

Hero #2: Chase Polacek

Chase Polacek owns Eric Mihalik, it's true. He scored twice on the hapless Colgate goaltender last night, putting the puck behind the freshman for the third and fourth time this season.

Unfortunately, every hero needs a solid contribution from the supporting cast, and that didn't happen last night. Now, we're in need of another one tonight or the season could be over.

Who's ready to take that mantle?

Hobey Polacek Revisited

The chants have returned. "Ho-bey Ba-ker!" reverberated around the sold-out Houston Field House last weekend as Chase Polacek scored his 150th point as an Engineer with a power play goal to give RPI a 4-1 lead over #1 Yale in the Big Red Freakout! on Saturday. It was his fifth consecutive game with a goal, and helped increase the winning streak to... five. Coincidence?

About this time last year, I wrote about Polacek's potential candidacy for the Hobey Baker Award and figured that he'd make the list of 10 finalists, but would go no further than that, and that turned out to be what happened.

This year, things are a little bit different. This time, I could see Chase as the Hobey Baker winner - assuming, of course, that he continues to play the way he's been playing for the next month and a half.

What's the difference from this year to last year? A lot of the things I spoke about last year have changed. Last year, I noted that only three members of non-NCAA tournament teams have won the Hobey. That's still true, but unlike last year, RPI is well positioned for an NCAA tournament berth.

I noted the difficulty of an ECAC player winning the award. Still true - but you'd have to have your head in the sand not to notice the incredible season the league is having, with five teams currently ranked in the top 20. That mitigates things a little bit.

But first and foremost, as good of a season as Polacek was having last year, he's practically surpassing that this year, and without the "assistance" of Brandon Pirri and Jerry D'Amigo, who some posited were opening up the opportunities for Chase. Some scoffed before the season started when Seth Appert said that it was Chase who made Brandon and Jerry go, not the other way around. Chase had 1.33 points per game at the end of last season. As of right now, he's scoring at 1.50 points per game this season. Certainly looks like Appert was telling the truth, doesn't it?

He's also the only returning finalist putting up better numbers than last year. Maine's Gustav Nyquist is the only other finalist from last year still playing college hockey, and his numbers, while still pretty outstanding, are off from last year when he led the nation in scoring and still did not claim the Hobey. This season, Nyquist has only six goals in 24 games as opposed to 19 in 39 last year, and while he made most of his points off of assists last year as well, is off the pace with 22 assists in 24 games where he had 42 in 39 last season.

This isn't to say that Chase is a shoo-in for the Hobey or even the Hobey Hat Trick. But as compared to last season, he is much better positioned to contend for the actual award rather than merely being honored as a Finalist (and eventually, a First Team All-American). I'll break down the Hobey race later this month.

What about Allen York, you ask? Yes, Allen is having a tremendous year, but that isn't enough when you're a goaltender. Fair or not, you have to have more than just a sensational season between the pipes to claim the Hobey Baker, you have to be head and shoulders above every other goaltender. That, unfortunately, is not the case with Allen. He may have an outside shot at being a finalist (which would be truly unique, as RPI, to my knowledge, has never had two Hobey finalists in the same year), but that's about as far as it'll go unless he somehow begins some epic shutout streak or something along those lines to really bring attention to himself.

Regardless, you should take the time to visit the Hobey Baker site and help stuff the ballot box for Chase and Allen. Does it mean anything? Eh, not really. But maybe it'll get some casual observers to take a second look at the men of Troy.

Men's Hockey - Brown and Yale (28/29 Jan)

The Engineers are officially on a roll. For the first time since February 2002 - in a stretch that included the immortal Freakout! victory over Clarkson - RPI has won five consecutive ECAC games. They kept things going in impressive fashion this weekend, completing the season sweep of Brown with their second shutout of the season on Friday, 3-0, ahead of the Big Red Freakout! matchup with top-ranked Yale, earning their first victory over the national #1 in 15 years (Vermont in 1995-96), 5-2 in front of a sold-out crowd.

Brown
Angers-Goulet/O'Grady/Brutlag
Cullen/Higgs/Rabbani
Lee/Polacek/Helfrich
Tinordi/Rogic/Malchuk

Bergin/Foss
Kennedy/Dolan
Leboeuf/Bailen

York

John Kennedy returned to the lineup after missing just one game, giving RPI a full complement of skaters to choose from again. There had been some drama during the week as to whether he'd play, with Appert deeming him "50-50" and Kennedy deeming himself "95 percent," but the captain did in fact return to the lineup.

Brown returned to Houston Field House for the first time since their upset 3-game playoff victory over RPI last March, but were playing against what was clearly a better RPI team than last season's.

The Bears came up shooting throughout the game, but the Engineers were first on the board for the fourth straight game. A kneeing call against Jeff Foss was canceled out by penalty to Brown's Harry Zolnierczyk for running Allen York about a minute into the Brown power play. Seconds later, Jack Maclellan was called for slashing York during the ensuing 4-on-4, giving RPI a 4-on-3 that eventually became a 5-on-3 when Foss exited the box. With time running down on Zolnierczyk's penalty, Chase Polacek scored his 15th goal of the season, stretching his goal-scoring streak to four in a row, making it 1-0 Engineers.

Zolnierczyk would get his team in trouble again just over three minutes later, this time with a tripping penalty, and again the Engineers responded. Bryan Brutlag scored just about 30 seconds into the penalty to give RPI a 2-0 edge heading into the second period.

The rest of the game was basically the Allen York show. After Brutlag's goal in the first period, Brown had four full power play opportunities, but could not score thanks to York, who made 36 saves on as many shots to preserve the shutout. Tyler Helfrich scored an empty netter with just over two minutes to play to seal the win. Notably, Zolnierczyk took a penalty at 19:59 of the third period, but the Engineers couldn't complete the hat-trick of goals with the Brown captain in the penalty box.

The win, coupled with Dartmouth's tie with Cornell, moved the Engineers into a tie for 4th place in the ECAC, a bye position, with RPI winning the tiebreaker with the Big Green thanks to their season sweep of Dartmouth that was completed the previous weekend.

Yale
Angers-Goulet/O'Grady/Brutlag
Cullen/Higgs/Rabbani
Lee/Polacek/Helfrich
Burgdoerfer/Rogic/Malchuk

Kennedy/Dolan
Bergin/Foss
Koudys/Bailen

York

It appears that Burgdoerfer and Tinordi are becoming somewhat interchangeable in the lineup and for good reason - they are fairly similar players.

Yale had already been upset on the weekend heading into Troy as they dropped a one-goal decision to Union in Schenectady on Friday. Conventional wisdom had it that Yale wasn't going to lose two games in a row, but the Engineers, straight out of the gate, had other plans.

Yale's Nick Jaskowiak took the game's first penalty just 1:44 in on a hooking call, and though it took RPI nearly the entire two minutes to score, they did with 10 seconds remaining on the penalty as Patrick Cullen scored to put the Engineers ahead 1-0.

From there, however, Yale displayed exactly why it was the #1 team in the country, maintaining excellent puck possession for basically the next 30 minutes of the game, and keeping RPI bottled up in its own end with an amazing forecheck that more often than not kept the Engineers from getting very far with the puck even when they did have it. But as amazing as the Yale forecheck was, Allen York was even more impressive. Totally dialed in, York made a number of instinctive saves and had tremendous puck awareness all night long.

He needed to be sharp in the second period, as the Engineers began a procession to the penalty box that included a stretch of nearly four straight minutes after consecutive penalties to C.J. Lee and Chase Polacek (with a 10 second overlap of 5x3). RPI killed those penalties, and also killed a delay of game call against Johnny Rogic after Rogic popped the net off its moorings during yet another feverish Yale rush.

Eventually, the penalties became a touch too much. Almost a minute-and-a-half into an elbowing call against Greg Burgdoerfer, Yale finally put one behind York, tying the game at one. From there, the Engineers could have broken, given how dominant Yale had been practically since Cullen's goal.

But that didn't happen. Instead, RPI turned things the other way, assisted by a Yale penalty. Josh Rabbani notched his third goal of the year on a nice deke move in front of the net on the ensuing power play, putting the Engineers back on top 2-1 heading into the third period, but with the game still very much in doubt as it was one of only 3 RPI shots during the middle frame, and they had only 9 through 40 minutes. Such was the puck domination of the Bulldogs.

A fortuitous sequence of events early in the third period put the Engineers in firm control of the scoreboard despite the play on the ice. With Allen York off the ice on a delayed holding penalty against Yale's Ken Trentowski, Brock Higgs scored his fifth goal of the season to give RPI a two-goal cushion. The new rule put in place this season requires penalties to be assessed even if a goal is scored in a delayed situation, so Trentowski went to the box for two minutes and RPI, fresh off their goal, went straight to the power play.

Not even a minute after Higgs had put RPI up by two, Polacek made it five straight with a goal, improbably putting the Engineers up 4-1 despite all of their struggles and required big defense throughout the game. The goal also chased Ryan Rondeau, who has been Yale's stalwart in net all year, after giving up four goals on 12 total shots.

Late in the game, York took offense to Yale's Chris Cahill operating around the net and dropped his stick to go after the Bulldog senior. That netted him an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty, and the Bulldogs converted with 2:15 left in the game to cut the RPI lead to 4-2. That gave Yale the opening they needed to pull their backup goaltender, Nick Maricic, but 37 seconds after the net was vacated, C.J. Lee scored RPI's second empty netter of the weekend to put the seal on a 5-2 victory over the best team in the nation.

Allen York was nothing short of fantastic. He made 38 saves on 40 shots, making it an eye popping 74 saves on 76 shots for the weekend. The win snapped RPI's Freakout! losing streak at three, and ended the winless streak at four. It also represented RPI's third win in four tries against the Bulldogs, who saw their quest for a third consecutive Cleary Cup thrown into a little bit of doubt, as they now sit just one point ahead of Union in the ECAC standings.

The Engineers completed their big homestand 4-for-4, and now hit the road to face Quinnipiac and Princeton, the only two ECAC teams they have yet to see this year. The Bobcats have been all over the map but still could be a challenge, especially at home. Princeton, meanwhile, is surprising many of the experts and having a fantastic season, they currently sit in third in the ECAC and have been nationally ranked for three straight weeks. They present RPI's greatest remaining road challenge during the remainder of regular season.

Other junk - Five wins in a row will usually see you rising in the polls. Beating the reigning #1 does that too. The Engineers moved up to their highest position yet this season and are now ranked #9 in the country following their sweep. Yale being swept predictably moved them out of the #1 position, down to #3 in the nation with 2 first place votes. Other ranked teams are #11 Union (up two, swept Yale/Brown), #17 Dartmouth (up one, tied Cornell and beat Colgate), and #19 Princeton (no change, swept Clarkson/St. Lawrence). #14 Boston University (up two) and #20 Colorado College (no change) are also ranked this week. Also receiving votes were Northeastern (4), RIT (2), Niagara (1) and Quinnipiac (1).

Chase Polacek followed up his ECAC Player of the Week performance (in which he had 3 goals and 1 assist) with a 2 goal, 3 assist effort this week. His power play goal in the Freakout! made him the 21st Engineer to reach 150 points for his career, and his assist on Lee's empty-netter gives him 151 points. Barry Martinelli '76 currently occupies 20th with 155 points, followed by Larry Landon '81 in 19th with 157.

Chase is unlikely to catch Miami's Andy Miele (49) or Carter Camper (46) for the national point scoring lead (they feed off each other on the same line), but he is now 5th in the nation in points per game with 1.50, and is tied for 4th in the nation in points 39 for the year.

Allen York, meanwhile, also improved on his numbers from last week, when he was ECAC Goaltender of the Week. He earned his second shutout of the year against Brown, and didn't allow a single even-strength tally against the #1 team in the nation against Yale, making 38 saves on 40 shots.

The Engineers are currently 9th in the nation in KRACH and second in the ECAC, meaning that from this vantage point (that is, from right now), they would be favored in every remaining game they play for the remainder of the regular season.

ECAC Standings
1. Yale - 11-3-0 (22 pts)
2. Union - 10-3-1 (21 pts)
3. Princeton - 9-4-1 (19 pts)
4. RPI - 9-5-0 (18 pts)
5. Dartmouth - 8-4-2 (18 pts)
6. Cornell - 7-5-2 (16 pts)
7. Quinnipiac - 6-6-3 (15 pts)
8. Clarkson - 6-6-1 (13 pts)
9. Brown - 5-8-1 (11 pts)
10. St. Lawrence - 3-9-1 (7 pts)
11. Harvard - 3-12-0 (6 pts)
12. Colgate - 0-12-2 (2 pts)

Adjusted Standings
1. Yale (.786)
2. Union (.750)
3. Princeton (.679)
4. RPI (.643)
5. Dartmouth (.643)
6. Cornell (.571)
7. Clarkson (.500)
8. Quinnipiac (.500)
9. Brown (.393)
10. St. Lawrence (.269)
11. Harvard (.200)
12. Colgate (.071)

Brown at #10 RPI
ECAC Game - Houston Field House (Troy, NY)
1/28/11 - 7:00pm

RESULT: RPI 3, Brown 0

BOX SCORES
College Hockey Stats
USCHO

RECAPS
RPI
Troy Record
Albany Times Union

VIDEO
RPI TV (full game)
YouTube (goals, no audio)
YouTube (post game press conference)

RECORD: 16-6-3 (8-5-0 ECAC, 16 pts)

Reale Deals
1. F Tyler Helfrich, 1 G, 2 A
2. G Allen York, 36 saves
3. F Chase Polacek, 1 G, 1 A

#1 Yale at #10 RPI
ECAC Game - Houston Field House (Troy, NY)
1/29/11 - 7:00pm

RESULT: RPI 5, Yale 2

BOX SCORES
College Hockey Stats
USCHO

RECAPS
RPI
Troy Record
Albany Times Union
Yale Daily News
College Hockey News

VIDEO
YouTube (highlights, all goals plus big York saves, no audio)
YouTube (post game press-conference)
YouTube (York penalty)
YouTube (fan video)
YouTube (post-game celebration)

RECORD: 17-6-3 (9-5-0 ECAC, 18 pts)

Reale Deals
1. G Allen York, 38 saves
2. F Chase Polacek, 1 G, 2 A
3. F Josh Rabbani, 1 G, 1 A

Upcoming games
04 Feb - at Quinnipiac
05 Feb - at #19 Princeton
11 Feb - Colgate
12 Feb - Cornell
18 Feb - at St. Lawrence

Men's Hockey - Harvard and Dartmouth (21/22 Jan)

Finally, the Engineers have a weekend sweep in the ECAC after six tries, but it didn't come down the way most people expected it would. The Engineers had to battle to get a 3-2 win over Harvard, but then dominated against #18 Dartmouth in what was probably the team's most complete game of the season to earn a 5-1 victory over the Big Green.

Harvard
Angers-Goulet/Malchuk/Brutlag
Cullen/Higgs/Rabbani
O'Grady/Polacek/Helfrich
Tinordi/Rogic/Smith

Bergin/Foss
Koudys/Dolan
Bailen/Kennedy

York

C.J. Lee's suspension and Scott Halpern's continuing ankle injury were the only major issues in crafting a lineup on Friday, as Marty O'Grady and Bryan Brutlag returned to the lineup - both missing only one game in the end after O'Grady volunteered to play relatively hurt against Colgate in place of Brutlag, who had no lingering effects of being knocked out against Cornell. Brock Higgs also made his valiant return to the lineup after being out for nearly a month with that scary throat cut.

Given what was to come, the first 10 minutes were pretty uninteresting. No goals, no penalties, not an awful lot of shots coming from either direction. The first notable event of the game came 13 minutes into the contest, when Patrick Cullen picked up the deflection from a weak pass by Josh Rabbani for his third goal of the season, giving RPI a 1-0 lead on a goal that Harvard's Kyle Richter is probably still kicking himself over.

Speaking of goals to kick yourself over, Allen York proceeded to give up an even worse one with less than 20 seconds left in the first period. Going behind the net to grab a loose puck, he misplayed it to the left side of his cage, where it was scooped up by Harvard's Michael Del Mauro, who promptly stuck it in the empty net to make it 1-1 going into the 1st intermission.

The beginning of the second period, however, became a showcase for the best player in Troy. Two minutes into the period during a 4-on-4, Brock Higgs stole the puck right in the middle of the Harvard zone while forechecking. Higgs promptly fed it to Polacek, who rifled it into the net in an impromptu 2-on-1 following a Harvard breakout attempt, making it 2-1 RPI. A minute and a half later, it basically happened again in a very similar fashion. The RPI forecheck managed to keep Harvard from clearing the zone, and this time it was Nick Bailen getting the steal after an excellent check by Alex Angers-Goulet. Bailen made a cross-ice pass to Polacek, who then used a screen by Angers-Goulet to score his second goal in 1:37 of game time, his 13th of the season, to put RPI up 3-2.

To that point in the game, there had been just three penalties called - one on RPI in the 1st, and matching minors early in the 2nd that created the 4-on-4 situation. But the remainder of the game would be marred by the penalties that were called - seven on RPI, and only one on Harvard (for too many men). The Engineers managed to get by on the two calls during the second period, but a number of questionable calls in the third period finally proved to be too much to handle. Shortly after killing an interference call against Joel Malchuk that was made just 10 seconds into the third, RPI found themselves in a tight spot with Angers-Goulet and Polacek, arguably the two best penalty killers on the team, called for penalties 9 seconds apart. The ensuing 5-on-3 was almost killed off, but there's only so much you can do when you've got three guys out there that have been killing penalties for most of the period. Pier-Oliver Michaud scored his first goal of the year with less than 15 seconds left on the 5-on-3 to bring Harvard within one.

The Harvard penalty for too many men gave RPI its only power play chance of the game, which they did not convert. True to form, Bryan Hicks gave Harvard a pair of opportunities to tie the game on the power play late, including one late enough for Ted Donato to pull Richter from the net to create a 6-on-4. The Engineers survived the late onslaught, and Allen York made 17 saves in the 3rd period alone to help preserve the win for RPI. The Engineers had only 3 shots of their own in the final 20 minutes.

Dartmouth
Angers-Goulet/O'Grady/Brutlag
Cullen/Higgs/Rabbani
Lee/Polacek/Helfrich
Burgdoerfer/Rogic/Malchuk

Bergin/Foss
Koudys/Dolan
Leboeuf/Bailen

York

The only real lineup differences for Saturday were C.J. Lee's reinsertion following the end of his suspension, Greg Burgdoerfer playing in place of Matt Tinordi, and John Kennedy, who suffered an ankle injury late in the Harvard game - his timetable for return is unknown. It could be this Friday, or he could be out for a while.

Immediately after the Harvard game, the players told the media that they knew they'd need to play better against Dartmouth, who jumped on Union for three goals in 10:10 on Friday night to issue the Dutchmen their first home loss of the season. That's essentially what happened for RPI, even right out of the gate. Just 2:20 into the 1st, the Engineers got themselves on the board first for the third straight game as Johnny Rogic zoomed up the left wing, taking a quick shot before going behind the net that was scooped up and put in the net by Joel Malchuk, scoring his fourth of the year to put RPI up 1-0.

Excellent puck control in the first period led to an 11-8 edge in shots for the Engineers after one period, and that generally carried over into the second period despite continued penalty issues that saw the Big Green getting four power play chances by the time the game was 28 minutes old. The RPI penalty kill held up throughout, allowing the Engineers the opportunity to go up two on their next power play chance.

A cross-ice feed through the slot from Nick Bailen to Chase Polacek was one-timed in just below the faceoff dot for another impressive goal from the senior assistant captain about a minute into RPI's third man advantage of the night, putting the Engineers up 2-0.

About four minutes later, it was Dartmouth's turn to start getting in penalty trouble, as the Engineers gained a 5-on-3 for over a minute that was eventually - after much patience - converted by Brock Higgs, scoring his first goal since his return to the ice with a one-timer on the doorstep from a pass by Polacek to give RPI a commanding 3-0 lead. That lead would increase just over two minutes later when Rabbani fed Angers-Goulet while the latter was crashing the net to make it 4-0 after two. James Mello, who had been a rock in net for Dartmouth, was pulled during the second intermission in favor of Jody O'Neill, who the Engineers had beaten in Hanover in November.

Dartmouth got one back early in the third period off an odd end-board bounce that left Allen York out of position, but it was the only goal they would get on the night. RPI got their 4-goal lead back midway through the third when Joel Malchuk, rushing out of the penalty box after a kill, reached the puck to get icing waved off and then poked it around O'Neill, who had wandered behind the net to go after it. O'Neill raced back to the crease, but couldn't position himself in time for Marty O'Grady's one-timer in the slot from Malchuk's pass.

Of the three goals York gave up on the weekend, the first was his fault but pretty fluky, the second was after a long 5-on-3, and the third was just a bad bounce in a game RPI had well in hand. Defensively, the Engineers did pretty well, and they broke out of their offensive shell with eight goals in two games. That'll help gain weekend sweeps more often than not.

The big homestand continues this weekend with another pair of huge games. Brown, an odd team with some very big wins (BU and Yale come to mind) and some head-scratching losses (they're still under .500 and got owned at home by RPI) comes into town in what is an important game for the Engineers to win for a number of reasons. That's followed by what could become one of the freakiest Freakouts in the history of Freakout, as the Engineers welcome the #1 team in this great nation of ours, the Yale Bulldogs. They have held that title ever since their 4-2 home victory over RPI in early December.

The Engineers are 10-1-0 at home this season, with the lone loss coming in overtime. It could be pretty wild - and another weekend sweep would position RPI perfectly for the last month of the season, not to mention open some eyes given the caliber of teams coming to Troy this week.

Remember, this year's senior class has lost their first three Freakouts, and no class has ever graduated without winning at least one. There are some talented names in this year's senior class, but they face a tough challenge. All of this is conspiring to make for what should be the biggest game of the year on the biggest stage of the year.

Other junk - Just a week after dropping four positions in the USCHO.com poll, the Engineers return to #10 in the nation by rising four spots with their weekend sweep. #1 Yale (swept Clarkson and St. Lawrence) earned 46 first place votes, their most to date. Other ranked ECAC teams are #13 Union (down one, lost to Dartmouth and beat Harvard), #18 Dartmouth (no change), and #19 Princeton (up one, idle). Also ranked this week are #16 Boston University (down one) and #20 Colorado College (re-entering the poll). Other teams earning votes this week were Niagara (16), RIT (4), and Clarkson (2).

Chase Polacek is now at 146 points for his career after his 3 goal, 1 assist weekend, moving him Ray Belasky '60 (142), Kevin Croxton '06 (143), Garry Kearns '58 (144), and Alain St. Hilaire '99 (145) to take sole possession of 22nd all time. Next on the ladder is Jim Josephson '62 in 21st with 148 career points. There's a bit of a gap to the Top 20, however, as Barry Martinelli '76 currently occupies 20th with 155 points.

Saturday's Freakout game will be televised live on Time Warner Cable Channel 3. Normally, we'd tell you to go to the game if you get TW3, but the Freakout is going to be sold out, so watching on TV is a viable alternative if you can't get a ticket.

ECAC Standings
1. Yale - 11-1-0 (22 pts)
2. Union - 8-3-1 (17 pts)
3. Dartmouth - 7-4-1 (15 pts)
4. Princeton - 7-4-1 (15 pts)
5. RPI - 7-5-0 (14 pts)
6. Clarkson - 6-4-1 (13 pts)
7. Cornell - 6-5-1 (13 pts)
8. Quinnipiac - 5-6-2 (12 pts)
9. Brown - 5-6-1 (11 pts)
10. St. Lawrence - 3-8-0 (6 pts)
11. Harvard - 2-11-0 (4 pts)
12. Colgate - 0-10-2 (2 pts)

Adjusted Standings
1. Yale (.917)
2. Union (.708)
3. Dartmouth (.625)
4. Princeton (.625)
5. Clarkson (.591)
6. RPI (.583)
6. Cornell (.542)
8. Quinnipiac (.462)
9. Brown (.458)
10. St. Lawrence (.273)
11. Harvard (.154)
12. Colgate (.083)

Harvard at #14 RPI
ECAC Game - Houston Field House (Troy, NY)
1/21/11 - 7:00pm

RESULT: RPI 3, Harvard 2

BOX SCORES
College Hockey Stats
USCHO

RECAPS
RPI
Troy Record
Albany Times Union

VIDEO
RPI TV (whole game)
YouTube (goals, no audio)
YouTube (post-game press conference)

RECORD: 14-6-3 (6-5-0 ECAC, 12 pts)

Reale Deals
1. F Chase Polacek, 2 G
2. G Allen York, 36 saves
3. F Brock Higgs, 2 A

#18 Dartmouth at #14 RPI
ECAC Game - Houston Field House (Troy, NY)
1/22/11 - 7:00pm

RESULT: RPI 5, Dartmouth 1

BOX SCORES
College Hockey Stats
USCHO

RECAPS
RPI
Troy Record
Albany Times Union

VIDEO
RPI TV (whole game)
YouTube (goals, no audio)
YouTube (post-game press conference)

RECORD: 15-6-3 (7-5-0 ECAC, 14 pts)

Reale Deals
1. F Joel Malchuk, 1 G, 1 A
2. F Chase Polacek, 1 G, 1 A
3. D Nick Bailen, 2 A

Upcoming games
28 Jan - Brown
29 Jan - #1 Yale (Big Red Freakout!)
04 Feb - at Quinnipiac
05 Feb - at #19 Princeton
11 Feb - Colgate

Men's Hockey - at Cornell and Colgate (14/15 Jan)

Another weekend, another split for the Engineers. Normally, when you're talking about a road series, a split is something you can walk away with and be OK. The problem is, the team hasn't been sweeping home series either, and this particular road series came against a couple of teams which RPI, the way they've been playing for most of the season, should have been able to handle, and came perilously close to being a zero-point weekend. The Engineers skated to their worst result of the year thus far, a 5-1 loss at Cornell, before squeezing out an improbably 2-1 overtime win over last-place Colgate - improbable not only for the closeness of the affair but also for the bizarre fashion in which it ended.

Cornell
Lee/Polacek/Helfrich
Cullen/Malchuk/Angers-Goulet
Rabbani/Brutlag/Burgdoerfer
Tinordi/Rogic/Smith

Bergin/Foss
Bailen/Dolan
Koudys/Kennedy

York

Marty O'Grady hurt a chest muscle in the waning moments last Saturday against St. Lawrence, so he was kept out of this contest as a precaution. Brock Higgs is still dealing with the injury he picked up in Alabama - though he may be back this coming weekend - as is Scott Halpern. Also, since Cornell likes to use big guys for intimidation, it wasn't terribly unexpected to see Rabbani, Burgdoerfer, Tinordi, and Smith all suited up, although to some extent there just wasn't much of an option anyway.

By most accounts, the Engineers didn't play poorly in the first period with the exception of the even-strength they gave up about midway through to go down 1-0, which was the score after 20 minutes. They outshot the Big Red 8-7 and took only one penalty during the period, which was a definite improvement over previous games.

Most have also said that the second period wasn't that bad either. An early Cornell penalty produced a power play (which was actually a 4-on-3 thanks to matching minors at 20:00 of the 1st) that was converted eight seconds later by Tyler Helfrich, who netted his 11th goal of the season from Chase Polacek and Nick Bailen to tie the game at one. Unfortunately, that would be about where the good news would end. Even though there was still some optimism heading into the third period, the score would not still be tied by the time the game reached that point, as Cornell scored a 4-on-4 goal about 14 minutes into the second period to retake the lead.

The bigger issue in the second period was that Bryan Brutlag was, according to eyewitnesses, essentially run from behind despite the penalty issued being for "interference." The appropriateness of the penalty and the relative intent being mostly irrelevant in the end, Brutlag left the game and did not return, the understanding is that he is now the fourth Engineer to be sidelined with a concussion this season.

Even into the third, it was still a tight contest through the first half of the third period or so, but that's when things definitively started falling apart for RPI. A pair of goals scored less than a minute apart by the Big Red midway through the third took things from a one-goal game, still potentially in hand, to being a three-goal game, out of reach against a Cornell team even slightly versed in its own system.

Frustration began to get the better of the Engineers as Greg Burgdoerfer and C.J. Lee were called for roughing penalties in the aftermath of the goals, and Cornell converted at 5-on-3 to take a 5-1 lead. That goal ended York's night, his 3rd goal allowed on 9 shots in the period, but it may just have been an opportunity to get a little playing time for Bryce Merriam in a game that was out of reach. Merriam played just under seven minutes and stopped the only shot he saw.

More distressing was the offensive effort in the third period - down a goal for half of the period, they managed only 4 shots on goal for the entire 20 minutes, though some of that can probably be attributed to Cornell's gum-up-the-works-with-a-lead gameplan. It was the first game all season that the Engineers did not win, tie, lose by one, or lose with an empty netter given up. It also put the 10th ranked team in the nation under .500 in ECAC play 9 games into the conference schedule.

Colgate
Lee/Polacek/Helfrich
Cullen/O'Grady/Angers-Goulet
Rabbani/Malchuk/Burgdoerfer
Tinordi/Rogic/Smith

Bergin/Foss
Koudys/Bailen
Leboeuf/Kennedy

York

The poor result the previous night made the game against last place Colgate, by some standards one of the worst teams in the nation, doubly important. The problem is that Colgate really isn't as bad as they appear on paper, or even in the computer rankings. Their problem is that they've lost a whole slew of one-goal games (as they had the previous night against Union) and their only wins on the season happen to be against some of the worst teams in the nation, putting the Raiders on their level.

Brutlag's injury put the team in a tough spot. According to what we've heard, Marty O'Grady volunteered to play despite not being at 100%, given that Higgs' injury has the Engineers with only three natural centers right now. Guy Leboeuf rotated in as well as the freshman defenseman rotation looks to be back in place, replacing Bo Dolan in the lineup.

Both teams had early opportunities on the power play that were not converted, but finally, for the first time in six games, the Engineers struck first midway through the first period with Joel Malchuk scoring on a tip-in off a rip by Mike Bergin to put RPI up 1-0. It was his third of the season and his first that wasn't scored shorthanded.

The penalties started to pile up for RPI in the aftermath, however. Four consecutive penalties on the Engineers during the second half of the first period and into the second period gave Colgate five power plays by the time the game was 26 minutes old. Fortunately, the Colgate power play has been a major problem this year and the kills were relatively easy for the Engineers - more Colgate's problem than RPI's success, honestly, because the Engineers' play in the second period and well into the third was pretty putrid. It was in a situation where the Engineer defense was completely discombobulated about 15 minutes into the second that the Raiders got themselves on the board with a goal that one could see coming from about 30 seconds away, given the way RPI was playing in its own zone.

Meanwhile, RPI gave up another pair of power plays in the third period, and those were turned aside as well. But despite the dire situation of being tied with a team that had earned only one point in nine league games, the Engineers managed only five shots on goal for the entirety of the third period. Allen York made eight saves to give him 23 on 24 shots for regulation, but the game was destined for overtime, which is where things got weird.

Just 15 seconds into the extra period, C.J. Lee was called for a reckless hit from behind that was entirely justifiable, putting the Engineers down a man for the rest of overtime since he was assessed a five-minute major and ejected. A game disqualification, which would suspend him for the Harvard game, was announced and added to the box score, but the Times Union and WRPI reported that was in error and that it was merely a game misconduct. Still not sure of which is accurate.

At any rate, the penalty seemed to kill any hope the Engineers had of winning and seemed to put them in very real danger of becoming the first team to lose to Colgate in league play. The Raiders sensed it too, they put six shots on Allen York in the first three minutes of the extended power play, as many as they put on him in the entire first period. York stood on his head occasionally to keep the puck out of the net and preserve the tie.

After three minutes of the Lee penalty, the Engineers managed to clear the zone with a bounce off the boards toward the center ice circle, and seeing an opportunity with Colgate not in any rush to collect the puck, Chase Polacek burst forward and scooped it up, heading into the Colgate zone on a breakaway. He had an opportunity to score, but was definitely impeded from behind by Colgate's Kevin McNamara on his way to the net. With a minute and a half separating the Engineers from a potential tie or loss, referee Tim Kotyra, long reviled by the Engineer faithful, raised his arms over his head to signal a penalty shot.

After discussions with Kotyra (during which time the RPI section, situated right behind Colgate goaltender Eric Mihalik, spent time heckling him and trying to get in his head), Appert elected to give Polacek the opportunity to win the game rather than take the minor for hooking to even the odds. Polacek responded by casually skating in on Mihalik and floating one into the net after Mihalik committed early, ending the game 2-1 in favor of the Engineers in unbelievable fashion. It was the first penalty shot goal for RPI in over 11 years, dating back to Brad Tapper scoring on BU in October 1999. I'm probably not going out on a limb saying that it's the first time RPI has ever won a game on a penalty shot in overtime.

The win did put a happy ending on what otherwise was a miserable game and a miserable weekend for the Engineers. Ten games into the ECAC schedule, they are only at .500 and in danger of falling behind in the race for the bye. The saving grace is that with 12 games left, 8 are at home, including 4 in a row over the next two weeks that will be crucial in determining the team's fate not only for the ECAC playoffs but also as a potential NCAA team. They have split every single league weekend thus far - they need sweeps now.

If they were to start this coming weekend, the dividends would be great. Harvard is 1-11-0 in their last 12 games (though they play Wednesday against Northeastern before coming out to the Capital District), and completing a season sweep of Dartmouth would give the Engineers points few other teams will be getting this year. Bear in mind that RPI is 8-1-0 at the Field House this year, with the one loss coming in overtime against Clarkson. Anything's still possible.

Other junk - The big loss to Cornell predictably dropped the Engineers in the USCHO.com poll for the first time this season. RPI fell four spots to #14 in the nation this week. Five different ECAC teams are ranked this week, including #1 Yale (38 first place votes), which stays at the top of the poll despite its loss last night at the hands of Brown. #12 Union (up two, swept Colgate/Cornell), #18 Dartmouth (newly ranked, beat UNH), and #20 Princeton (newly ranked, idle) are the other three ECAC teams in the top 20 this week. #15 Boston University (up one) is the only other RPI opponent ranked this week, as Colorado College (28 votes) fell out of the rankings. Clarkson (4), RIT (2), Niagara (1), and Northeastern (1) also received votes this week.

Chase Polacek's penalty shot goal gave him 142 points for his career, moving him past George Servinis '85 and tying him with Ray Belasky '60 for 25th place in RPI history with 142 points. Next up is Kevin Croxton '06 (143), Garry Kearns '58 (144), and Alain St. Hilaire '99 (145).

With 87 assists, Polacek is alone in 19th all-time in the category in school history. Bruce Coles '91 is 18th with 90.

Tyler Helfrich is up to 88 points for his career, but his average has moved just below a point per game for the season. With a minimum of 14 games left in the season, he's still got an chance at 100.

Not that this is something you can really quantify until after his RPI career is over, but Allen York's career GAA of 2.48 currently has him number one all-time in that category in school history (minimum 540 minutes, York has over 4,000). His .912 save percentage is third behind Joel Laing '00 and Nathan Marsters '04. His next win, a more quantifiable statistic right now, will tie him with Gerry Fink '83 for 10th place in wins. If he plays all 120 minutes this coming weekend, he will move past Bobby Fox '55 for 6th in school history for time between the pipes. On the flip side, he is two losses away from tying Laing, Steve Duncan '90, and Mike Tamburro '96 for fifth place in career losses - partially a function of there being more games in a season today (as is the wins record).

ECAC Standings
1. Yale - 9-1-0 (18 pts)
2. Union - 7-2-1 (15 pts)
3. Princeton - 7-4-1 (15 pts)
4. Dartmouth - 6-3-1 (13 pts)
5. Quinnipiac - 5-6-2 (12 pts)
6. Clarkson - 5-3-1 (11 pts)
7. Cornell - 5-5-0 (10 pts)
8. RPI - 5-5-0 (10 pts)
9. Brown - 4-5-1 (9 pts)
10. St. Lawrence - 3-6-0 (6 pts)
11. Harvard - 2-9-0 (4 pts)
12. Colgate - 0-9-1 (1 pt)

Adjusted Standings
1. Yale (.900)
2. Union (.750)
3. Dartmouth (.650)
4. Princeton (.625)
5. Clarkson (.611)
6. Cornell (.500)
7. RPI (.500)
8. Quinnipiac (.462)
9. Brown (.450)
10. St. Lawrence (.333)
11. Harvard (.182)
12. Colgate (.050)

#10 RPI at Cornell
ECAC Game - Lynah Rink (Ithaca, NY)
1/14/11 - 7:00pm

RESULT: Cornell 5, RPI 1

BOX SCORES
College Hockey Stats
USCHO

RECAPS
RPI
Troy Record
Albany Times Union
Ithaca Journal

RECORD: 12-6-3 (4-5-0 ECAC, 8 pts)

Reale Deals
1. F Tyler Helfrich, 1 G
2. D John Kennedy, E
3. D Pat Koudys, E

#10 RPI at Colgate
ECAC Game - Starr Rink (Hamilton, NY)
1/15/11 - 7:00pm

RESULT: RPI 2, Colgate 1 (OT)

BOX SCORES
College Hockey Stats
USCHO

RECAPS
RPI
Troy Record
Albany Times Union
Madison County Courier

VIDEO
Polacek's penalty shot

RECORD: 13-6-3 (5-5-0 ECAC, 10 pts)

Reale Deals
1. F Chase Polacek, PSG
2. F Joel Malchuk, 1 G
3. G Allen York, 29 saves

Upcoming games
21 Jan - Harvard
22 Jan - #18 Dartmouth
28 Jan - Brown
29 Jan - #1 Yale
04 Feb - at Quinnipiac

Men's Hockey - Boston University (11 Dec)

There's no time like a game on national television to make a statement, and that's exactly what the RPI Engineers did this weekend with their lone outing at home against the BU Terriers. With Time Warner's cameras broadcasting their exploits around North America, RPI came through with a solid 4-1 victory partially spoiled by a ridiculous display by the referees, but ultimately earned on the ice with good hustle and outstanding special teams play.

Boston University
Angers-Goulet/Rogic/Brutlag
Cullen/Polacek/Helfrich
Lee/Higgs/Rabbani
Tinordi/Malchuk/Burgdoerfer

Bergin/Foss
Bailen/Dolan
Koudys/Leboeuf

York

The big news at the outset was the return of C.J. Lee and Joel Malchuk, fully one half of the injured quartet that was out against Yale and Brown. There was a bit of good news about John Kennedy as well - he has had his cast removed. He probably won't play next week in the exhibition as a precaution, but he may well be back in time for the Alabama-Huntsville games. Marty O'Grady, however, is an unknown going forward.

The game got off to a rough start for RPI as Joel Malchuk and Guy Leboeuf were each called for tripping early on, giving BU a short 5-on-3 power play opportunity. The penalty kill was up to the challenge though, and the Engineers escaped unharmed. Two minute later, a BU penalty set up RPI's first chance on the man advantage, but a penalty to Pat Koudys for interference just a minute later negated the chance and eventually gave BU it's third power play opportunity only midway through the first period.

That was when the Engineers struck. A clearing pass out of the zone by Mike Bergin was taken by Lee, who raced forward with Malchuk. The two players returning from injury raced into the attacking zone two-on-two, with Lee making a drop pass to Malchuk, who promptly blasted it from near the top of the zone, beating BU's Grant Rollheiser to put the Engineers up 1-0 on a shorthanded tally.

In the final minute of the first period, BU defenseman David Warsofsky was called on a cross-checking call that put RPI on its 2nd power play of the game, and the Engineers responded quickly. Tyler Helfrich scored his 9th goal of the season after being left all alone on the doorstep to Rollheiser's right. He one-timed a cycling pass from Chase Polacek to give RPI a 2-0 lead heading into the first intermission.

Right off the bat in the second period, another BU penalty led to an RPI goal. Polacek scored with one of his signature "one-timer near the goal line from a sick angle" shots for his 8th goal of the year to make it 3-0. After the next whistle, BU coach Jack Parker decided that 3 goals on 13 shots was too much, and pulled Rollheiser in favor of his classmate, Kieran Millan. The move did seem to get the Terriers back into things, as the game opened up and became more of a two-way affair than the one-sided tilt the Engineers had turned it into at that point.

Midway through the period, BU's Matt Nieto got a great breakaway opportunity to score, but was stoned cold by Allen York to keep the shutout intact. Each team got a power play chance following the Polacek goal, but neither scored until Wade Megan was able to put back a big rebound that York had let up, putting the Terriers on the board and ending the night for York's stick, as he smashed it against the pipe out of frustration for giving up the rebound. For the remainder of the period - a good four minutes - momentum was definitely in BU's favor.

The 3-1 score carried over into the third period, where things really started to get out of hand. The referees, led by Bryan Hicks of Union wave-off fame, appeared ready to swallow their whistles, but it was a bad move given the myriad calls that had not been made for both teams in the first two periods, and the smattering of bogus calls both teams were called for as well. The game had already been chippy, but it got much worse during the third period. The Terriers worked hard looking for another goal to put them back in the thick of things, but Allen York did what he has increasingly been able to do - clamp things down. He made another big breakaway save during the period to preserve the 2-goal lead.

Things definitively unraveled late in the period after an interference call against BU. It was one of those "had to" penalties, given that the Engineers had come into the zone on a lightening-fast 3-on-0, which you don't see every day. The penalty came with about two-and-a-half minutes left in the 3rd, putting a serious damper on BU's ability to come back. Then, the referees lost control of the game, as BU's frustrations began to boil over. Parker's argument with the referees after the interference call - more than likely, an argument stemming from things not called rather than the actual call - resulted in a bench minor to go along with the interference, putting RPI on a 5-on-3 for two minutes holding the 2-goal lead.

Less than a minute later, BU was whistled again for cross-checking (which was really iffy given that they were already down a player) and the brawling began. No player was issued a game DQ, but several were sent to the locker rooms early, including Lee, Nick Bailen, and BU's Alex Chiasson.

About a minute later, as the 5-on-3 was about to expire, Bryan Brutlag scored on a one-timer in the slot to make it 4-1, putting the seal on the victory. In the immediate aftermath, Warsofsky was shown the gate. Seconds after the ensuing faceoff, Bo Dolan was called for roughing, and seconds after that, a 5-minute major and a game misconduct was assessed to BU's Garrett Noonan for grasping the facemask in another scrum with 16 seconds left. The game was essentially over, but the referees had lost control well before. Jack Parker was furious after the final horn, talking to one of the linesmen during the hand-shake and making a sarcastic gesture to Bryan Hicks, a move which saw him slapped with a game misconduct of his own at the 20:00 mark of the 3rd period.

The ugliness and the terrible officiating aside, it was a monster mid-season win for RPI hockey, scoring a solid victory against one of the top teams in the nation - a team which was ranked #1 just a few weeks ago. The win continued the Engineers' unbeaten streak at Houston Field House this season to 7-0-0.

Next up for the Engineers is a bit of a treat - they play an exhibition this Sunday against the US Junior Team in their first preparation game for the World Junior Championships in Buffalo, which run from December 26 to January 5 at the Sabres' HSBC Arena and Niagara's Dwyer Arena. This is the team on which Jerry D'Amigo won a gold medal last year - and D'Amigo will be back to lead the United States in its quest for a second straight gold. This game will be something of a valedictory for D'Amigo at the Field House. Expect an ovation for the Toronto Marlies forward when he is announced on Sunday. If you're going to be in the Capital District, you are advised not to miss it.

Other junk - The upward mobility continues for the Engineers; another week, another rise in the polls. The win over BU propelled RPI up one place to #14 in the nation. The loss was a bit more of a hit for the Terriers, however, as they dropped three to #10. Other ECAC teams ranked this week are #1 Yale (up to 45/50 first place votes, idle) and #12 Union (up one, blew out AIC and Army at home). Ex-#19 Dartmouth dropped out after just one week as a ranked team after losing to one-win Vermont last night. #20 Colorado College is ranked for the first time in over a month. Other RPI opponents receiving votes are Clarkson (41, the second straight week with the most votes for an unranked team), Dartmouth (36), Princeton (23), and Niagara (1).

With a goal and two assists on Saturday, Chase Polacek has seven points in the last two games. His goal tied him with Don Hearns '75 and Brian Ferreira '90 for 33rd in RPI history with 134 points, and he is now tied with Trevor Kaye '62 for 32nd with 135 points. Next on the list, tied for 30th, are two big names - Mo Mosco '55 and Richard Scammell '69, who have 137 points each.

Joel Malchuk's second goal of the year was also his second shorthanded goal of the year. He is one of only 17 players in the nation with multiple shorties on the season.

The Capital District may be turning into Fort Neverlose. RPI and Union are a combined 14-0-1 at home this season - the lone blemish being Union's tie with UConn.

The ECAC league schedule is finished for 2010, it picks back up on January 3 with a travel-partner game between Quinnipiac and Princeton in New Jersey, then goes to a full 12-game weekend January 7th and 8th.

ECAC Standings
1. Yale - 6-0-0 (12 pts)
2. Princeton - 6-3-0 (12 pts)
3. Dartmouth - 5-2-1 (11 pts)
4. Clarkson - 4-2-1 (9 pts)
5. Quinnipiac - 4-5-1 (9 pts)
6. Union - 3-2-1 (7 pts)
7. RPI - 3-3-0 (6 pts)
8. St. Lawrence - 3-4-0 (6 pts)
9. Brown - 2-3-1 (5 pts)
10. Cornell - 2-4-0 (4 pts)
11. Harvard - 2-7-0 (4 pts)
12. Colgate - 0-5-1 (1 pt)

Adjusted Standings
1. Yale (1.000)
2. Dartmouth (.688)
3. Princeton (.667)
4. Clarkson (.643)
5. Union (.583)
6. RPI (.500)
7. Quinnipiac (.450)
8. St. Lawrence (.429)
9. Brown (.417)
10. Cornell (.333)
11. Harvard (.222)
12. Colgate (.083)

#7 Boston University at #15 RPI
Nonconference Game - Houston Field House (Troy, NY)
12/11/10 - 3:30pm

RESULT: RPI 4, Boston University 1

BOX SCORES
College Hockey Stats
USCHO

RECAPS
RPI
Troy Record
Albany Times Union
BU Daily Free Press
Boston Herald
College Hockey News
Inside Hockey

VIDEO
Goals (no audio, includes one York breakaway save)
Post-game interviews

RECORD: 9-4-3 (3-3-0 ECAC, 6 pts)

Reale Deals
1. G Allen York, 28 saves
2. F Chase Polacek, 1 G, 2 A
3. D Nick Bailen, 2 A, 5 shots

Upcoming games
19 Dec - US Junior National Team (exhibition)
30 Dec - at Alabama-Huntsville
31 Dec - at Alabama-Huntsville
07 Jan - Clarkson
08 Jan - St. Lawrence

Eh, Why Not

See the title. Feel the title.

Yeah, it's just two games, but come on. It's been nine years. Just enjoy the moment.



All Tournament Team
G - Allen York, RPI
D - Nick Bailen, RPI
D - Jeff Foss, RPI
F - Jordan Samuels-Thomas, Bowling Green
F - Chase Polacek, RPI
F - Tyler Helfrich, RPI

MVP - Bryan Brutlag, RPI

Men's Hockey - at Dartmouth and Harvard (5/6 Nov)

The Engineers close out the year with lots of home games. 4 of the last 6 ECAC weekends of the year are in Troy, a fact which should be helpful down the stretch. The trade-off, of course, is that the year has to start off with lots of road games, and that's just the way the league schedule kicked off last weekend, with games at Dartmouth and Harvard. RPI got off the ground well on Friday, dumping the Big Green 4-1, but had a long trip back to Troy after a heartbreaking 1-0 loss to Harvard on a late goal, settling for the weekend split.

Dartmouth
Lee/Polacek/Helfrich
Brutlag/Malchuk/O'Grady
Cullen/Higgs/Rabbani
Tinordi/Rogic/Halpern

Bergin/Foss
Kennedy/Dolan
Leboeuf/Bailen

York

The minor shakeup of the 2nd and 3rd lines was a result of Alex Angers-Goulet developing an infection that ultimately kept him from the lineup throughout the weekend. Patrick Cullen was the replacement, he was inserted onto the Higgs line, with Marty O'Grady moving onto the Malchuk line. Seth Appert said that Joel Malchuk was also hurt, but was able to maintain his position as the 2nd line center.

The knock on Dartmouth coming into the season was questionable goaltending. After going with junior Jody O'Neill twice in the Ivy Shootout the previous weekend, coach Bob Gaudet decided to throw freshman Cab Morris in against the Engineers for his first collegiate action in the Big Green's first ECAC game of the year.

After failing on two power play opportunities in the game's first eight minutes, the Engineers got themselves on the board first. A minute after killing a hooking penalty against Guy Leboeuf, Chase Polacek notched his fourth goal of the season, with assists coming from Mike Bergin and Tyler Helfrich, to make it 1-0. It was one of only five shots of the first period for the Engineers.

Dartmouth, meanwhile, blasted away at Allen York throughout the opening period, but especially in the last half of the first - he faced a total of 14 shots in the first period alone, allowing one goal, which came a little under three minutes after Polacek's goal, leaving the game tied at one after the first period, and the Engineers looked like they were on their heels.

Marty O'Grady turned that momentum around almost right away. Just 58 seconds into the second period, O'Grady scored his first goal of the season from Bryan Brutlag and Joel Malchuk to put RPI up 2-1. It was the only goal of the period, but the momentum swung decidedly in RPI's direction during the second - York was forced to make only 3 saves, while the Engineers had 11 shots on goal.

A Dartmouth penalty early in the third period put the Engineers on their fourth power play of the game, and C.J. Lee made the Big Green pay rather quickly. He scored his third goal of the season - and second in as many games - from Nick Bailen and Brock Higgs (who has been getting an increased amount of ice time on the power play) to give RPI a two-goal edge. Three-and-a-half minutes later, RPI went on the penalty kill after a penalty to Johnny Rogic, but the end result became another RPI goal. Chase Polacek, who was among the best shorthanded scorers in the nation last year, earned himself another shorty with the lone assist going to Lee. WRPI announcers questioned whether the puck went all the way over the line, but the goal ended up counting, giving the Engineers a 4-1 lead, which would be the final difference.

Harvard
Lee/Polacek/Helfrich
Brutlag/Malchuk/O'Grady
Cullen/Higgs/Rabbani
Burgdoerfer/Rogic/Smith

Koudys/Kennedy
Bergin/Foss
Leboeuf/Bailen

York

Greg Burgdoerfer worked his way back into the lineup for Saturday's game, taking Matt Tinordi's place on the Rogic line. Justin Smith also saw his first action of the season, replacing Scott Halpern, leaving Kevin Beauregard, Bryce Merriam, and Jeremy Coupal as the only Engineers yet to see the ice thus far this season.

The Crimson were coming into only their second competitive game of the season, their first coming the previous night against Union, a 2-1 loss.

There honestly isn't much to report about the flow of this game. Neither team put a great number of pucks on net in the first two periods - Harvard led the shot total 12-11 after 40 minutes, a low number for both teams despite four power plays for the Engineers and three for the Crimson. During the second period, the Engineers had a pair of goals waved off - one which Josh Rabbani put into the net but was batted in by a high stick, and another that was put in after a scrum in front of Harvard goaltender Kyle Richter, but disallowed because it crossed the line after the whistle.

Referees Eric Ernst and Nick Litterio swallowed their whistles during much of the third period, but late in the game, observers say they had little recourse but to call a penalty to Harvard's Daniel Moriarty for hooking, as he impeded what could have been a clear scoring opportunity for the Engineers. RPI went to work and had their best showing of the night on the man advantage by far, blasting away at Richter, but they weren't able to put one over the line, and the power play expired.

Just 16 seconds after the Moriarty penalty expired, Litterio's arm was in the air - and he was calling Polacek for interference behind the play. WRPI's Tim Heiman couldn't spot the penalty, and Seth Appert later told the Times Union that if there was a penalty on the play, it certainly wasn't on Polacek, one of the team's most important penalty killers, for reasons he'd proven the previous night. All signs pointed to the call being nothing more than the usual ECAC "even up" call - RPI had a late power play, therefore Harvard had to have one too.

The Polacek penalty came late enough that it would have run into a potential overtime period - but it did not get that far. With 8.2 seconds left in regulation, Harvard scored the game's first and only goal on the power play as Alex Killorn beat Allen York with a shot York would probably like a second chance at, shortly after the Engineers, a week after giving up a late goal defending against an extra skater, were unable to clear the zone after attaining the puck, which had led to the late Union goal as well. Just over five minutes away from a solid 3-point weekend, RPI instead had to stomach a loss that ended a 7-game unbeaten streak that had been the longest in over a decade.

Other junk - The split road weekend resulted in the Engineers holding steady in the weekly USCHO poll, as they remain 18th in the nation with 145 votes overall. Also ranked from the ECAC this week are #3 Yale (up two with 5 first-place votes, swept Princeton and Quinnipiac at home) and #12 Union (up three, beat Harvard and tied Dartmouth). As with last week, Boston University is the Engineers' only non-conference opponent ranked this week, but they are now ranked #1 in the nation as they are undefeated in their first 8 games (6-0-2). They earned 31 of 40 first place votes. Cornell fell from the Top 20 after splitting a weekend in the North Country, they tied with Robert Morris for the most votes among unranked teams with 30. Colorado College (22), Quinnipiac (11), Clarkson (2), Dartmouth (2), Harvard (1), and Niagara (1) also received votes.

All ECAC teams now have two games under their belts, and in an interesting twist, no team was swept on the weekend - each team earned at least one point in the opening round. Most surprising was the home sweep by the St. Lawrence Saints of Cornell and Colgate, a duo most observers expected to be among the most difficult travel partner pairings in the league. Nine teams came away with either two points or one point on the weekend, which means there's practically no separation after the first weekend.

Every ECAC team except for Yale and Brown is back into league action this coming weekend (Yale is at Colorado College and Air Force on Saturday and Sunday, Brown is idle), with Dartmouth and Harvard traveling to Clarkson and St. Lawrence, while Princeton and Quinnipiac are at Colgate and Cornell.

And of course, the big RPI/Union weekend is this weekend as well. The travel partners tied 3-3 in Lake Placid in the last week of October, and will not see each other again during the regular season after this weekend. Union is trying to advertise some kind of "blackout" event on Friday in which everyone is supposed to wear black to the game. What a novel concept! The REAL Black Saturday (usually Black Friday) takes place the next night in Troy.

ECAC Standings
1. Yale - 2-0-0 (4 pts)
2. St. Lawrence - 2-0-0 (4 pts)
3. Union - 1-0-1 (3 pts)
4. Cornell - 1-1-0 (2 pts)
5. RPI - 1-1-0 (2 pts)
6. Harvard - 1-1-0 (2 pts)
7. Princeton - 1-1-0 (2 pts)
8. Brown - 0-1-1 (1 pt)
9. Colgate - 0-1-1 (1 pt)
10. Dartmouth - 0-1-1 (1 pt)
11. Quinnipiac - 0-1-1 (1 pt)
12. Clarkson - 0-1-1 (1 pt)


#18 RPI at Dartmouth
ECAC Game - Thompson Arena (Hanover, NH)
11/5/10 - 7:00pm

RESULT: RPI 4, Dartmouth 1

BOX SCORES
College Hockey Stats
USCHO

RECAPS
RPI
Troy Record
Albany Times Union
WMUR-TV (Manchester, NH)

RECORD: 4-1-3 (1-0-0 ECAC, 2 pts)

Reale Deals
1. F Chase Polacek, 2 G
2. F C.J. Lee, 1 G, 1 A
3. G Allen York, 25 saves

#18 RPI at Harvard
ECAC Game - Bright Hockey Center (Boston, MA)
11/6/10 - 7:00pm

RESULT: Harvard 1, RPI 0

BOX SCORES
College Hockey Stats
USCHO

RECAPS
RPI
USCHO
Troy Record
Albany Times Union
Boston Globe
Harvard Crimson

RECORD: 4-2-3 (1-1-0 ECAC, 2 pts)

Reale Deals
1. D Nick Bailen, 5 shots
2. G Allen York, 22 saves
3. F Tyler Helfrich, 2 shots

Upcoming games
12 Nov - at #12 Union
13 Nov - #12 Union (Black Saturday)
26 Nov - UConn (RPI Invitational)
27 Nov - Alabama-Huntsville/Bowling Green (RPI Invitational)
03 Dec - at #3 Yale

He's Ba-aack

When ECAC goaltenders go to bed at night, they check in the closet and under the bed for Chase Polacek.

Two goals on Friday, five on the year, 11 points overall.

Don Lucia and the Changing Face of Recruiting

If you have yet to read the outstanding interview with Minnesota head coach Don Lucia at College Hockey News, you owe it to yourself to give it a look. Lucia and Adam Wodon touch on some of the issues surrounding the Gophers - issues that have led to frustration among the Gopher faithful and amusement among the many Gopher haters - but, like an onion, this interview has layers. As you peel away the layers, you delve into some core issues that every team has to deal with when it comes to recruiting and holding onto players that are relatively new and that Minnesota, perhaps, highlights most brightly.

For years, Minnesota recruited only the best high school players in the state of Minnesota. The team went decades without having a player who hailed from outside of the Land of 10,000 Lakes. It was tradition, but tradition didn't lead to a great deal of success, especially on the national level. When Don Lucia first arrived in Minneapolis, he broke the status quo almost right away. The game winning goal in the Gophers' first national championship victory in almost a quarter-century was scored by a North Dakotan (Grant Potulny). Soon, the Gophers were bringing in Europeans (like Thomas Vanek) and Canadians (like Kris Chucko), and Minnesota won a second consecutive national title and were top contenders for years.

But then, a slow slide began. Last season, the Gophers finished with a losing record for the first time under Lucia (and the first time he was personally under .500 in 17 straight seasons as a college coach), and missed the national tournament for the first time since his first season in Minneapolis. What happened?

As the interview discusses, Minnesota, as one of the giants of college hockey, attracts gobs of blue-chip talent. But in the new recruiting atmosphere, created in part by the collective bargaining agreement put into place after the 2004-05 NHL lockout, sees many of the top talents leaving for the pros much quicker than they did in the past.

But there's another element: the growing war for talent with the Canadian Hockey League, colloquially referred to as the "major junior" leagues - the WHL, the OHL, and the QMJHL. College teams have a major disadvantage to major junior when it comes to attracting talent: college players can leave for major junior, but the opposite is not true. Once you're in major junior, you're there, but going to college doesn't preclude a player from leaving for the CHL. Thus, NCAA teams increasingly are becoming concerned not only with losing players (and recruits) to pro contracts, but also to major junior contracts.

Michigan, another titan of college hockey, is growing to be the poster child for the major junior problem. They've lost two top recruits that had been expected in Ann Arbor - last winter, losing US Junior Team goaltender Jack Campbell to the OHL, and just last week losing top forward prospect Lucas Lessio, also to the OHL.

RPI is not immune from this phenomenon, especially with the successful recruiting of late. Even before Brandon Pirri and Jerry D'Amigo arrived on campus, the wonder was whether one or both would suddenly jump to the OHL, but they spurned Sudbury and Kitchener respectively. Wanna freak out? Type "Brandon Pirri" into a Google search box. Google will suggest "brandon pirri ohl" before "brandon pirri rpi." In June, the Saginaw Spirit traded for his rights, suggesting they think there's at least a chance Pirri could come to the OHL.

But Pirri's flight risk isn't limited to Saginaw - the Chicago Blackhawks own his rights and have loomed ominously in the background. The collective bargaining agreement set up a salary cap that the Blackhawks played hard and fast with in building a Stanley Cup winning team, and the time has come to pay the piper, leading to an absolute fire sale that has decimated Chicago's farm system. In need of bodies to fill out their roster and the roster in Rockford, their AHL affiliate, they have looked to sign rookies - they're far cheaper than veterans, especially in the minor leagues, and they've already gone shopping in the college ranks, plucking Nick Leddy away from Lucia with three seasons of eligibility remaining.

Is Brandon Pirri coming back to RPI? Probably. There hasn't been much to definitively indicate that he would take either route. Will he be here after this season? That would be shocking. The same is true of Jerry D'Amigo - anything RPI gets from these super sophs after this season, it has to be said, is going to be gravy. That's just the way things are for the very best players

When Kyle Palmieri left Notre Dame this week to sign with Anaheim, he became the 37th player in all of college hockey (one, Oswego's Eric Selleck, was from D-III) to forfeit college eligibility to sign a pro contract. Of those, 17 (including Selleck) were giving up either two or three years of remaining eligibility. That's practically an unheard of number of underclassmen jumping ship, and the very best players are starting to leave after just one or two seasons in college, with the talent war with major junior only exacerbating the situation.

So what ends up happening? For the top teams like Minnesota and Michigan, who bring in top players left and right, it means more and more frequently that they're only going to be as good as their most recent freshman class - the ones they can bring onto campus, anyway. It also means that they are actively making plans to lose some of their players early, recruiting even more top talent than they might normally expect to need, and managing their arrival dates.

But how can teams mitigate this problem without necessarily yo-yoing up and down the league standings every year? Coaches understand college's role as a development level for professional hockey. But there are prototypes out there for top players they can get maximum production from - players like Chase Polacek, overlooked in high school and considered to be too small for the NHL, but he works just fine in college, doesn't he? Jacob Laliberté projects to be very similar, and as we've mentioned before, his size makes it more likely that he'd develop better in college than in major junior, though he too is a question mark when it comes to possibly heading to the CHL. These are the diamonds in the rough that will be the anchors of top teams in the near future, working hand in hand with the shooting stars that will be gone after a year or two.

Those types will be just as important as the blue chippers as the recruiting trail continues to evolve.

National Awards: The Last Pontification, Maybe

With our 5-for-6 record in the ECAC awards, we thought it was time to tackle the three major national awards - the Hobey, which is the Player of the Year award, the Penrose, which is the Coach of the Year award, and the National Rookie of the Year award, which we feel confident that we should not have to fully explain to you.

The nominees are...

Hobey Baker Award
F Bobby Butler, sr., New Hampshire
G Marc Cheverie, jr., Denver
F Blake Geoffrion, sr., Wisconsin
F Gustav Nyquist, so., Maine
F Mark Olver, jr., Northern Michigan
F Chase Polacek, jr., RPI
F Rhett Rakhshani, sr., Denver
G Cody Reichard, so., Miami
G Ben Scrivens, sr., Cornell
D Brendan Smith, jr.,Wisconsin

Most of these names should look familiar from our earlier Hobey primers. The only ones we haven't really mentioned are Olver, Reichard, and Scrivens. Olver and Reichard are both out of the CCHA and are solid selections - you already know Scrivens is a solid selection even if some of his success derives from the Cornell system.

At this point, it's not really about picking a winner as much as it is figuring out who the three finalists will be. We've already told you that Polacek's status as a top 10 finalist is about as much as we could hope for. The team's disastrous playoff showing meant he couldn't continue to grow his numbers as long as some of the other candidates.

We'll take a forward, a goaltender, and a defenseman here. Obviously, that means Smith, who's been a huge part of Wisconsin's success this season. The goaltender debate really boils down to Cheverie and Scrivens, and although he had a rough weekend last week in St. Paul, Denver is where they are today because of him, more so than Cornell or Miami with their goaltenders. The final choice is probably between Gustav Nyquist and Bobby Butler - we'll take Butler's more solid scoring numbers and his playing a bigger part in his team's greater success.

Spencer Penrose Award
Red Berenson, Michigan (1)
Enrico Blasi, Miami (1)
Danton Cole, Alabama-Huntsville
Mark Dennehy, Merrimack
George Gwozdecky, Denver (2)
Dave Hakstol, North Dakota
Nate Leaman, Union
C.J. Marottolo, Sacred Heart
Mike Schafer, Cornell
Tom Serratore, Bemidji State
Dick Umile, New Hampshire (1)
Wayne Wilson, RIT
Jerry York, Boston College (1)

Wow! What a list! Why so many? Simple - because the Penrose Award nominees every year are the coaches who either won their league's coach of the year award, or who coached their team to the tournament championship. This year, none of the six coaches of the year went on to win a league title (although Leaman and Marottolo had their teams playing for one), and on top of all that, Umile (1999's Penrose winner) and Dennehy split the Hockey East coach of the year award.

The national coach of the year practically always comes from a team playing in the NCAA Tournament, that leaves out Dennehy, Leaman, and Marottolo. Berenson (2008) helmed a very up and down Michigan team that is only in the tournament thanks to a scalding hot finish and their CCHA title. Cole's squad needed just a pair of wins to earn their bid, neither coming against the beast of the CHA, Bemidji State.

The favorites here are probably Serratore, whose Beavers made the tournament as a #2 seed with an at-large bid despite coming out of the CHA, York, whose only Penrose nod came in 1977 when he was at Clarkson, and Schafer, who seems to always be in the mix but has never won one himself.

National Rookie of the Year
F Stephane Da Costa, Merrimack
F Jerry D'Amigo, RPI
F Jordan George, Bemidji State
F Danny Kristo, North Dakota
D Chris Tanev, RIT
F Andy Taranto, Alaska

Given that none of the past three National Rookies of the Year failed to win their league's award, we can safely assume that these six players are the nominees (although we'd be hard-pressed not to mention Brandon Pirri, who still probably should have won the ECAC award).

We can definitively pick a winner here after welching out on the last two. Stephane Da Costa, more than any of the other winners, made his team a contender for his presence. The Warriors very nearly upset the defending national champions to earn their first ever trip to the TD Garden for the Hockey East semifinals, and if it weren't for Da Costa, they almost certainly would have been in their usual position of missing the playoffs. D'Amigo, George, and Taranto certainly made solid and important contributions to their teams - in the latter two instances, to the tune of NCAA Tournament appearances, boosting their odds - but in those cases they were merely important pieces of the puzzle. Da Costa took his team on his back. He's the deserving choice.

Men's Hockey - at Harvard and Dartmouth (12/13 Feb)

The curious 2009-10 campaign rolls on for the Engineers. They continue to play better against tougher opponents and disappoint against weaker ones, and that rang true this past weekend once again, as the Engineers won a shootout in Boston with Harvard, 5-4, before coughing up a late lead and losing in regulation for the second time this season as Dartmouth shocked RPI, 4-3.

Harvard
Kerins/Pirri/O'Grady
D'Amigo/Polacek/Halpern
Lee/Angers-Goulet/Brutlag
Vassel/Malchuk/Helfrich

Bergin/Foss
Kennedy/Merth
Jensen/Burgdoerfer

York

With exactly the same lineup as was seen in the Clarkson game, the Engineers came in needing a victory to secure the tiebreaker with Harvard and, trailing SLU by a point in the race for the first round bye, to keep pace with the Saints.

The game couldn't have started out much worse for RPI. Just 18 seconds after the opening faceoff, Harvard defenseman Jack Christian scored his first goal of the season on a play that didn't initially appear to be a goal. The light never came on, and after a while of the referee looking for the puck, he blew his whistle and signaled a goal. Then, just a few seconds later, Harvard put the puck in the net again, but this time it was whistled no goal for a high stick. There are some people who swear that the first one shouldn't have been a goal and that there really wasn't much of a high stick, so it might have been a makeup call. Others say that both calls were right on. Whatever the real answer, it looks like Harvard's one goal out of the duo was probably fair.

Then, before the game was even two minutes old, Harvard made it 2-0 on a goal by Michael Biega. The Crimson had certainly come out flying and were putting whatever they could on Allen York. But from there, the Engineer defense started picking back up and the game finally settled down a little bit.

An RPI power play midway through the period was negated when Mike Bergin took a penalty of his own during the second half of the advantage, but only seconds after the puck dropped at 4-on-4, the referee signaled a delayed penalty on Harvard. With York off the ice for the extra skater, Jerry D'Amigo would score his 9th of the year to put RPI on the board and cut the Harvard lead in half.

Since the goal negated the Harvard penalty, the Crimson got a power play once Bergin was left alone in the box, and they capitalized, scoring just about 1:40 after D'Amigo's goal to regain their 2-goal edge. It looked as though the door that Jerry had opened was being closed.

But the Engineers didn't just roll over that that point, and that's something they've displayed all season - resilience. Only about a minute and a half later, Bryan Brutlag netted his 7th of the season to make it a one goal game again, and then just 9 seconds later, it was junior Chase Polacek - who else? - who scored his 19th goal of the season to tie the game at three. It was the last goal in a flurry of four goals in a span of just 3:31 starting with D'Amigo's tally, and it represented a combined 6 goals on a total of 11 shots between the teams in the game's first 15 minutes. Needless to say, defense, at that point, was at a premium. Harvard coach Ted Donato had seen enough, considering that 3 of the 4 goal flurry had been for the Engineers. He pulled goaltender Ryan Carroll - which he did in the first game between these teams as well - in favor of Kyle Richter, the former Dryden Award winner.

The 3-3 score held up into the second period, where Harvard would strike back four minutes in with a delayed penalty/extra attacker goal of their own, retaking the lead 4-3. Once more, RPI would be playing catchup.

As they were able to do with 2 of the 3 previous Harvard goals, the Engineers would land the all important next goal about three minutes later, and it was Polacek tying the game once again to make it 4-4.

As the game reached its midway point, stalwart Harvard defenseman Alex Biega was called for tripping, and RPI wasted no time in going to work on the power play. Harvard pushed the puck forward on the ensuing faceoff, and Bergin picked it up at the blue line. He quickly pushed the puck to Brandon Pirri, who blasted a shot over Richter's shoulder to give the Engineers their first lead of the night just 4 seconds into the Biega penalty.

With 9 goals scored between the teams in the first half of the game, it seemed like it would be a total horse race, but the defense finally showed up. Allen York made 14 saves on 15 shots in the second period, and RPI took their one-goal lead into the final 20 minutes.

Almost like flipping a switch, the third period was all defense. York would earn an additional 10 saves in the third period, keeping the Crimson out of the net despite RPI having to kill a pair of penalties. Mindful of Harvard's late game flurry which tied the game in Troy with just three seconds left, the Engineers kept the puck down in the Harvard end for much of the game's final minute, preferring to kill time rather than try for the open net, and the game ultimately ended 5-4.

The final tale of the game was one of the Engineers' resilience - they started the game very poorly, but never stopped working, and it paid off for them in the end. They also found a way to hang on late with a slim lead, something good teams should be able to do regularly.

It was a bit of a historic win for an unexpected reason - Harvard had been undefeated and untied (19-0-0) at home in the month of February under Ted Donato and unbeaten in 15 consecutive years in the first ECAC game after the Beanpot tournament's conclusion.

Dartmouth
D'Amigo/Polacek/Halpern
Kerins/Pirri/O'Grady
Lee/Angers-Goulet/Brutlag
Cullen/Malchuk/Rabbani

Kennedy/Merth
Bergin/Foss
Jensen/Burgdoerfer

York

Patrick Cullen found ice time in this one after sitting four consecutive games as a healthy scratch, Josh Rabbani also cracked the lineup again, forcing Garett Vassel and Tyler Helfrich to the stands from the previous night's lineup.

The game started out with a bunch of shots coming from both sides but really no outstanding scoring opportunities. Both teams had a power play opportunity in the first half of the period but nothing came of either chance.

A huge shakeup was in store for the final minute of the period, however. A nice pass by the Big Green left Kyle Reeds open and driving to the net from York's left side. Reeds waited until the netminder committed, then put it in the net past a diving York. Dartmouth had taken a 1-0 lead, but the more immediate concern was that York was not getting up. He was helped back to the locker room with what would turn out to be an ankle injury, and he would not return to the bench. Bryce Merriam came in, seeing his first action since being pulled from the GLI championship game at the end of December.

The second period, simply put, was the Chase Polacek show. While Merriam did a solid job on his end of the ice, stopping all 12 shots he faced in the middle frame, it was Polacek who had one of the most solid periods by an Engineer forward in years. It got started about 4 minutes in, as Polacek jammed in his 3rd goal of the weekend to even the score.

After killing a penalty to Paul Kerins, the Engineers found themselves the beneficiary of a two-man advantage after Dartmouth took penalties about a minute apart. It appeared that Dartmouth's three-man penalty kill was about as effective as RPI's three-man PK, as Polacek made it look easy, practically walking into the slot, collapsing the triangle and ringing it in off the crossbar to put RPI up 2-1.

Just under two minutes later, with the Engineers establishing continued pressure in the Dartmouth zone even after the expiration of the second Big Green penalty, it was Polacek once again, scoring from Pirri and D'Amigo to complete a natural hat trick - the first hat trick of any sort for the Engineers in three seasons. It put RPI up 3-1, and it looked like they were rolling. Dartmouth ended up leading the period in shots, but it was obvious at that point that RPI was controlling the game almost totally.

The undoing began at the end of the second period, but that wouldn't be obvious until the end of the game. John Kennedy was called for elbowing with less than two minutes to go, and in the final second of the period Erik Burgdoerfer was sent off for delay of game after knocking the net from its moorings during a Dartmouth scoring opportunity on the power play. The Engineers would have 18 seconds of 5-on-3 to kill at the beginning of the 3rd period.

The penalties would both eventually be killed off, but they led to Dartmouth cutting the lead in half. The very next shift after the penalty kill, the RPI defense looked like it was breathing a sigh of relief, and that's when the other team's going to jump on you. That's exactly what Dartmouth did, scoring just 22 seconds after Burgdoerfer's penalty expired to make the score 3-2.

Things generally started to unravel from there, but still, it appeared to the outside observer that the Engineers were still largely keeping an even keel. Three and a half minutes after the Dartmouth goal, Jerry D'Amigo was shown the door for a pretty obvious hit from behind. The referees had a pow wow at center ice, and decided that it would be five and a game misconduct, and it was hard to argue with the call. For D'Amigo, it was a move of frustration as he continues to be a target for rough play, but it was a foolish move that blunted the opportunities for the team to regain their 2-goal lead. RPI's tenacious penalty kill did its job and did not allow a goal during the long Dartmouth power play that ensued, but a major scoring threat was eliminated from the game with Jerry's departure, a lasting repercussion that made things difficult going forward.

A Dartmouth penalty with about 8 minutes left appeared to be a golden opportunity for RPI to cope with D'Amigo's absence, but just a few seconds later Patrick Cullen had taken a foolish tripping call, and the chance was squandered.

Then things completely collapsed. RPI's defense appeared ready to dig in and defend the lead late, but horrendous miscues would doom their plans. With under 3 minutes to play, a terrible pass in the RPI zone from Scott Halpern was easily picked off at the blue line by Dartmouth, and with the RPI forwards in the neutral zone in anticipation of a full change of possession, it was easy for the Big Green to walk in and put it past Merriam, who was completely helpless in the odd-man opportunity. The game was tied.

In the ensuing shift, the Engineer defense acted as though they were shell-shocked. A complete defense breakdown - rare from the defense duo of Bergin and Jeff Foss - resulted in Dartmouth's second goal in less than a minute and put the Big Green back on top with just under two minutes to play. From there, RPI was a defeated team. They played with the urgency they had been missing over that minute of breakdown, but really, they were more fortunate not to have been scored on again in the empty net than they were close to getting the game tied again. RPI dominated most facets of the game, but you've still got to end the game with more goals than the other team, and they didn't do that, squandering an otherwise solid performance and an outstanding personal effort from Chase Polacek in the game's dying minutes to lose two crucial ECAC points that practically seemed to be in the bag after the second period.

In the space of 3:31 of game play - at home against Union and Harvard and in this game in Hanover - the Engineers gave up 5 goals that ultimately cost them 5 points in the ECAC standings, 5 points that would have had them in 2nd place by themselves. That's how close this team is. The missing element is simple. They must develop a killer instinct in the 3rd period. If you're in a fight and you've got your foot on the other guy's throat, you can't lift that boot or he'll make you sorry you did. You've got to push down harder. Same goes with hockey. If you can't figure out how to finish every game you've got a late lead in, you're putting yourself behind the eight ball. Earlier in the day, St. Lawrence had tied Princeton to finish a miserable 1 point weekend. It was a perfect opportunity to take firm control of the driver's seat for 4th place. Instead, the Engineers and Saints are now tied for 4th, a tie which is won by St. Lawrence thanks to their win and tie in the head-to-head series. For one night, after the Harvard win, the Engineers controlled their destiny for the bye, sitting in 4th place all alone, a point ahead of SLU and 3 ahead of Colgate. Now, they are tied with St. Lawrence and are just a point ahead of Colgate (who plays tonight to potentially move ahead of both teams) and two ahead of Quinnipiac. The difference between a win and a loss in the Dartmouth game is monumental. The road to the bye just got a lot tougher.

More immediately, the injury to Allen York is the primary concern. His ankle isn't broken, but we don't know the full extent of what he's dealing with. We do know that he hasn't been able to walk on it yet, which has him already listed as doubtful for the upcoming Freakout! weekend. For the time being, RPI moves forward with freshman Bryce Merriam as the #1 goaltender. This isn't terrible, since Merriam has shown himself to be capable when he's had the opportunity to play - and Seth Appert has gone on record as saying that he recruited Merriam with the intention that he would compete for playing time, not strictly as a 2nd stringer. Given the choice, right now, I think we'd prefer to see York, but Merriam has the goods.

Two more big games this upcoming weekend as Freakout! coincides with senior night on Saturday, but Friday's game with schizophrenic Quinnipiac looms first and figures to be a tough battle. The Bobcats beat Colgate two weeks ago and then drubbed St. Lawrence in Canton this past Friday, 5-0, leading one to believe that they were back with a vengeance. Then they laid an egg the next night to lowly Clarkson, losing 4-1. We don't know what we'll get out of Quinnipiac on Friday, but we do know they can be very, very dangerous. With only four games left in the regular season, these would be four very, very big points. If they Engineers want the bye, they really must sweep this weekend. With any luck, the excitement behind Freakout! and senior night will power them to victories.

Other junk - RPI dropped a single point in this week's USCHO.com poll, moving from 8 votes to 7 votes. It makes me think they might have been close to being ranked if they'd held on for the win on Saturday. No matter. Ranked ECAC teams are #5 Yale (up one after sweeping Colgate and Cornell), #10 Cornell (down two after splitting with Brown and Yale), and #16 Union (no change after beating Dartmouth and losing to Harvard). St. Lawrence, after getting trashed by Quinnipiac and having to claw their way back to a tie with Princeton, fell to only a single vote.

Ranked non-conference opponents are #12 Michigan State (up one), #13 New Hampshire (up two), #18 UMass (no change), #19 Boston University (re-entered), and #20 Alaska (re-entered). Sacred Heart received 4 votes.

Chase Polacek has basically moved himself into the clear front-runner's position for ECAC Player of the Year with five goals on the weekend. For his efforts, he was named ECAC Player of the Week for the second time in three weeks. He's still in third place in the Hobey Baker voting, so you know what you've got to do: http://www.hobeybaker.com/voting. The big weekend pushed him back into first place nationally, by himself, with 46 points. He is trailed by Canisius' Cory Conacher with 45 points and Sacred Heart's Nick Johnson with 44 points. Polacek and Johnson are tied for the national lead in goals with 23 each. In the ECAC, Polacek leads Union's Mario Valery-Trabucco 31 points to 28 points, and is tied with Valery-Trabucco and Yale's Broc Little, each of whom has 15 goals in league play.

Brandon Pirri, meanwhile, is maintaining his national rookie points lead with 39, four ahead of Merrimack's Stephane Da Costa. Jerry D'Amigo is up near the top in that ranking as well with 28 points, good enough for fifth nationally among rookies, which shows you how far ahead of a lot of other rookies that Pirri is. They may both be contenders for National Rookie of the Year.

ECAC Standings
1. Yale - 26 pts
2. Cornell - 24 pts (wins tiebreaker with Union)
3. Union - 24 pts
4. St. Lawrence - 20 pts (wins tiebreaker with RPI)
5. RPI - 20 pts
6. Colgate - 19 pts
7. Quinnipiac - 18 pts
8. Harvard - 17 pts
9. Princeton - 14 pts
10. Brown - 13 pts
11. Dartmouth - 11 pts
12. Clarkson - 8 pts

RPI at Harvard
ECAC Game - Bright Hockey Center (Boston, MA)
2/12/10 - 7:00 pm
RESULT: RPI 5, Harvard 4

BOX SCORES

• College Hockey Stats
• USCHO

RECAPS

• RPI
• USCHO
• Troy Record
• Albany Times-Union
• Boston Herald

RECORD: 16-12-3 (9-6-2 ECAC, 20 pts)

Reale Deals
1. F Chase Polacek, 2 G
2. F Jerry D'Amigo, 1 G, 2 A
3. F Brandon Pirri, 1 G, 1 A

RPI at Dartmouth
ECAC Game - Thompson Arena (Hanover, NH)
2/13/10 - 7:00 pm
RESULT: Dartmouth 4, RPI 3

BOX SCORES

• College Hockey Stats
• USCHO

RECAPS

• RPI
• Troy Record
• Albany Times-Union
• WMUR-TV (Manchester, NH)

RECORD: 16-13-3 (9-7-2 ECAC, 20 pts)

Reale Deals
1. F Chase Polacek, 3 G
2. F Brandon Pirri, 2 A
3. F Marty O'Grady, 1 A

Upcoming Games
19 Feb - Quinnipiac
20 Feb - Princeton (Big Red Freakout! and Senior Night)
26 Feb - at Colgate
27 Feb - at #10 Cornell
05 Mar - ECAC First Round Game 1
--
MEN’S HOCKEY

Rensselaer went 1-1-0 last week, beating Harvard (5-4) on Friday, before falling to Dartmouth (4-3) on Saturday. Junior Chase Polacek (Edina, MN) scored five goals on the weekend, including a natural hat-trick against the Big Green. RPI (16-13-3; 9-7-2 ECAC Hockey) returns to the Houston Field House this weekend, when it takes on Quinnipiac on Friday (7pm) and Princeton on Saturday (7pm) in the 33rd Bank of America Annual Big Red Freakout! Saturday will also be Senior Night.

Live stats for both games will be available at http://www.sidearmstats.com/rpi/mhockey/index.htm and can be seen live on a pay-per-view basis at https://www.b2livetv.com/login.asp. As is the case will all RPI men’s hockey games, both contests will be broadcast on the air courtesy of WRPI radio on 91.5 FM or log on to www.wrpi.org and click on sports.