Know Your Enemy: New Hampshire

This isn't your brother's New Hampshire. This might be your father's New Hampshire - if your father is older. The Wildcats are in a bad way, and some of their very brightest elements of what was a very rough season won't be returning to Durham, which means perhaps now, more than ever, UNH might be depending on some serious production from its freshmen in order to salvage what could be another dark year in the Granite State.

New Hampshire
Nickname: Wildcats
Location: Durham, NH
Founded: 1866
Conference: Hockey East
National Championships: 0
Last NCAA Appearance: 2013
Last Frozen Four: 2003
Coach: Dick Umile (27th season)
2015-16 Record: 11-20-6 (4-12-6 Hockey East, 10th place)
Series: UNH leads, 25-23-0
First Game: February 7, 1964 (Troy, NY)
Last RPI win: November 24, 2015 (Troy, NY)
Last UNH win: January 6, 2013 (Durham, NH)

2016-17 game: November 22, 2016 (Durham, NH)

Key players: D Matias Cleland, sr.; F Jamie Hill, sr.; F Tyler Kelleher, sr.; D Dylan Maller, sr.; F Shane Eiserman, jr.; D Cameron Marks, jr.; F Michael McNicholas, jr.; G Daniel Tirone, jr.; G Adam Clark, so.; D Matt Dawson, so.; F Chris Miller, so.; F Ara Nazarian, so.; F Marcus Vela, so.; F Liam Blackburn, fr.; F Justin Fregona, fr.; F Brendan van Riemsdyk, fr.

Previous KYE installments:

• 2012-13
• 2013-14
• 2014-15
• 2015-16

UNH boasted one of the best lines in the country last year - and little else. RPI got to see that line up close and personal when Andrew Poturalski put the team on his back in Troy and just about single-handedly brought the Wildcats back from a 3-0 hole, tying the game up with a natural hat-trick before Alex Rodriguez's first collegiate goal doomed UNH to their third straight loss against the Engineers.

11 wins last year is the fewest in any season during Dick Umile's tenure. You have to go all the way back to 1988 to find the last time the Wildcats had fewer wins in one season, and almost as far for their previous 20-loss season, 1989. If UNH misses the NCAA tournament this season, the Class of 2017 will be the first to graduate without playing in the national tournament since 1991 - Umile's first season in charge in Durham. He is expected to retire at the conclusion of his most recent contract extension, which runs out in 2018.

The trio of Poturalski, Kelleher, and Dan Correale was simply outstanding, as the three combined for 48 goals (22 by Poturalski alone) and 75 assists (36 by Kelleher). Unfortunately Poturalski is forgoing his final two years of collegiate eligibility after signing with Carolina (the first NCAA player to sign an early pro deal at the end of last season), and Correale has graduated, as has Maxim Gaudreault, third behind Poturalski and Correale in goals for the Wildcats last year.

Forward Warren Foegele's defection to the OHL after one month of his sophomore year certainly hurt as well, and John Furgele, who missed just four games on the UNH blueline in two years, is transferring to Quinnipiac (where he'll be 26 as a senior in 2018 - cue the moans from around the Big Ten). If nothing else, this makes for two more unexpected roster holes that needed to be filled for the coming season, never a good position to have.

Mike Robinson has been described as the "goaltender of the future," and the third-round draft pick of the San Jose Sharks in 2015, was initially expected to bring some badly needed defensive capacity to a program that occasionally looked like it would struggle to keep a beach ball out of the net last year, but after being drafted in the 2nd round of the Phase II USHL Draft in May, it appears he is still another year out after an injury kept him sidelined much of last season. Ditto to Kelleher's younger brother Charlie, taken in the first round of the same draft - he is also a year out.

But speaking of younger brothers, the third and final van Riemsdyk brother - the tallest of the trio - arrives this year. You may remember James (now of the Toronto Maple Leafs) and Trevor (now of the Chicago Blackhawks) both coming through Durham, and Brendan will likely be leaned on to provide some additional offense early in his collegiate career. Adding Blackburn to the fold should also be a solid shot in the arm, as he was one of the top scorers in the BCHL last year, playing for the Royal Bank Cup champions West Kelowna.

There may also be sort of a returning answer in net. Clark hurt his shoulder last year and played in only two games (a scenario that undoubtedly sounds familiar to Engineers fans), and he returns this year as a redshirt sophomore. He's had an interesting college career thus far, coming in two seasons ago for the spring semester as an emergency measure, and then getting hurt last year.

It does seem like any success UNH is going to have in this coming season will bank largely on Clark's ability to live up to his expectations, Kelleher's capacity to function as well as he did last year without Poturalski, and potential contributions from the freshman class. That probably translates to another difficult season in Durham. The Wildcats are a team searching for the bottom, and hoping that last year represented that bottom - but that's far from a given.

This game will be on the road for RPI, and will be the third game in five nights as it comes on a Tuesday following the two home games with Ohio State. We've seen this set-up before, in fact, this will be the third consecutive season that the RPI-UNH game takes place on a Tuesday. The timing should provide a good test for the Engineers' fitness, but much as with OSU, UNH enters this season with too many question marks to make this them solid favorites in this matchup.

Much depends on how the Engineers find goals and how the Wildcats find defense, and we should know quite a bit more about that by the time these teams do battle. But Seth Appert certainly has found UNH's number in the last few years, and there's nothing to immediately suggest that the recent trends are about to change.

Women's Hockey - New Hampshire (27/28 Nov)

After a disappointing exhibition outing in Montreal that saw RPI beaten 4-0 by McGill, the Engineers returned home for a Thanksgiving weekend non-conference pair against New Hampshire.

Alexa Gruschow provided all the offense for RPI on the weekend, notching a hat trick in Friday's 3-3 tie and another goal on Saturday in a 2-1 loss.

Friday

Schwalbe/Mankey/Gruschow
Wash/Tomlinson/Rooney
Grigsby/Raspa/Thomas
Tremblay/Hylwa/Orzechowski

Kimmerle/Godin
Behounek/Banks
Hansen

Selander

Alexa Gruschow scored two goals in three minutes late in the game to complete a hat trick and lead RPI's comeback to a 3-3 tie against New Hampshire at Houston Field House Friday night.

After Gruschow's first goal - the first of the game - was matched by UNH 23 seconds later, the Wildcats scored two more to take a 3-1 lead, necessitating Gruschow's late-game heroics.

The senior's first goal started through her own hard work along the boards to gain control of a puck which she fed to Mari Mankey behind the UNH net. Mankey slipped the puck back to the top of the crease where a charging Gruschow put it past Kyra Smith for the 1-0 lead.

Jonna Curtis ensured the RPI lead was short-lived, blowing past Hannah Behounek on a breakaway to beat Lovisa Selander and tie the game at one just 23 seconds later.

UNH took the lead later in the first period when a botched RPI pass at their own blue line gave the Wildcats a 2-on-1 which Cassandra Vilgrain finished off to make it 2-1.

The Wildcat lead grew to 3-1 at 2:46 of the middle frame, when Amy Schlagel scored a power play goal on a nice one-timer off a pass across the slot by Jonna Curtis.

RPI couldn't capitalize on a couple UNH penalties, leaving it to Gruschow's late-game tallies in the third to tie things up. She drew the Engineers to within one at 15:47, making a couple quick moves to get around the defense and throw a sharp angle shot at the net which found its way through.

Three minutes later she tied the game, parking at the side of the net with the extra attacker on and taking a feed from the slot which she quickly snapped past Smith.

The hat trick was the first of Gruschow's career, in a game which saw her put a team-leading six shots on net. Mari Mankey had two assists.

Saturday

Schwalbe/Mankey/Gruschow
Tremblay/Tomlinson/Rooney
Grigsby/Raspa/Thomas
Hylwa/Orzechowski

Hansen/Godin
Behounek/Banks
Kimmerle

Selander

After scoring a hat trick on Friday, Alexa Gruschow added another goal on Saturday, but it would be the Engineers' only goal on the afternoon and would not be enough as RPI fell 2-1 to UNH.

Amy Boucher scored for the Wildcats in the first period, deflecting a point shot from Amy Schlagel past Selander for a 1-0 lead.

Gruschow tied the game at 6:37 of the third period, putting home a loose puck after a shot from Josefine Hansen was blocked on its way to the net.

Amy Boucher put the Wildcats back on top at 11:41 with a power play tally, capitalizing on a failed RPI clearing attempt to take the lead.

RPI pushed for the tying goal as the clock ran down, pulling Selander for a minute and a half of extra attacker time, but the Wildcats held on to the lead for a win and a tie over the Engineers on the weekend.

The Engineers now return home for one more weekend of league play against Yale and Brown before a month-long winter break.

-----

RPI vs. New Hampshire
Non-Conference Game - Houston Field House (Troy, NY)
11/27/15 - 7pm
RPI 3, UNH 3 (OT)

BOX SCORES:
RPI: http://www.rpiathletics.com/boxscore.aspx?path=whock&id=5191
College Hockey Stats: http://collegehockeystats.net/1516/boxes/wrenunh1.n27

RECAPS:
RPI: http://www.rpiathletics.com/news/2015/11/27/WICE_1127151008.aspx?path=whock
UNH: http://unhwildcats.com/news/2015/11/27/WHOCKEY_1127153556.aspx?path=whockey
Video Highlights: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPjJ30KUUzI
Complete Game Video: http://rpitv.org/productions/1013-womens-hockey-vs-unh-game-1

RECORD: 4-7-2 (2-3-1 ECAC)

-----

RPI vs. New Hampshire
Non-Conference Game - Houston Field House (Troy, NY)
11/28/15 - 4pm
UNH 2, RPI 1

BOX SCORES:
RPI: http://www.rpiathletics.com/boxscore.aspx?path=whock&id=5192
College Hockey Stats: http://collegehockeystats.net/1516/boxes/wrenunh1.n28

RECAPS:
RPI: http://www.rpiathletics.com/news/2015/11/28/WICE_1128151302.aspx?path=whock
UNH: http://unhwildcats.com/news/2015/11/28/WHOCKEY_1128155834.aspx?path=whockey
Video Highlights: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ua2ck7Nxf0o
Complete Game Video: http://rpitv.org/productions/1014-womens-hockey-vs-unh-game-2

RECORD: 4-8-2 (2-3-1 ECAC)

-----

Upcoming Schedule

Dec. 4 - Yale (3pm)
Dec. 5 - Brown (3pm)
Jan. 2 - at Mercyhurst (3pm)
Jan. 3 - at Mercyhurst (1pm)

Men's Hockey - at Bentley/New Hampshire (20/24 Nov)

Another weekend, another couple of wins for an RPI team that is certainly on more than a little bit of a roll - although neither win came easy. On the road against Bentley and at home against New Hampshire on Friday and Tuesday nights respectively, the Engineers jumped out to 3-0 leads twice but ultimately needed to rally in the third period twice as well on their way to 3-2 and 4-3 victories that extended their unbeaten streak to eight in a row - their longest unbeaten streak since the 1998-99 season.

Bentley
Liljegren-Bourbonnais-Wood
Melanson-Miller-Nanne
Fulton-Schroeder-Gillespie
Ohrvall, Rodriguez

Bradley-Prapavessis
Wilson-Reno
Moore-Hampton
Grant

Hackett

Alex Rodriguez made his collegiate debut on Friday at one of the smallest rinks in all of college hockey, replacing Lonnie Clary in the lineup. As with the previous weekend, Jason Kasdorf was available as a potential injury backup for Cam Hackett, but he ultimately did not play in either game the Engineers had over the five day period.

RPI's increasingly vaunted "M-N-M" line of Mark Miller, Lou Nanne, and Drew Melanson provided the spark and energy for the Engineers' offense throughout their first visit to Bentley, but specifically powered things during the first period, picking up two big goals to give the visitors the early edge. Nanne scored his third goal of the season with a helper from Melanson at 8:41 to put RPI ahead 1-0, and Miller added to that lead with a tally from Melanson at 17:44 of the period, his fourth goal of the year.

Meanwhile, the RPI penalty kill kept the Falcons held down during the opening 20 minutes, successfully killing off a pair of penalties to preserve the 2-0 lead. Then, midway through the second, Mike Prapavessis struck with his first goal of the season, putting back a rebound off a shot by Zach Schroeder, giving the Engineers a crucial 3-0 edge.

That's roughly the time when the tide began to shift in Bentley's favor. The home side, led by a line of Andrew Gladiuk, Max French, and Kyle Schmidt, pushed back fiercely. Hackett held up for much of the middle period, making a game-high 13 saves, but did let one by during a 4-on-4 counter-attack from the Falcons as Jake Ahlgren's goal got Bentley on the board.

Bentley's top line converted for a tally at 6:44 of the third period to really tighten the game up, but that was as close as the Falcons would get. Another 11 saves by Hackett in the third contributed to a 31-for-33 night for the freshman netminder, and RPI's defense dug deep late to come away with the victory against a very tenacious Bentley squad.

Riley Bourbonnais had a six-game point scoring streak snapped by missing the scoresheet against the Falcons, but he remained in the team lead for goals and points.

New Hampshire
Liljegren-Bubela-Bourbonnais
Melanson-Miller-Nanne
Wood-Schroeder-Gillespie
Ohrvall-Fulton-Rodriguez

Bradley-Prapavessis
Wilson-Reno
Moore-Hampton

Hackette

Milos Bubela returned to the lineup for the first time in nearly a month since suffering an injury against Union, allowing RPI to field the usual 12x6 lineup that most teams roll with. Functionally, he replaced Tommy Grant in the lineup, and three of the four forward lines were juggled a bit to accommodate for his return.

Prapavessis got the Engineers off to a quick start with his second goal of the year, second in as many games, and second RPI goal in a row by getting a shot from the point through everyone at 2:54 of the first period, just after intercepting a weak clearance attempt by UNH. The unassisted goal made it 1-0 RPI for the sixth time in the last eight contests.

Early in the second period, Melanson scored his second goal of the year by slamming home a rebound off a shots by both of his linemates, beating UNH netminder Danny Tirone into an open net for the 2-0 edge at 5:49 of the second. Just over three minutes later, shortly after killing off a dangerous UNH power play, Bourbonnais got himself back onto the scoresheet. With the Wildcats playing relatively lax defense and Bourbonnais himself fresh out of the penalty box, he slipped behind the UNH D and took a feed from Jake Wood, pounding it home for his team-leading 7th goal of the season and putting the Engineers ahead 3-0 for the second time in as many contests.

But that edge did not last long - much of it evaporated minutes later due to a poor hit by senior Milos Bubela, who was called for elbowing in the defensive zone. On the delayed call, UNH's Andrew Poturalski went to work. tipping home a shot from the point to put the Wildcats on the board before going back on the power play. Poturalski scored again on the ensuing man advantage less than a minute later, and just like that, the 3-0 lead was only 3-2.

Poturalski completed the natural hat trick just 1:04 into the third period, tying things up with his nation-leading 11th goal of the season, almost single-handedly knotting things back up with three goals in less than 10 minutes of game time. But as we've seen with RPI this season, losing a lead in the third period was not a time for giving up, and the Engineers fought valiantly in the final period, eventually cashing in with just 4:01 remaining in regulation. A good forecheck by Alex Rodriguez, playing in just his second collegiate game, provided a measure for Parker Reno to move up and keep the puck in the attacking zone. A quick feed to Travis Fulton produced a shot that Rodriguez deftly deflected past Tirone to give RPI a 4-3 lead.

From there, UNH looked for opportunities to give themselves that crucial 6-on-5 edge, but the Engineers displayed calm, level-headed defense by maintaining puck possession to an extent that the Wildcats were really never able to pull Tirone from the net, and the game ended with the puck down in the UNH end, where it had been for much of the final two minutes of the game, and the Engineers prevailed, skating off without being on the losing side for the eighth consecutive contest.

The emergence of Rodriguez on the fourth-line tempers slightly the loss of Evan Tironese, who on Monday underwent shoulder surgery and will be lost for the rest of the season. The freshman appeared in only six games this year, and as we have yet to reach the midway point of the season, he should be eligible for a medical redshirt, which will make him a redshirt freshman next year, a silver lining to some bad news for the Engineers.

The eight-game unbeaten streak is now the longest of the Appert era, and the longest overall since a nine-game winning streak in the 1998-99 season. They will look to extend that streak this coming weekend as they travel to Notre Dame for the annual Shillelagh Tournament. On Friday, they take on Ben Barr and the Western Michigan Broncos, a team that has struggled at times to keep the puck out of the net. On Saturday, they face off with a nationally-ranked team no matter who it ends up being, as #18 Notre Dame or #8 Harvard will be the opponent.

In ECAC play while RPI was in non-conference action, much of the league played the games in hand they had over the Engineers (except for Clarkson and St. Lawrence, which still have one game in hand), and RPI remains in first place, albeit now tied with Quinnipiac, who drew with the Golden Knights and Saints for their first blemishes on their record (though still undefeated). RPI returns to ECAC play in two weeks' time against Dartmouth and Harvard at home, closing out the 2015 portion of their league schedule.

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

By winning percentage
1. Quinnipiac (.833)
2. RPI (.833)
3. Harvard (.750)
4. Cornell (.750)
5. St. Lawrence (.700)
6. Yale (.667)
7. Brown (.333)
8. Dartmouth (.333)
9. Colgate (.250)
10. Clarkson (.200)
11. Union (.167)
12. Princeton (.167)

RPI at Bentley

Non-conference Game - John A. Ryan Skating Arena (Watertown, MA)
11/20/15 - 7:00pm

RESULT: RPI 3, Bentley 2

BOX SCORES
College Hockey Stats
USCHO

RECAPS
RPI
Troy Record
Albany Times Union

RECORD: 6-4-2 (4-0-2 ECAC, 10 pts)

New Hampshire at RPI
Non-conference Game - Houston Field House (Troy, NY)
11/24/15 - 7:00pm

RESULT: RPI 4, New Hampshire 3

BOX SCORES
College Hockey Stats
USCHO

RECAPS
RPI
Troy Record

Albany Times Union

VIDEO
Highlights
Full game
Post-game interviews

RECORD: 7-4-2 (4-0-2 ECAC, 10 pts)

Upcoming games
27 Nov - vs. Western Michigan (South Bend, IN)
28 Nov - at #18 Notre Dame/vs. #8 Harvard (South Bend, IN)
04 Dec - Dartmouth
05 Dec - #8 Harvard
11 Dec - Arizona State

An Odd Weekend

Yes, it's an odd weekend of hockey. Non-conference stuff in the middle of November tends to be that way.

Tonight, it's a one-night stand for the men in the Boston suburbs as they get ready for a payback game with Bentley. Let's be honest. Bentley didn't just beat the Engineers twice in Troy last year. They embarrassed them - although some of that was on RPI for embarrassing themselves in their own building. What better time to head down to give the Falcons a home game than to show off how much has changed in the last year-plus since these teams last met? RPI rides a six-game unbeaten streak heading into this weekend, and as mentioned last week, this is a game that a team that fancies itself a contender in the ECAC needs to win. Bentley's certainly not a pushover, though, so bear that in mind.

On Sunday afternoon, the women head north of the border for the first time to clash with the McGill Martinets. It's an exhibition till, so the results are ultimately irrelevant, but hopefully it's a great experience for the Engineers, an opportunity to try out new ideas and new line combinations in a competitive game before they head back into a four-game homestand, including the last chunk of their ECAC schedule for 2015.

Finally, on Tuesday, it's New Hampshire for the men. Tuesday games are old hat for the Wildcats (they usually play a few of them in Hockey East play), but they're more infrequent for RPI. UNH isn't off to a great start and they're having a hard time keeping the puck out of the net. At home, the Engineers might even be the favorites. So there it is. Another pair of games ripe for the picking for an RPI team that is starting to get a little healthier, too. Can they extend the unbeaten streak to seven and eight?

Know Your Enemy: New Hampshire

A bit of an odd feeling this year not having Boston University on the schedule. The seemingly annual RPI-BU game has been a fixture for the last couple of decades, rarely taking a year off, but at the very least we do have the almost-as-frequent RPI-UNH game to look forward to again this season. This year the series shifts the scene back to Troy as the Wildcats arrive for a little mid-week action just before Thanksgiving in a more-rare-than-games-against-UNH Tuesday night matchup at Houston Field House.

New Hampshire
Nickname: Wildcats
Location: Durham, NH
Founded: 1866
Conference: Hockey East
National Championships: 0
Last NCAA Appearance: 2013
Last Frozen Four: 2003
Coach: Dick Umile (26th season)
2014-15 Record: 19-19-2 (10-11-1 Hockey East, 8th place)
Series: UNH leads, 25-22-0
First Game: February 7, 1964 (Troy, NY)
Last RPI win: November 25, 2014 (Durham, NH)
Last UNH win: January 6, 2013 (Durham, NH)

2015-16 game: November 24, 2015 (Troy, NY)

Key players:  F Dan Correale, sr.; F Maxim Gaudreault, sr.; D Harry Quast, sr.; F Kyle Smith, sr.; D Matias Cleland, jr.; F Tyler Kelleher, jr.; F Shane Eiserman, so.; F Warren Foegele, so.; F John Furgele, so.; D Cameron Marks, so.; F Andrew Poturalski, so.; G Daniel Tirone, so.; D Joseph Masonius, fr.; F Marcus Vela, fr.

Previous KYE installments:

• 2012-13
• 2013-14
• 2014-15

Last season got off to a horrible start for UNH a month before the puck dropped as goaltender Casey DeSmith was arrested and charged with domestic assault and battery for an incident that happened in late August. He was suspended and eventually kicked off the team.

That left the Wildcats with basically two options in net for the first semester - freshman Adam Clark, and junior practice goaltender Jamie Regan. Clark had been recruited to back up DeSmith for last season and then eventually Tirone for this year. With the lack of a D-I level second option, UNH accelerated Tirone's arrival for the spring semester, and he ended up playing most of the team's minutes in the second half of the season.

Clark certainly had his struggles. After all, giving up two goals to RPI in late November last year was kind of like giving up four or five to almost anyone else. That was definitely a time when the Engineers had a hard time buying goals, but two was enough to produce a victory for the road team in Durham that night, even despite the injury to Jason Kasdorf that kept him on the sidelines for the rest of the semester.

That's in part because while the Engineers couldn't score goals around that time, neither could UNH. But they picked up their offensive output significantly late in the year, coinciding with better defensive play. The Wildcats won six of eight games down the stretch in February and managed a trip to the Garden for the Hockey East semis after winning a tightly-held three-game affair in Providence against the eventual national champions.

So while it's tempting to point out that they played six games against UConn and Merrimack down the stretch, that series win over Providence has to at least indicate that the Wildcats did in fact finish strong. They'll have Tirone ready to go from the outset this season, although the scoring isn't a sure thing by any stretch of the imagination. Outside of Kelleher (18 g, 22 a) and Poturalski (19 g, 16 a), UNH doesn't bring back a huge chunk of what offense they had last year.

The Wildcats' challenge will be much the same as that of the Engineers over the last couple of seasons - broadening their scoring appeal beyond their top line. If they can manage that they will be a serious threat in Hockey East. If they can't, they're going to have to rely on their defense - which will be young but talented - in order to make waves. Anything and everything can and will happen when RPI and UNH play each other, and while the games haven't tended to produce much in the way of fireworks, they've been unpredictable. The Engineers now ride a two-game winning streak over the Wildcats into this season's game at the Field House, and by that time a battle tested team should, one would hope, be able to run with UNH, especially on their own ice surface.

Men's Hockey - at New Hampshire & Michigan (25 Nov and 28/29 Nov)

Now deep into the second chunk of non-conference games, the Engineers played three road games in five nights with mixed results against traditional college hockey powers. They managed to put forward a dominating performance at New Hampshire on Tuesday night last week, but only managed a 2-1 victory when all was said and done. They were the better of the two teams on Friday night in the Great Lakes State, but had to eat a 3-2 loss after spot mistakes late in the third period. Running out of juice by Saturday, RPI came out strong in the first 10 minutes but unraveled after that to finish the week with a 6-0 rout as Michigan completed a weekend sweep.

New Hampshire
Liljegren-Bubela-McGowan
Melanson-Neal-Bourbonnais
Laliberte-Miller-Wood
Curadi-DeVito-Fulton

Leonard-Prapavessis
Bradley-Hampton
Wilson-Reno

Kasdorf

With players returning to the RPI lineup - especially Luke Curadi and Chris Bradley - the lines began to solidify a bit on Tuesday. Lou Nanne and Zach Schroeder, who had missed the UConn game, would ultimately be out for the entire slate of games for the week, but still project to hopefully be back for the ECAC contests against Yale and Brown.

Meanwhile, an eyebrow raiser in the lineup saw Curadi being slotted as a left-winger on the fourth line, something Seth Appert would later say was something he's been looking to try for some time, and felt confident enough to go forward with it in light of the injuries up front and the team's depth on the blue line.

The Engineers' worst period on Tuesday may have been the first period, but it was the one in which all of the game's goals were scored. UNH struck first on the power play 8:09 in on Warren Foegele's first collegiate goal to put the home team up 1-0. RPI picked up their first goal about six and a half minutes later, basically also on the power play. With the Wildcats killing off their penalty just a few seconds earlier, Curtis Leonard scored with a laser pinpointed blast from the blue line to knot the score, with assists to Matt Neal and Drew Melanson.

Just under two minutes later, RPI struck again to take a lead they would not relinquish. With Travis Fulton jamming the net, Parker Reno came up from the blue line to poke home a rebound to make the score 2-1. It was Reno's second collegiate goal, and first of the season.

Near the end of the period, Michael Prapavessis very nearly made it 3-1 in favor of the Engineers, but he hit a post for the second time in three games.

Jason Kasdorf came out of the game at the start of the second period for what would later be determined to be a precautionary measure as he suffered an undisclosed lower body injury in the first period. It was his replacement, Scott Diebold, who would be the story of the remainder of the game, as he stopped 11 shots in each of the next two periods to preserve the RPI victory.

Diebold's dominance in net was only part of the overall RPI success in the final two periods. The Engineers began controlling the puck well and playing good defense throughout the game. The penalty kill was especially effective, killing off the last six opportunities that the Wildcats got, including a very late penalty to Milos Bubela that effectively gave UNH the final 1:50 with a 6-on-4 situation. Diebold himself lived up to the old adage that your best penalty killer has to be your goaltender, as he made some huge saves in the final moments to deprive the home team of another goal.

Michigan (Friday)
Liljegren-Bubela-McGowan
Melanson-Neal-Bourbonnais
Laliberte-Miller-Wood
Curadi-DeVito-Fulton

Leonard-Prapavessis
Bradley-Hampton
Wilson-Reno

Diebold

After the team stopped in Buffalo the following night to take in the Sabres-Jets game, they ultimately dressed just about the same lineup as Tuesday with one major exception. The injury to Kasdorf from the New Hampshire game was deemed enough to rule him out for the Michigan series. Appert remarked that Kasdorf likely would have played if it were a league weekend in February or March, or a playoff series, but that the team wanted him back to 100% before he saw action again in the first half of the season.

RPI, as has been the case in nearly every game this season (save three), were behind after the game's first goal, which Michigan notched late in the first period to go up 1-0. The opening 20 minutes were otherwise pretty even, both teams putting up nine shots on goal and the game establishing some early back and forth flow.

The Engineers took advantage of their opportunities in the second period to tie the score. Although Michigan began putting together something of a more solid lead in shots, RPI converted on what would ultimately be their only power play opportunity of the night as Milos Bubela scored his second of the year from Jacob Laliberte and Riley Bourbonnais to tie the score at one 8:45 into the second period.

RPI played their most convincing hockey in the third period, taking the lead with 13 minutes left on a Bourbonnais redirection of a shot by Drew Melanson to put RPI up 2-1. The goal was Bourbonnais' fourth of the season, his first since his hat-trick against Union.

From there, RPI looked strong. As the minutes ticked by, they looked primed to at the very least defend their lead, if not score an insurance marker, but a pair of mistakes with about three minutes left in the game put them behind. A soft goal by Tyler Motte with 3:02 remaining in the period tied things up at two, and then just 29 seconds later, Diebold got a piece of a shot by Zach Hyman, but couldn't keep it from the back of the net. In the blink of an eye, RPI was the team that was down a goal. In both circumstances, defensive let-downs created scoring opportunities that the Wolverines simply converted.

Michigan (Saturday)
Liljegren-Bubela-McGowan
Melanson-Neal-Bourbonnais
Laliberte-Miller-Wood
Curadi-DeVito-Fulton

Leonard-Prapavessis
Bradley-Hampton
Bell-Reno

Diebold

The only change to the RPI lineup from Friday was the insertion of Bradley Bell in place of Jared Wilson, a move that was intended to get the freshman some playing time against a top-level team.

Early play between RPI and Michigan on Saturday actually resembled the early parts of the third period from Friday more than anything else - some good back and forth play that RPI had their chances with. Unfortunately, that proved to be one of the few bright spots for the Engineers on the evening.

Michigan opened the scoring 7:53 in on a put-back goal by Kevin Lohan. A power play goal just seconds into the Wolverines' first opportunity of the game about seven minutes later made it 2-0, and a solid individual effort by Syracuse native Boo Nieves three minutes after that put the Engineers down 3-0.

Nieves made it 4-0 in the second period with another strong individual effort, practically going coast-to-coast while on the power play. It was a rough night in net for Diebold, who stopped just 19 of 23 shots after 40 minutes, but he gutted out the remainder of the game with Jason Kasdorf unavailable.

Michigan notched another pair of goals in the third period for the final score of 6-0. The Engineers managed a respectable 26 shots on net, including two against Michigan's practice goaltender, but rarely looked ready to crack the scoreboard following the first 10 minutes of the game. The game was equal parts rough play by RPI and outstanding work by a Michigan team full of talent and starting to put the pieces together.

RPI returns to ECAC play this coming weekend with the Yale/Brown road trip, then faces a harrowing schedule afterwards, mostly of non-conference games. #3 Boston University is the team's last home game of the year the following weekend, then after Christmas they do battle with #9 Harvard, probably the best team in the ECAC, and coming home after New Year's for a pair of games with #4 Miami. One thing this team will certainly be by the time the core of the league schedule begins in January is battle-tested.

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

RPI at New Hampshire
Non-Conference Game - Whittemore Center (Durham, NH)
11/25/14 - 7:00pm

RESULT: RPI 2, New Hampshire 1

BOX SCORES
College Hockey Stats
USCHO

RECAPS
RPI
Concord Monitor

RECORD: 6-7-1 (4-2-0, 8pts)

RPI at Michigan
Non-Conference Game - Yost Ice Arena (Ann Arbor, MI)
11/28/14 - 7:30pm

RESULT: Michigan 3, RPI 2

BOX SCORES
College Hockey Stats
USCHO

RECAPS
RPI

RECORD: 6-8-1 (4-2-0, 8pts)

RPI at Michigan
Non-Conference Game - Yost Ice Arena (Ann Arbor, MI)
11/29/14 - 7:30pm

RESULT: Michigan 6, RPI 0

BOX SCORES
College Hockey Stats
USCHO

RECAPS
RPI
Troy Record

RECORD: 6-9-1 (4-2-0, 8pts)

Upcoming games
05 Dec - at Yale
06 Dec - at Brown
13 Dec - #3 Boston University
30 Dec - at #9 Harvard
02 Jan - #4 Miami

Bull Durham

We've already learned that Luke Curadi is not only back in the lineup, he's dressing as a forward tonight.

This will be interesting.

The Engineers tackle the second of four consecutive non-conference contests tonight on the frozen lake that is the Whittemore Center in New Hampshire.

Most of the team that has been injured or sick are now back - missing only Lou Nanne and Zach Schroeder. With any luck, we'll see them back out on the ice by next Friday, when the ECAC schedule gets underway again.

In the meantime, here's crunk to get you pumped up or something. Another round of shots!

 

Women's Hockey - at New Hampshire (17 Oct)

RPI had just one game on the schedule this weekend, a Friday night matchup against New Hampshire. The Engineers failed to convert on five power play opportunities including a long 5-on-3 in the third period and ended up falling to the Wildcats 2-1.

New Hampshire

Horwood/Wash/Renn
Mahoney/Gruschow/Svoboda
Rooney/Mankey/Walsh
Tomlinson/Hylwa/Raspa

Schilter/Godin
Behounek/Banks
Middlebrook/Kimmerle

Piper

Alexa Gruschow scored a first period goal, but UNH scored two more in the opening frame then held the lead for a 2-1 victory over RPI Friday night at Whittemore Center.

Gruschow's goal came at 5:05 on a great individual effort. Winning an offensive zone draw, the RPI forward took a pass from Brandi Banks and circled the offensive zone, faking toward the front of the net before sweeping around the back and tucking in a wraparound.

Heather Kashman scored at 8:34 to tie the game at one, after a failed clearing attempt by RPI left the puck with Haley Breedlove who fired it on net. While Brianna Piper made the initial save, Kashman was able to poke the puck past her on a rebound.

Breedlove put UNH ahead at 13:16 on another defensive zone turnover by the Engineers. Kayla Mork took the puck away from Delaney Middlebrook and fed it to Breedlove in the slot who fired it off an RPI player and past Piper for a 2-1 lead.

The Engineers had several chances to tie things up including four power play chances, two of which were bench minors for too many players on the ice. Nearly a minute and a half of 5-on-3 time wasn't enough to find the equalizer in the third period and the 2-1 score held up, running the Engineers' season-spanning winless streak to 15 games.

RPI returns home next weekend for a pair of games against UConn on Saturday (3pm) and Sunday (2pm). Saturday's game is currently scheduled to be broadcast on WRPI

-----

RPI at New Hampshire
Non-Conference Game - Whittemore Center (Durham, NH)
10/17/14 - 7:00pm
UNH 2, RPI 1

BOX SCORES:
College Hockey Stats: http://collegehockeystats.net/1415/boxes/wrenunh1.o17
RPI: http://rpiathletics.com/boxscore.aspx?path=whock&id=4427

RECAPS:
RPI: http://rpiathletics.com/news/2014/10/17/WICE_1017142857.aspx
UNH: http://unhwildcats.com/sports/wice/2014-15/releases/201410174bpbg9
Video Highlights: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uk0d1BEgOK8

RECORD: 0-4-1 (0-0-0 ECAC)

-----

Upcoming Schedule

Oct. 25 - UConn (3pm)
Oct. 26 - UConn (2pm)
Oct. 31 - at Harvard (7pm)
Nov. 1 - at Dartmouth (4pm)

Losing the Streaks

For the RPI women, their school-record winless streak, dating back to last season, is now at 14 games  (0-12-2) - the Engineers haven't won since a 3-0 victory at Union on January 18.

Their opponent tonight, the UNH Wildcats, know a little something about losing streaks. They finished last season by losing their last 11 straight games, then tacked on three more to start this season to make it an even 14 in a row in the loss column. They snapped out of it last weekend with a 1-0 win at RIT and a 2-2 tie at Syracuse. Tonight is the home opener for UNH, who are a long way from their salad days in Hockey East from 2004 to 2010, when they were virtually unbeatable. Can the Engineers finally get themselves back in the win column in their only game of the weekend?

For the men, the losing streak is more of a historical one than anything else. Denver, their opponents in a pair of games this weekend in Colorado, won the first 10 games against the Engineers, and they've won 12 out of 14 all time. It's a tough task to score at Magness as both teams boast solid defensive fronts. Can RPI solve yet another early season test?

Let's find out.

Know Your Enemy: New Hampshire

By all rights, UNH had a pretty decent season last year, one which would be considered mostly successful for most programs - a top-half finish in the conference, a decent run in the playoffs, and a 20-win campaign usually spells a pretty fair outing. For New Hampshire, it was a bit more disappointing, especially considering the way their season ended. A 4-0 loss in the Hockey East championship game and no NCAA appearance is certainly enough for this program to be unhappy with how things turned out, especially considering the senior-laden status the Wildcats had last season.

New Hampshire
Nickname: Wildcats
Location: Durham, NH
Founded: 1866
Conference: Hockey East
National Championships: 0
Last NCAA Appearance: 2013
Last Frozen Four: 2003
Coach: Dick Umile (25th season)
2013-14 Record: 22-18-1 (11-9-0 Hockey East, 4th place)
Series: UNH leads, 25-21-0
First Game: February 7, 1964 (Troy, NY)
Last RPI win: October 26, 2013 (Troy, NY)
Last UNH win: January 6, 2013 (Durham, NH)

2014-15 game: November 25, 2014 (Durham, NH)

Key players: G Casey DeSmith, sr.; F Grayson Downing, sr.; F Casey Thrush, sr.; F Matt Willows, sr.; F Dan Correale, jr.; F Maxim Gaudreault, jr.; D Brett Pesce, jr.; D Harry Quast, jr.; F Kyle Smith, jr.; D Matias Cleland, so.; F Tyler Kelleher, so.; F Shane Eiserman, fr.; F Warren Foegele, fr.; F Mike McNicholas, fr.; F Andrew Poturalski, fr.

Previous KYE installments:

• 2012-13
• 2013-14

For a team accustomed to going to the NCAA tournament, two seasons out of the last three ending before Selection Sunday is unheard of - in fact, the last three seasons is the first time that's happened since the early 1990s, during Dick Umile's first three seasons behind the bench. To be fair, the Wildcats last year were hard-luck losers when it came to missing the NCAAs, finishing 60 minutes away from an automatic bid and 17th in the Pairwise as the 3rd team out. Close, but not close enough.

In the meantime, UNH loses five of its top six scorers from last season, returning only Willows, who had an eye-opening 39-point breakout season as a junior. That total more than doubled his total offensive output from his freshman and sophomore outings. Downing and Pesce are the only two other 20-point scorers returning for the Wildcats.

Along the blue line, the Wildcats will be young, as their only senior defenseman has just one game to his resume in three seasons. Pesce and Quast will qualify as the elder statesmen in the back. Whatever weakness the defense has will at least be bolstered by a proven quantity in net as DeSmith enters his senior season with over 5,500 minutes in goal for the Wildcats and a respectable 2.32 GAA for his career. His numbers were not as strong last year as they had been in the past, but they were still strong enough to regularly keep UNH in games.

He may need to be stronger this year as the Wildcats bring a younger core of skaters back. They'll need to rely on bigger output from their junior and sophomore classes than they did last season, and that doesn't always lead to success. Incoming freshman Foegele, who is likely to join UNH as an NHL draftee (Pesce is currently the only one on the team), should add a bit of punch. Still, with a team that brings in enough raw talent the way UNH does, they're more likely than most programs to find a way to make it work.

One advantage that New Hampshire will always have when playing against RPI at home is the rink size - Durham has one of the few Olympic-sized sheets in the east, and considering that the Engineers play nearly all of their games on NHL-sized rinks (the ECAC is exclusively made up of the less-wide playing surfaces), the home ice advantage is slightly more pronounced for the Wildcats.

UNH pretty much always presents a solid challenge for RPI, but the series in the last 10 years or so has just as frequently created a fairly decent back-and-forth contest no matter where the game is played. Two years ago in New Hampshire the Engineers played a strong road game against a blistering-hot Wildcats team and just couldn't overcome a better performance from the other side. Last year, RPI jumped on UNH quickly and then held on to claim a victory. Either scenario could again play itself out in Durham without too much surprise this coming season - but this has all the makings of a really outstanding game, especially since this year it arrives two months into the season, at a point where both sides should know their strengths and weaknesses well.

Men's Hockey - New Hampshire (26 Oct)

RPI has fought its way through the first part of a mostly difficult non-conference schedule, and come out mostly looking pretty good following a 4-2 victory over UNH, upping their early record to 4-1-0 and their record against nationally-ranked opponents (all from Hockey East) to 2-1-0. As the ECAC schedule gets underway on Tuesday against Harvard, that's a pretty good spot to be in moving forward.

New Hampshire
Tinordi-Higgs-Rogic
Laliberte-McGowan-Haggerty
Zalewski-Neal-Bubela
Wood-Miller-Schroeder

Leboeuf-Dolan
Leonard-Bradley
Curadi-Reno

Diebold

Zach Schroeder suited up for the first time since last December, while Scott Diebold made his third straight start in net as RPI's top goaltender following the shoulder injury sustained by sophomore Jason Kasdorf.

The Engineers started things off with a bang, scoring on the very first shift with a goal on the first shot of the game by Johnny Rogic just 38 seconds into the contest to make it 1-0 RPI in short order. The Wildcats definitely got off to a slow start on the road and the Engineers took full advantage, outshooting UNH 14-5 in the opening period of the game.

RPI made it 2-0 on an outstanding goal in transition as Luke Curadi cleared the puck out to Jake Wood, who dished to Schroeder on his way out of the RPI end. With a burst of speed, Wood drove through the neutral zone as Schroeder pushed the puck back towards him between three defenders, leaving the freshman alone coming in to the net from the goaltender's right, snapping the puck over his glove for his first collegiate goal.

Early in the second period, the Engineers continued to pour it on as Matt Neal picked up his first goal of the season 2:16 in to make it 3-0, and on the power play just a minute and a half later, Ryan Haggerty scored his 8th goal in just five games to make the score 4-0, ending the night of UNH goaltender Jeff Wyer.

From there, RPI seemed to lose some of the urgency that they had played with during the first period, as UNH slowly began working their way back into the game, beginning to gain the edge in possession and forcing the Engineer defense to be sharp. The Wildcats got on the board with a goal just past the halfway point to make it 4-1, then on the power play a minute and a half after their first goal, UNH effectively halved the RPI lead on a bizarre goal that UNH at first didn't seem to realize that they'd scored - the puck went in to Diebold's right, but ended up in the corner of the ice surface because the goal was lifted up just as it was moving through. The referee, right on top of the net, called it a goal, and reviewed it to be sure.

The Engineers appeared to regain their 3-goal edge late in the period on a blast from the slot by Haggerty, but it was waved off immediately, with the ruling that Jacob Laliberte had obstructed the UNH goaltender while in the crease.

The third period was mostly a battle of attrition by the RPI defense, as a well-conditioned UNH team began to take full control of the game. Building on their minor edge in shots in the 2nd, the Wildcats dominated the 3rd with 11 shots against just 1 for the Engineers, but Diebold and his blueliners did just enough to keep UNH from finding the back of the net again, holding on for the 4-2 win.

Other junk - With the victory, the Engineers move up two spots in the USCHO poll, from #12 to #10 with 529 votes. Other ranked ECAC teams this week are #7 Quinnipiac (beat Bentley and Holy Cross twice, up two), #11 Yale (lost to Brown and beat Princeton, down four), #14 Cornell (swept Nebraska-Omaha, up five), and #17 Clarkson (swept Colorado College, previously unranked). Brown (54 votes), St. Lawrence (32), and Harvard (13) also received votes. Ranked teams on RPI's schedule include #1 Minnesota (unchanged, received all 50 first place votes), #8 Boston College (down three), and #18 Boston University (down five). Also receiving votes were New Hampshire (106, ex-14th), Denver (47, ex-17th), and Ferris State (15).

Ryan Haggerty's eight goals is tied for the national lead with Miami sophomore Riley Barber. His next point will be the 50th of his collegiate career. His 27 career goals is tops for the Engineers among active players, the next highest total belongs to Jacob Laliberte with 16.

Tuesday's game against Harvard will technically have the two leading goal scorers in the nation by goals per game, given that the Crimson's Kyle Criscuolo scored two of Harvard's three goals in their only game thus far, Saturday night against Bentley.

Scott Diebold's 1.52 GAA is fifth best in the nation among goaltenders who have appeared in more than one game, as is his .944 save percentage. He has started in three games since Jason Kasdorf's shoulder injury, and appeared for mop-up duty in the loss to Boston College.

Phil Hampton, Travis Fulton, Bo Dolan, Riley Bourbonnais, Craig Bokenfohr, and Mark McGowan are the only skaters that have yet to record a point. Bourbonnais and Bokenfohr have yet to make their season debuts.

The Engineers have led for 211:39 of their 300 minutes of game action so far this year.

It's a quick turnaround for the Engineers, who face off with Harvard in the first ECAC game of the season on Tuesday. It will mark the first time RPI has ever played a league game in the month of October. The game is moved from its natural place in January, in order to allow for the RPI-Union non-conference game in Albany. Harvard's season only just started on Saturday, a 3-0 win over 1-5-0 Bentley in which the Falcons managed to unleash 43 shots on Crimson netminder Raphael Girard.

#14 New Hampshire at #12 RPI
Non-Conference Game - Houston Field House (Troy, NY)
10/26/12 - 7:00pm

RESULT: RPI 4, New Hampshire 2

BOX SCORES
College Hockey Stats
USCHO

RECAPS
RPI
Troy Record
Albany Times Union

VIDEO
RPI TV (full game)
YouTube (Post-game press conference)

RECORD: 4-1-0 (0-0-0 ECAC)

Upcoming games
29 Oct - Harvard
01 Nov - at Harvard
02 Nov - at Dartmouth
08 Nov - #14 Cornell
09 Nov - Colgate

Wildcat Offense

OK, folks. I'm back in the real world. Hopefully the two-week lull wasn't too bad. We were unable to live-tweet the Sacred Heart game in Connecticut (which was going on while I was busy getting married) and the men's recap from last weekend appears to have been lost in the ether due to a scheduling mix-up, but other than those, hopefully the coverage you've come to expect from WaP has been humming right along without a hitch.

As far as what was missing from the recap - here's the gist of it, most of which you already know. RPI beat BU 3-1 on Friday night last weekend, a solid bounce-back from a tough game at BC. Then they stomped Sacred Heart for the second time in as many weeks, 7-1 (see, Lowell? It's freakin' simple) for a combined 13-1 throttling across 120 minutes of action against the Pioneers.

Ryan Haggerty, with 7 goals, led the nation on his own in that category after last weekend, he has since been matched by Northeastern sophomore Kevin Roy, who notched two last night in Canton against St. Lawrence to even things up (Roy's kind of a jerk for reneging on Brown at the last minute last year - we're no fans of Brown around here right about now but at the end of the day, when it comes to things like this, Brown's family).

And RPI's now ranked #12 in the nation, up five spots from after the BC loss. Cornell is now ranked (and won last night), Union's out.

Yale lost to Brown last night. So there's that too.

And that's pretty much it.

The women suffered a tough OT loss to UConn yesterday afternoon, which was even tougher considering that they had a power play opportunity in the extra session. They're back at it in Storrs this afternoon, live-tweets to come from WaP.

The men have just one game this weekend, tonight at the Field House against #14 New Hampshire. Scott Diebold was certainly on his game last weekend, and the Engineers will need him to be strong tonight as well against an always-tough UNH.

Clean version for today's pumpup. If you want the real deal, go find it yourself, we're in family mode today.

Know Your Enemy: New Hampshire

As expected, UNH bounced back from a miserable 2011-12 season to return to the upper reaches of Hockey East and get themselves back to the NCAA tournament, where they're accustomed to spending late March. Unfortunately, an extremely promising early season run turned sour as the calendar turned to 2013, and despite a "home" win in the NCAAs over Denver, UNH failed to reach the Frozen Four for the tenth consecutive season after running into a determined UMass-Lowell squad, despite nine NCAA appearances since falling in the 2003 national championship game.

New Hampshire
Nickname: Wildcats
Location: Durham, NH
Founded: 1866
Conference: Hockey East
National Championships: 0
Last NCAA Appearance: 2013
Last Frozen Four: 2003
Coach: Dick Umile (24th season)
2012-13 Record: 20-12-7 (13-8-6 Hockey East, 3rd place)
Series: UNH leads, 25-20-0
First Game: February 7, 1964 (Troy, NY)
Last RPI win: October 10, 2009 (Troy, NY)
Last UNH win: January 6, 2013 (Durham, NH)

2013-14 game: October 26, 2013 (Troy, NY)

Key players: D Justin Agosta, sr.; F Kevin Goumas, sr.; D Eric Knodel, sr.; F Dalton Speelman, sr.; G Casey DeSmith, jr.; F Grayson Downing, jr.; F Casey Thrush, jr.; D Trevor van Riemsdyk, jr.; D Brett Pesce, so.; D Matias Cleland, fr.; F Tyler Kelleher, fr.

Previous KYE installment:

• 2012-13

This is a team strangely devoid of NHL draft picks - Knodel is the only one on the roster as of this capsule, but Pesce is certain to join him in that club after the draft at the end of the month. That's not to say that this is a weak team by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, this is a team that, while they were young last year - which may have contributed to the team's late-season slide - are back as a well-rounded, veteran side.

Defensively, the Wildcats are primed to build on a defense that was in the Top 10 nationally last season with a seasoned blueline corps and a goaltender in DeSmith who has now put together two very good seasons for UNH between the pipes. This is one of the more obvious strengths that the Wildcats will have, but their depth offensively should have them among their usual ranks of the national elite as well.

30 of UNH's 122 goals last year came from two seniors - John Henrion and Austin Block with 15 each. But between names like Goumas, who could be a legit Hobey Baker candidate, Downing, who tied Henrion and Block for the team lead in goals, and the offensive-minded Knodel and van Riemsdyk, the Wildcats have plenty of sources to get offense from all over the ice.

The bottom line? UNH is a team with few holes, just as they were last year in a game that RPI played relatively well but still ended up getting completely trucked. The Engineers last season managed to score a pair of goals (both from Curtis Leonard), which was more than the Wildcats were allowing in an average game at that point, but the UNH offense overwhelmed Scott Diebold.

This year's game will feature two teams that were a little young last year, which may have contributed to the less-than-satisfying finishes for both squads. The major change will likely be in RPI's net, with Jason Kasdorf the expected starter assuming that he's healthy - he'd been injured for the game in Durham last season - and the move down to NHL-sized ice.

This should be a fun game to watch. The slight edge that UNH may have in talent is countered with the Engineers' home ice advantage, and like most of the other non-conference games Seth Appert has set up for RPI, should represent a gut-check early season challenge for a team that seeks glory in March.

Tentative 2013-14 Men's Hockey Schedule

Here it is, the tentative schedule for next year. The exhibition game in October should be against a Canadian school as usual, the game against Boston College is rumored to be part of a doubleheader with BU/Cornell at Madison Square Garden (if it doesn't pan out, the game will likely take place in Chestnut Hill), and the second opponent in the Minnesota tournament in January is not known for sure, though it is believed the first opponent will be the Golden Gophers. Freakout! is presumed to be Brown, given the usual time of year for the event, though Harvard and Clarkson are outside possibilities.

Game times are at 7pm unless otherwise indicated, but are subject to change due to television scheduling.

October
Saturday, 05 October - EXHIBITION
Saturday, 12 October - at Sacred Heart (Bridgeport, CT)
Sunday, 13 October - at Boston College (time TBD)
Friday, 18 October - at Boston University
Saturday, 19 October - SACRED HEART (Parents Weekend)
Saturday, 26 October - NEW HAMPSHIRE

November
Friday, 01 November - at Harvard*
Saturday, 02 November - at Dartmouth*
Friday, 08 November - CORNELL* (Black Friday)
Saturday, 09 November - COLGATE*
Friday, 15 November - at Union*
Saturday, 16 November - UNION*
Friday, 22 November - at Mercyhurst
Saturday, 23 November - at Mercyhurst

December
Friday, 06 December - QUINNIPIAC*
Saturday, 07 December - PRINCETON* (4pm)
Friday, 13 December - DENVER
Saturday, 14 December - DENVER
Sunday, 15 December - US UNDER-18 TEAM (exhibition)
Friday, 20 December - vs. Union (Albany, NY)

January
Friday, 03 January - at Minnesota (8pm)
Saturday, 04 January - at Minnesota Tournament (Minneapolis, MN) (5pm)
Friday, 10 January - at Princeton*
Saturday, 11 January - at Quinnipiac*
Friday, 24 January - DARTMOUTH*
Saturday, 25 January - HARVARD*
Friday, 31 January - at Clarkson*

February
Saturday, 01 February - at St. Lawrence*
Friday, 07 February - YALE*
Saturday, 08 February - BROWN* (Big Red Freakout!)
Friday, 14 February - at Colgate*
Saturday, 15 February - at Cornell*
Friday, 21 February - ST. LAWRENCE*
Saturday, 22 February - CLARKSON* (Senior Night)
Friday, 28 February - at Brown*

March
Saturday, 01 March - at Yale*
Fri-Sun, 07-09 March - ECAC First Round (at campus sites)
Fri-Sun, 14-16 March - ECAC Quarterfinals (at campus sites)
Friday, 21 March - ECAC Semifinals (Lake Placid, NY)
Saturday, 22 March - ECAC Championship (Lake Placid, NY)
Fri-Sun 28-30 March - NCAA Regionals (Bridgeport, CT; Worcester, MA; Cincinnati, OH; St. Paul, MN)

April
Thursday, 10 April - NCAA Frozen Four (Philadelphia, PA)
Saturday, 12 April - NCAA Championship (Philadelphia, PA)

Men's Hockey - at Boston University and New Hampshire (4/5 Jan)

Sometimes, it's possible to continue making progress even when you lose - not that you really ever want to lose, especially when you've got leads, but for RPI's Hockey East road trip this past weekend, a 3-2 overtime loss to BU followed by a 5-2 loss against a very, very good UNH team can really only be classified as a bad weekend if you think RPI's a national championship contender this year. (Spoiler alert: They aren't.) Nonetheless, despite two losses, there were continued signs of improvement, as well as some high level "things to change" that came out of the weekend.

Boston University
Lee-Laliberte-Haggerty
Higgs-McGowan-Tinordi
Zalewski-Miller-Bubela
Burgdoerfer-Rogic-O'Grady

Leboeuf-Bradley
Leonard-Bokenfohr
Curadi-Dolan

Merriam

Jason Kasdorf's shoulder was no longer slinged, but the decision was made to keep him out for the weekend in order to make sure he was ready to go for the return to ECAC play. Bryce Merriam, who had two wins over BU notched on his belt prior to this season, was given the nod in net for the second straight game as Scott Diebold was suffering the effects of the flu. Also notable was the absence of Nick Bailen, who was benched for what appear to be disciplinary reasons, and Matt Neal, who suffered "whiplash" against Sacred Heart.

Ryan Haggerty got RPI onto the board first with a goal exactly halfway through the first period as he one-timed a pass across the goalmouth into the net to put an end to what was a very sloppy first 10 minutes of the contest with both teams seeming to be unable to link together a couple of passes.

Nonetheless, RPI had the 1-0 edge, but they would hold it for only 5:07 as BU responded with a goal scored on a delayed penalty to Bo Dolan, but before the extra skater could come on. The Terriers attacked a loose puck in the crease, and the goal was allowed to count after review when it was found that a BU player thought to have been in the crease was clear.

C.J. Lee picked up his second goal in as many games in the second period to make it 2-1 RPI, but the middle period was largely dominated by the Terriers. Merriam stood huge in net for the Engineers, stopping all 14 shots he saw in the second period to give him 22 saves on 23 shots after two periods of play, a major reason why RPI was able to take that 2-1 lead into the third period.

That shot domination carried over into the third period as BU again outshot RPI big time, 15-4 in this instance. The Terriers tied it 5:30 into the third, but Merriam's strong play in net again frustrated BU, who went 0-for-5 on the power play, pushing the game into overtime.

The extra period was far more even for as long as it lasted, with both teams having good opportunities to end it in their favor, but eventually BU was able to find Cason Hohmann all alone to Merriam's left, and the Terrier forward was able to skate in towards the net unabated, outwait Merriam, and pot the puck home to give BU the 3-2 overtime victory on their first lead of the night.

It was a heartbreaking ending for an RPI team that produced 1-0 and 2-1 leads on the evening, but at the very least, it proved the Engineers capable of running with a top 10 team.


New Hampshire
Lee-Laliberte-Haggerty
Tinordi-McGowan-Burgdoerfer
Zalewski-Miller-Bubela
Fulton-Rogic-Commers

Leonard-Bailen
Leboeuf-Bradley
Curadi-Dolan

Diebold

More lineup changes were in line the following night as Bailen returned to the lineup, but Brock Higgs and Marty O'Grady, upperclassmen who had been fighting injuries for practically the entire season - and struggling on the ice while playing through them - were pulled out of the lineup to give them the chance to heal better and return when they can be more productive.

Scott Diebold also got the start in net, which Appert called a "gut feeling" with the sophomore having recovered from his illness.

As with the previous night, RPI's best period was in the first. After the Engineers held off a very strong UNH attack off for the game's first ten minutes, the Wildcats got on the board first with what would become a running theme throughout the night - a defenseman down low being left alone and scoring.

About six and a half minutes later, RPI tied it at one with Curtis Leonard's second goal of the season, a laser slapshot from the blue line that found the net top shelf, somehow avoiding all traffic in front of the net. RPI outshot the Wildcats 11-6 in the first period.

The shot differentials weren't as stark after the first period as they had been against BU, but UNH took control nonetheless as RPI, playing its fifth game in nine days, began to wear down over the next two periods. New Hampshire took the lead for good five minutes into the second period on a bouncing puck play, then made it 3-1 a little over two minutes later with another goal by a defenseman down low.

A third defenseman below the faceoff dots helped make it 4-1 just 2:45 into the third, and by that time UNH was able to go into practical lockdown mode. Keeping RPI limited to the perimeter all night long, the Wildcats used their outstanding skill on both sides of the puck to wear down the clock as well as the weary Engineers.

Looking to make something happen with under five minutes to play and down by three, Appert pulled Diebold from the net prior to a faceoff in the UNH zone, but the Wildcats won the draw and promptly put the puck down ice and into the net after just nine seconds, making it 5-1.

Leonard would notch his second of the game in almost the same fashion as the first to grant RPI a degree of pride at the end of the game. The goal came on the power play, marking just the fourth time on the entire season UNH's #1 penalty kill in the nation had given up a power play goal, and boosting the GAA of Casey DeSmith, who entered the game with a GAA of 1.91.

Hard as it must have been to be happy after a three-goal loss, RPI faced adversity in Durham and were ultimately beaten by a better team - indeed, they would have had to have played nearly mistake-free hockey on Saturday night to even have a shot, and while they didn't, they still by and large played well considering all of the circumstances in place - especially that UNH hadn't played the night before.

Other junk - Ranked teams in the ECAC this week include #5 Quinnipiac (swept Dartmouth/Harvard, no change with two first place votes), #12 Dartmouth (swept by Quinnipiac/Princeton, down four), #14 Yale (tied Boston College, up three), #15 Cornell (swept by Denver, down three), #16 Union (swept by Lake Superior State, down three), and #19 Colgate (swept Sacred Heart, previously unranked). No other ECAC teams received votes. Also ranked on the RPI schedule are #4 New Hampshire (no change), #8 Boston University (up one), #11 Minnesota State (up three), and #18 St. Cloud State (down three). Also receiving votes were Ferris State (50) and Mercyhurst (2).

Next up is Quinnipiac, still on its amazing run. They're up to 14 straight games without a loss, and they've won their first 10 ECAC contests. In theory, they could lose the rest of their games this season and still have home ice in the playoffs - and they could statistically be locking up a first round bye if they can sweep RPI and Union this coming weekend. Just a reminder, it's still early January here, people. That's followed by a Princeton team that always plays RPI hard and has completed two home sweeps themselves this season (their only wins of the year in league play). After that it's three more games against ranked opponents, though all in the Capital District. The hits just keep on coming.


ECAC Standings (by winning percentage in parentheses)
1 (1). Quinnipiac - 20 points (10-0-0)
2 (4). Princeton - 11 points (4-3-3)
3 (2). Dartmouth - 9 points (4-3-1)
4 (3). Union - 9 points (3-2-3)
5 (7). Cornell - 8 points (3-3-2)
6 (5). Clarkson - 7 points (3-3-1, +3 GD)
7 (6). Yale - 7 points (3-3-1, -2 GD)
8 (8). Colgate - 7 points (3-4-1, -6 GD)
9 (9). Harvard - 6 points (3-5-0)
10 (10). Brown - 4 points (0-3-4, -3 GD)
11 (11). St. Lawrence - 4 points (1-4-2, -9 GD)
12 (12). RPI - 4 points (1-5-2)


RPI at #9 Boston University
Non-Conference Game - Agganis Arena (Boston, MA)
1/4/13 - 7:30pm

RESULT: Boston University 3, RPI 2 (OT)

BOX SCORES
College Hockey Stats
USCHO

RECAPS
RPI
USCHO
Troy Record
Albany Times Union

RECORD: 6-8-4 (1-5-2 ECAC, 4 points)

RPI at #4 New Hampshire
Non-Conference Game - Whittemore Center (Durham, NH)
1/5/13 - 7:00pm

RESULT: New Hampshire 5, RPI 2

BOX SCORES

College Hockey Stats
USCHO

RECAPS
RPI
Troy Record
Albany Times Union
New Hampshire Union-Leader

RECORD: 6-9-4 (1-5-2 ECAC, 4 points)

Upcoming games
11 Jan - at #5 Quinnipiac
12 Jan - at Princeton
18 Jan - #19 Colgate
19 Jan - #15 Cornell
26 Jan - vs. #16 Union (Albany, NY)

Time For Battle

"Great moments are born from great opportunity. And that's what you have here tonight... Tonight, we skate with them. Tonight, we stay with them. And we shut them down because we can! Tonight, we are the greatest hockey team in the world." - Kurt Russell as Herb Brooks in "Miracle"

Being great doesn't have to be a physical thing - it can be something you believe in. As Henry Ford said, "Whether you believe you can do something or believe you can't, you are right." That's precisely what the Engineers are going to need this weekend in both men's and women's hockey.

The men have been playing great over the last month or so. There's room for improvement, to be sure, but by and large they are a better team than we saw in October and November. Nonetheless, they head into their next-to-last non-conference weekend of the season as decided underdogs against #9 BU and #4 UNH, both of which are coming off of rough outings last weekend and are playing at home. Will they win? It won't be easy.

Can they win? Yes, they can.

The women have no less difficult a task, but at least they get to do it in Troy. Tonight is a matchup with a Dartmouth team that was in the NCAA tournament two years ago and has traditionally been one of the powers of the league. Tomorrow afternoon, it's #4 Harvard, unbeaten and untied in the ECAC coming into the weekend. Will they win? It won't be easy.

Can they win? They've done it to these teams in the past. Yes, they can.

There's nothing wrong with believing. This weekend, we believe in greatness.

What If: Bjorkman's Conundrum

Summer 1964: Rube Bjorkman leaves RPI abruptly for New Hampshire

The Animals - House of the Rising Sun


Long-time Engineer fans, and those newer ones familiar with the history of the program, know that the mid-to-late 1960s were among some of the worst of times for RPI hockey.  Many attribute the struggles of that time period to Ned Harkness' immediate replacement behind the bench - Minnesota native Rube Bjorkman, who would eventually go on to be awarded the Kelley Founders Award by the American Hockey Coaches Association for his contributions to the growth and development of hockey in the United States. Bjorkman's single season at RPI was his first as a college coach and produced the best post-season results of his eventual 15-year college hockey coaching career, but his tenure also nearly ruined hockey at RPI.

Rubin "Rube" Bjorkman arrived at RPI in 1963 after Harkness left Troy to take the reins at then-unfancied Cornell. He was a distinguished replacement for the man who was essentially the modern founder of RPI hockey, arriving with an exceptional resume. A hero in his hometown Roseau, MN where he helped the school win its first state championship in 1946 (the small town in the state's extreme north is still known for outstanding high school hockey), Bjorkman graduated from Minnesota in 1951 as one of the squad's top stars of the NCAA tournament era. While still at Minnesota, he played on the US Olympic team at the St. Moritz Olympics in 1948 and just after graduation was a key member of the silver medal team at Oslo in 1952.

He began coaching ten years later, at Greenway High School in Coleraine, MN. In his first season behind the bench, Greenway reached the Minnesota state tournament for the first time. A year later, he was on his way east to become the second coach in RPI Hockey's modern era.

The team Bjorkman inherited in Troy was a talented one. It featured senior Bob Brinkworth, the reigning ECAC player of the year who had also been ECAC rookie of the year in 1962, and junior Jerry Knightley, who, like Brinkworth, had little problem scoring at will.

In those days, the ECAC had been a very informal collection of eastern teams and little more than an invitational tournament at the end of the season that would help determine which two teams would earn the eastern bids to the NCAA tournament. As such, the 29 teams that made up the conference played wildly varying "conference" schedules (as many as 25 games by New Hampshire and as few as 8 by UConn and Vermont). RPI under Bjorkman finished with a respectable 12-6-0 record in the league, which earned them an invite to the ECAC tournament.

After defeating Boston College in Chestnut Hill to advance to the semifinals, RPI was knocked off by a cinderella team from St. Lawrence, 3-1, but the Engineers bounced back to a surprising 7-2 victory in the consolation game over a Clarkson team that had beaten them twice before earlier in the season, including a 13-4 whitewash in Potsdam. That win over Clarkson earned RPI a ticket to their fourth-ever NCAA tournament apperance.

The 1964 tournament took place in Denver at the University of Denver Arena, and as fate would have it the Engineers were drawn against the homestanding Denver Pioneers, falling 4-1 to end RPI's national championship hopes. The Engineers drew a respectable 2-1 victory over the ECAC's regular season and tournament champions, Providence, so they were able to end the season with a legitimate claim as one of the best teams in the east. Knightley's return, along with that of junior goaltender Bill Sack, should have pegged the Engineers as a team to watch in 1965.

Instead, Bjorkman left RPI late in the summer following the season after the sudden death of New Hampshire coach "Whoop" Snively. Suddenly needing a coach, RPI alum Garry Kearns, who had stayed in the Troy area after graduation, took over the program, and soon found a listless organization.

The reasons Bjorkman left the cupboard bare at RPI have not been well established, but all signs have pointed to problems with recruiting. Some recruits who had committed to RPI during Harkness' final season appear to have not ended up matriculating, leaving a weak class of incoming sophomores (in those days, freshmen were ineligible for varsity play). That was an immediate problem for Kearns' first season, which was middling thanks to the presence of Knightley and Sack.

Longer term, Bjorkman had his own recruiting failures that would haunt the program. It has been said that, coming from Minnesota, he had lacked the connections Harkness had in Ontario, which had been the school's most rich recruiting grounds. Also, of the recruits Bjorkman had been able to attract to RPI, few or none were able to withstand the school's difficult entry requirements. The combination of geographic and academic difficulties were apparently more than Bjorkman was prepared to handle, and the change of venue to Durham likely helped his own career immensely.

Meanwhile, back at RPI, Kearns was forced to throw teams together as best he could. The 1966 team, which suffered the most from Bjorkman's inability to draw quality recruits, won only three games, none in the ECAC, and most of the losses were by lopsided margins. The following season was little better in league play, as RPI skated to a 1-14 record in the ECAC, with a one-goal win over Army the only bright spot in league play, and a tie at home against Michigan the high point of the year.

Things got bad enough that fans started to leave in droves, and the school began to seriously ponder whether staying in the top level of the ECAC was truly in the best interest of the program. Ultimately, Kearns guided the program through the shallows, and by the time he left in 1969, the program was off life support and ready to continue in Division I.

The question of what would have become of the program had Snively not had a heart attack in the summer of 1964, opening the door for Bjorkman to leave RPI in the breach, is difficult to answer. Obviously, if Bjorkman had still been behind the bench in 1965, his recruiting problems would have been his own, and it's difficult to know how he would have dealt with them. The only real way to do this is to look at his career as a coach.

The Wildcats improved every season during Bjorkman's four-year tenure in Durham, but UNH was still playing outdoors in the mid-1960s, which basically killed any chance they had of winning championships. His last two years were the first in UNH's new rink, and both seasons were winning ones. Then in 1968, Bjorkman returned to western hockey, taking the helm at North Dakota. The Fighting Sioux had just come off a loss in the national championship game when he arrived, they would not return to that height until 1979 - the year after he left. In 10 years in Grand Forks, he compiled a record above .500 just twice. He is the only  North Dakota coach since 1957 that never took the team to the Frozen Four.

Suffice to say, Bjorkman's legacy behind the bench, with the exception of the Kelley Award, was somewhat less than stellar - and in light of his recruiting struggles at RPI and subsequent difficulties coaching at a school that was already a traditional western power, it might be safe to say that the Institute didn't quite make the right call when it came to replacing Ned Harkness.

So, what if he'd stayed? Perhaps he could have managed, eventually, to find the right student-athletes from the right places with the right heads on their shoulders, but would he have been able to duplicate the relative success of that one season behind the bench? The evidence suggests that he probably wouldn't have been able to do that at RPI if he couldn't manage it at North Dakota. If Bjorkman had stuck around, the decline of the late 1960s probably still would have taken place, and it would have taken place without the grit and determination of an alum at the helm in Garry Kearns.

For better or for worse, the guidance that Kearns provided during his tenure as coach helped save the program - and secured for him a much deserved spot in the RPI Hockey Ring of Honor for his contributions as both a player and a coach. As good as Bjorkman's one season was - led, remember, by two RPI legends recruited by Harkness - there's not much doubt that further seasons would be unlikely to have materialized. Looking back today, Bjorkman's abrupt departure, which allowed the school to make a good decision in place of a bad one, may have helped save the program from being moved to what is today Division III.

Know Your Enemy: New Hampshire

Last week, we touched on RPI's most frequent out-of-conference rival, but this week's team is no slouch in that category, either. Like many teams in Hockey East, UNH previously played in the ECAC, and since the split in 1984, they've played the Engineers on 13 different occasions, 14 if one includes the NCAA tournament game the teams played in 1994.

New Hampshire
Nickname: Wildcats
Location: Durham, NH
Founded: 1866
Conference: Hockey East
National Championships: 0
Last NCAA Appearance: 2011
Last Frozen Four: 2003
Coach: Dick Umile (23rd season)
2011-12 Record: 15-19-3 (11-14-2 Hockey East, 6th place)
Series: UNH leads, 24-20-0
First Game: February 7, 1964 (Troy, NY)
Last RPI win: October 10, 2009 (Troy, NY)
Last UNH win: October 17, 2008 (Durham, NH)

2012-13 game: January 6, 2013 (Durham, NH)

Key players: F Austin Block, sr.; F Greg Burke, sr.; D Brett Kostolansky, sr.; D Connor Hardowa, sr.; F Kevin Goumas, jr.; D Eric Knodel, jr.; F Nick Sorkin, jr.; G Casey DeSmith, so.; F Grayson Downing, so.; D Trevor van Riemsdyk, so.; F Collin MacDonald, fr.; D Brett Pesce, fr.; F Kyle Smith, fr.

Earlier in this year's Know Your Enemy roll, we touched on the famed NCAA futility of St. Cloud State, whose futility tended to manifest itself at the beginning of each tournament they were in. New Hampshire has a similar bugaboo, but theirs extends to the very top of the tournament as the Wildcats are known as one of the best programs in the nation that has never won the national championship despite seven Frozen Fours and 21 NCAA appearances.

Hockey at New Hampshire dates back to 1925, when the school first sponsored a team to take part in a winter festival at Bates College in Lewiston, Maine. UNH was able to field a team with at least two games a year through 1943, but rarely had outstanding seasons with the lone exception of 1927, when the Wildcats won all six of their games. Suspending operations for World War II, the team returned in 1947 and pretty much picked up where they left off, putting together mostly middling seasons into the late 1950s.

From 1958 through 1960, the Wildcats elevated their play significantly with three straight seasons that rank among the team's best early successes. Shortly after moving to a new outdoor rink in 1955, UNH put together three consecutive seasons with 11 or more wins, breaking the 10 win mark for the first time in school history and completing a record of 38-16-0 during the span. Two years later, the Wildcats would be among the 28 teams in the inaugural season of the ECAC.

After finishing near the middle of the back in the first three seasons of the new conference, the Wildcats left the ECAC due in large part to their lack of indoor facilities. On the same day the school announced a large project to build an indoor arena around their rink, the team's coach, A. Barr "Whoop" Snively died of a heart attack. The project was named after Snively, and Snively Rink would open in 1965. Among the fallout from Snively's death was the arrival of RPI head coach Rube Bjorkman as his replacement, a move which nearly killed hockey at RPI after Bjorkman took most of the team's top recruits with him to Durham.

Under Bjorkman, the Wildcats returned to the ECAC after a two year absence in 1967, becoming the conference's 16th member. With Bjorkman's pilfered recruits leading the way during his two years in the league, UNH established a tradition of excellence within the conference, finishing with a winning percentage under .600 only three times in 18 seasons in the ECAC (and only one of the three was a losing season). Much of this success came under coach Charlie Holt, who took over after Bjorkman left for North Dakota in 1968 following UNH's first ever 20-win season.

Holt guided the Wildcats to their first title in 1974, claiming the ECAC's regular season championship, but they were upset in the first round by RPI, ending hopes of an ECAC championship and the team's first NCAA appearance. Repeatedly, the Wildcats suffered playoff heartbreak despite outstanding regular seasons, falling to Cornell in 1975 and Harvard in 1976. In 1977, UNH finally got over the hump and appeared in their first Frozen Four (in a five team tournament), falling in overtime to Wisconsin.

1979 brought UNH its first and only ECAC title as the Wildcats knocked off Yale and Cornell before defeating Dartmouth 3-2 to claim the championship. That sent UNH back to the Frozen Four, but again they fell in the semifinal. The Wildcats would earn their first ever NCAA victories in 1982 with a pair of wins over Michigan State, but once more the team could not get any farther than the semifinal round of the Frozen Four.

Following another missed NCAA opportunity in 1983, UNH joined with Providence, Boston College, Boston University, and Northeastern to announce a breakaway league from the ECAC, becoming charter members of the new Hockey East. But when the new league got underway in 1984, the Wildcats found themselves struggling to keep pace in the new "super league." After a losing season in the inaugural year - the school's first 20-loss season ever - the Wildcats had a school-worst record of 5-29-3 in 1986, which coincided with Holt's retirement after 18 seasons.

Holt's replacement, Bob Kullen, suffered health problems through much of his tenure and could not right the ship in Durham, and the team suffered three additional 20-loss seasons - five in a row, marking the only five in school history. Following a heart transplant in 1990, Kullen stepped down and was replaced by assistant coach and former Wildcat player Dick Umile, who ushered in a sustained period of success for the next 20 years. In Umile's first official year as head coach in 1991, the team notched a 20-win season for the first time since 1984, and the following year returned to the NCAA tournament, which would become a regular habit.

In the 22 years since Umile's hiring, the Wildcats have had only two losing seasons, and have firmly established themselves among Hockey East's "Big Four." Between 1992 and 2011, UNH missed the NCAA tournament on only three occasions, including 10 straight apperances from 2002 through 2011. The team has had its brushes with greatness during that stretch, reaching the Frozen Four for the first time in 16 seasons with an appearance in 1998, and the following year UNH played for the national championship for the first time, losing a heartbreaker in overtime to their conference rivals, Maine.

Despite Umile's successes, the playoff woes that the Wildcats had in the ECAC had largely carried over into Hockey East, as the Wildcats failed time and time again to capture the Hockey East title. Regular season crowns in 1997 and 1999 both ended in heartache in the Hockey East championship game, but UNH finally broke through in 2002 and 2003, winning both the regular season and tournament titles in both years. Both seasons also saw returns to the Frozen Four, with the Wildcats returning to the national championship game in 2003 but again falling, this time to the reigning champions from Minnesota.

Over the following eight seasons, UNH returned to the NCAA tournament each year (along with regular season Hockey East titles in 2007, 2008, and 2010), but has yet to return to the Frozen Four. That streak was broken this past season, one of the toughest in Umile's long tenure in Durham, when the team failed to finish in the top four in Hockey East for the first time since 1996, fell in the first round to Boston University in three games (two of which went to two overtimes), and narrowly avoid the first 20-loss season since 1989.

New Hampshire struggled to put points on the board at times last season, and early on in the year struggled to keep pucks out of the net as well. After DeSmith took over the top job in net late in the season, the defensive problems got a little bit better, but offensively the Wildcats are going to be looking for someone to step up following the loss of Stevie Moses, who pumped in 22 goals last year, by far the team's leader. The trio of Sorkin, Goumas, and Downing will be the likely candidates here, while Smith and MacDonald offer some young talent as well.

Defensively, look for a better performance from a team with a 2.97 GAA (42nd in the nation) last year. DeSmith did rather well for a freshman goaltender last year and UNH's d-corps matured as the season went on. Last year's core players on the blue line were sophomores and juniors, this year, they're juniors and seniors with a great puck-moving sophomore in van Riemsdyk and one of the best college-bound players in the northeast in Pesce.

The Wildcats are hurting after a very difficult season and will have just two NHL draftees on their roster (Knodel and Burke), an unusual shortage for such a high powered team, but bad seasons are excessively rare in Durham, and two in a row are unheard of. If UNH finds its offense, this is a team that could claw its way back to the reaches of Hockey East that it's used to. That makes for a dangerous back end to RPI's Hockey East weekend that kicks off 2013.