Know Your Enemy: UMass-Lowell

The final non-conference opponent of the season for the Engineers is a team that, a few years back, looked to be having a boomlet of success to the casual observer. But with some of Hockey East's power teams going thorough prolonged periods of struggle, there's naturally going to be someone there to take their place - nature abhors a vacuum and all. Enter the River Hawks. Their sustained successes under Norm Bazin have left no doubt that they are now a program to be reckoned with on a year in, year out basis.

UMass-Lowell
Nickname: River Hawks
Location: Lowell, MA
Founded: 1894
Conference: Hockey East
National Championships: 3 (1979, 1981, 1982 - all Division II)
Last NCAA Appearance: 2016
Last Frozen Four: 2013
Coach: Norm Bazin (6th season)
2015-16 Record: 25-10-5 (12-6-4 HEA, 4th place)
Series: UML leads, 12-10-1
First Game: December 30, 1982 (Troy, NY)
Last RPI win: December 16, 2006 (Troy, NY)
Last UML win: October 9, 2015 (Lowell, MA)

2016-17 game: January 3, 2017 (Troy, NY)

Key players: F Evan Campbell, sr.; F Joe Gambardella, sr.; D Michael Kapla, sr.; D Dylan Zink, sr.; F John Edwardh, jr.; D Chris Forney, jr.; D Tyler Mueller, jr.; D Tommy Panico, jr. F C.J. Smith, jr.; F Ryan Dmowski, so.; D Niklas Folin, so.; F Nick Master, so.; F Guillaume Leclerc, fr.; F Ryan Lohin, fr.; G Garrett Metcalf, fr.; G Tyler Wall, fr.

Previous KYE installments:

• 2011-12
• 2015-16

2016 represented the fourth time in five seasons that UML reached the NCAA tournament (they were the first team out in 2015) and their fifth consecutive 20-win season. This is truly the best stretch of seasons in Lowell's Division I history, and their best overall run since they were beasts of Division II in the late 70s and early 80s.

Last season, UML rode their strong defense to fourth in a stacked Hockey East table, then swept Boston University in the league quarterfinals and survived a 3OT marathon with defending champions Providence in the semis before falling to Northeastern in the league championship game. In the NCAA tournament, Lowell had to tangle with the best two teams in Connecticut playing in the Eastern Regional in Albany. The River Hawks dispatched Yale in overtime in a measure of revenge for the Bulldogs' 2013 Frozen Four triumph, but could not overcome a championship game-bound Quinnipiac, falling 4-1.

On defense, Lowell will be looking to replace Kevin Boyle between the pipes, and they have a pair of incoming freshmen in Metcalf and Wall who are both NHL draftees that are the likely options. But in front of their young netminder, whoever that ends up being, the core of the remainder of the defense that brought UML within a game of their second Frozen Four in four seasons will be almost entirely untouched - and chock full of experience.

All six regular defensemen return from last year's team. Five are juniors and seniors, and as a group they missed a total of nine games last year, five of which were missed by Folin in his freshman season. In front of Boyle, they established the fourth-stingiest defense in the nation last year with a team GAA of 1.88. No doubt their return will help ease the transition in net.

The River Hawks didn't light the planet ablaze offensively last season but it was far beyond adequate at a rate of 3.02 goals per game, certainly enough to win most of time. UML lost just twice last season when reaching three goals - both times on the road in December. Of the five players who recorded 10 or more goals last season, three (Gambardella, Zink, and Smith) return this year, and all three repeated the feat from a season prior. Campbell, who missed the last 11 games of the season to an injury, will also be back in the lineup - he cracked double-digits along with his three teammates in 2015.

At the final accounting, 11 players on this year's team had 10 or more points last season, including four defensemen. Bazin's men have plenty of options for scoring, no doubt. On first glance, UML doesn't have any individual scoring option that will necessarily be striking fear in the hearts of opponents, but they have plenty of outstanding options collectively that will likely make again for a strong enough attack to make the River Hawks dangerous in any game.

That adds up to a difficult final non-conference opponent, even at the Field House, for the Engineers, who have lost four of the last five games against Lowell. RPI's loss last year at Tsongas Center to kick off the season was really one of the Engineers' worst performances of the entire season, but it wasn't entirely their fault - UML also looked very, very good, every inch one of the best teams in the nation. Give them the edge in this year's matchup, although with RPI being at home and likely being improved offensively compared to what they had early in last season, it should at least be a little bit closer, an excellent test at a time when the Engineers will be heading into the meatiest part of their ECAC schedule.

Men's Hockey - at UML & Boston College, 9 & 11 Oct

Apologies for the extreme lateness of the recap of last week's games - I've been traveling overseas and didn't return until Thursday morning. Jet lag to account for the rest of it, but here it is nonetheless - an opening weekend to the RPI season that typifies all of our expectations for the team this season. A punchless loss followed by a world-beating moment, and an underscoring that this team will live and die by its defense. The year kicked off with a barely-there game against UMass-Lowell in which the Engineers rarely looked competitive in a 3-0 loss, followed two days later in the home opener by a 2-1 victory over the #1 team in the nation that turned heads.

UMass-Lowell
Melanson-Liljegren-Ohrvall
Nanne-Bubela-Schroeder
Wood-Bourbonnais-Gillespie
Moore-Fulton-Clary

Bradley-Prapavessis
Bell-Reno
Wilson-Hampton

Kasdorf

One thing mentioned from the very outset of the season was that RPI needed to stay healthy this season in order to be competitive. With game one beginning, injuries were already a big part of the story. Senior Mark Miller is recovering from a wrist injury, and freshmen Evan Tironese and Alex Rodriguez are also in the infirmary, the latter suffering an injury in the exhibition game a week prior. With Jimmy DeVito also sidelined, offensive-minded defenseman Miers Moore made his RPI debut not on the blue line, but playing left-wing on the Engineers' fourth line.

For the fifth time in six seasons, the Engineers gave up their first goal of the season before scoring their first. 4:03 into the game, with a delayed hooking penalty coming to Jared Wilson, the River Hawks drew first blood with a goal by A.J. White to go ahead 1-0. UML would not score on the ensuing power play, but they did strike again on the power play before the opening 20 minutes were over. An unassisted goal by Evan Campbell with 32 seconds left made it 2-0 as Viktor Liljegren served an elbowing penalty.

Another power play goal early in the second period put the home team up 3-0 with Milos Bubela off for cross-checking. Adam Chapie's goal made the game look pretty much over with only 22:06 ticked off the clock.

From there, it was fairly academic for UML's Kevin Boyle to pitch a first-time out shutout. The Engineers came alive slightly in the third period, putting 13 shots on net, but none of them got through as Boyle made 27 saves to earn the victory. Jason Kasdorf picked up 35 saves on 38 shots - 28 in the first two periods - in defeat. Dominated at the faceoff circle and effectively bottled up, RPI simply never looked competitive against one of Hockey East's top teams.

Boston College
Liljegren-Bubela-Ohrvall
Melanson-Tironese-Nanne
Bourbonnais-Schroeder-Gillespie
Moore-Fulton-Wood

Bradley-Prapavessis
Wilson-Reno
Bell-Hampton

Kasdorf

Tironese was added to the lineup two days later, replacing Lonnie Clary, and a minor line shakeup was in order as well to take on the Eagles, the #1 team in the most recent national polls. Tironese was added to a line that included Drew Melanson and Lou Nanne, the sophomore duo that regularly teamed with Miller on a dynamic line last season (when they were healthy). Additionally, the Engineers' top line was retooled, adding Milos Bubela to a combination that already included RPI's two Swedish forwards, Liljegren and Jesper Ohrvall, creating the first-ever all-European line in team history.

Defense was the name of the game for much of the first 40 minutes, as the Engineers bared down against the Eagles' high-flying offense. Jason Kasdorf was sharp throughout the game, picking up 29 saves in the first two periods on as many shots, but the shot-blocking in front of him was equally important to the defensive effort against BC. All night long, players gave up the body, especially Mike Prapavessis and Chris Bradley, to keep the visitors off the scoreboard.

Riley Bourbonnais opened the scoring in the final minute of the second period, notching his first goal of the season with 46 seconds left to put RPI ahead 1-0 on a bouncing puck that BC's Thatcher Demko usually can get himself in front of. Just before the second intermission, it was a huge boost to an Engineers team that was still very much an underdog despite the heroic defensive stand.

Bourbonnais struck again on the power play early in the third period. With Ryan Fitzgerald serving an elbowing penalty for the Eagles, Bourbonnais took a pass from Tironese a 3-on-2 break and whipped it past Demko to give RPI an improbable 2-0 edge with 17 minutes left in the game.

But one doesn't just put away the #1 team in the nation that easily. With solid puck control throughout the game, it seemed inevitable that BC would eventually find a way to put one past Kasdorf and they managed to halve the RPI lead five-and-a-half minutes later on the man advantage. Zach Sanford's second goal of the season made it 2-1 and turned the pucker factor up to 11 for the crowd at Houston Field House.

Far from being rattled, however, the Engineers stayed in their lanes when it came to their defensive stand. Indeed, despite trailing and their talent and possession edges, BC was ultimately able to get only 8 shots on Kasdorf in the final 20 minutes. While holding the 2-1 lead, RPI continued blocking shots and otherwise frustrating the Eagle offense. With Demko pulled in the final 1:20, BC managed to hold the attacking zone for nearly the entire end of the game, but still were unable to find a quality scoring opportunity to get the game tied, and the Engineers escaped with their first victory over a #1 ranked team in five seasons.

The weekend was a true microcosm - RPI must get healthy to be successful, and Tironese's debut was crucial for the Engineers. The freshman dominated in the faceoff circle and assisted on both of Bourbonnais' goals. They need defense in order to be successful, and the shot-blocking and top-end play by the combined defense powered the victory more than anything. The way the Engineers can become truly dangerous is to start scoring goals with more regularity - despite the high-caliber opponents they played in the opening weekend, averaging a goal per game isn't going to lead to a lot of wins.

They get the opportunity to try scoring goals against slightly lower-caliber opponents this weekend, as they face Alaska-Anchorage and the University of Alaska, WCHA teams who were a combined 1-3-0 to start the year, in the Brice Alaska Goal Rush. With American International as the fourth team, if the RPI team that played against Boston College shows up both nights in Fairbanks, the Engineers would be the likely favorites in the tournament.

RPI players swept the ECAC weekly awards this week on the strength of their win over BC. Riley Bourbonnais' two goals made him Player of the Week, Tironese's two assists and faceoff excellence won him Rookie of the Week, and Kasdorf's superior play in the pips earned him Goalie of the Week honors.

RPI at #14 UMass-Lowell
Non-conference Game - Tsongas Center (Lowell, MA)
10/9/15 - 7:15pm

RESULT: UMass-Lowell 3, RPI 0

BOX SCORES
College Hockey Stats
USCHO

RECAPS
RPI
Troy Record
Albany Times Union
Lowell Sun

RECORD: 0-1-0

#1 Boston College at RPI
Non-conference Game - Houston Field House (Troy, NY)
10/11/15 - 2:00pm

RESULT: RPI 2, Boston College 1

BOX SCORES
College Hockey Stats
USCHO

RECAPS
RPI
Troy Record
Albany Times Union
BC Interruption

RECORD: 1-1-0

Upcoming games
16 Oct - vs. Alaska-Anchorage (Fairbanks, AK)
17 Oct - at Alaska
24 Oct - #11 Michigan
30 Oct - at Union
31 Oct - Union (Black Saturday)

Beast of the East

Another season, another difficult October, another slew of injuries to start the season.

Yup.

The men get their season underway tonight in Lowell as they take on the two-time Hockey East finalists from UML - and they'll be missing plenty of names. Miller. Wood. Rodriguez. Tironese. All out nursing injuries. Freshman defenseman Meirs Moore makes his RPI debut tonight... as a forward.

And it doesn't get any easier after they come home - just #1 Boston College on Sunday afternoon. Woof.

For the women, they also hit the road for the first time this season, taking on RIT in a pair of games in Rochester - can they build on a halfway decent showing against North Dakota last weekend? We'll find out.

In the meantime, here's something bouncy to get you going for a weekend full of hockey.

Know Your Enemy: UMass-Lowell

It's a belated start this year for WaP's annual Know Your Enemy feature, a function of the relatively late release of the RPI schedule (May 14 this year, which is after KYE usually gets underway), so we're going to play a little catch up to ensure that the series concludes right on time as the season gets going. Typically, we will have a new entry every Wednesday, but we're starting off the first couple of weeks doing two a week (like two-a-days, only less stressful). This is the first of 23 entries for this offseason.

Since last we left UML - preparing to head into Norm Bazin's first year as coach - much has changed. The Engineers' first NCAA opponent next season will be a program that has undergone a renaissance of sorts, quickly rising from the bowels of Hockey East to being in regular contention at the top of the conference. It's kinda like Union with fewer years of awfulness before the rise to the top.

UMass-Lowell
Nickname: River Hawks
Location: Lowell, MA
Founded: 1894
Conference: Hockey East
National Championships: 3 (1979, 1981, 1982 - all Division II)
Last NCAA Appearance: 2014
Last Frozen Four: 2013
Coach: Norm Bazin (5th season)
2014-15 Record: 21-12-6 (11-7-4 HEA, 4th place)
Series: UML leads, 11-10-1
First Game: December 30, 1982 (Troy, NY)
Last RPI win: December 16, 2006 (Troy, NY)
Last UML win: December 29, 2011 (Storrs, CT)

2015-16 game: October 9, 2015 (Lowell, MA)

Key players: G Kevin Boyle, sr.; F Adam Chapie, sr.; F Michael Colantone, sr.; F Michael Fallon, sr.; F A.J. White, sr.; F Evan Campbell, jr.; F Joe Gambardella, jr.; D Michael Kapla, jr.; D Dylan Zink, jr.; D Chris Forney, so.; D Tyler Mueller, so.; F C.J. Smith, so.; F Ryan Dmowski, fr.; D Niklas Folin, fr.; D Mattias Goransson, fr.; F Guillaume Leclerc, fr.

Previous KYE installment:

• 2011-12

Sometimes, a program gets a new coach and that coach instantly turns things around with the talent he inherits. Such was the case in Lowell, as Bazin took the reins from Blaise MacDonald before the 2011-12 season, and instantly made the River Hawks more than just contenders. He guided the program back to the NCAA tournament for the first time in 16 years, just a year out from a season that ended with a whopping five wins.

UML has been nothing but successful under Bazin, who was the Spencer Penrose Award winner for national coach of the year in 2013 as he guided the River Hawks to their first Division I Frozen Four in just his second year at the helm - they were defeated by eventual national champions Yale in Pittsburgh. Lowell advanced to the NCAA tournament in each of Bazin's first three years, winning Hockey East hardware for the first time in 2013 by sweeping the regular season and tournament crowns, then following up in 2014 with a second consecutive Hockey East tournament championship.

Even this past season has to be considered something of a success, as the River Hawks completed their fourth consecutive 20-win season, something they haven't done since their days as a Division II powerhouse in the early 1980s. It was successful enough that UML just barely missed out on a fourth straight national tournament bid, which led to a confused columnist in the Lowell Sun penning a hilariously awful screed blasting the Pairwise Rankings up and down which embarrassed most real Lowell fans in its shortsightedness. But that crazy column did at least make the valid point that the River Hawks remain one of the best teams in the country.

When Connor Hellebuyck, arguably the top goaltender in the country during his freshman and sophomore years, signed a pro contract at the beginning of last season, some expected UML to come back down to earth, but with junior transfer Boyle between the pipes (coming in, oddly enough, from UML's rivals at UMass-Amherst), the River Hawks remained more than competitive. His numbers were not as astronomically high as Hellebuyck's had been, but they were more than good enough. Meanwhile, a relatively young team was paced by its freshmen and sophomores, as five of the team's top six scorers were from those sets of underclassmen, with the sixth being a junior (Chapie). Smith, in his freshman campaign, led the team in scoring with 16 goals and 19 assists.

All told, Lowell brings back 11 of their top 12 scorers from last season's team, which was 7th in the nation offensively. The defense, as mentioned, wasn't quite as strong as it had been in the previous two seasons with Hellebuyck as the anchor, but the offense was, with some frequency, good enough to bail out and defensive issues.

Bazin produced winners even when he was still largely coaching MacDonald's team. Now in year five, this is entirely his team and he has UML poised to be competitive in a very difficult conference for the foreseeable future. It's not a team brimming with gobs of individual talent like some other Hockey East programs do, but they function as the best teams always function - as more than the sum of its parts.

That makes for a difficult first outing for the Engineers, who will need to find the equalizer in Jason Kasdorf, a goaltender who was frequently compared to Hellebuyck earlier in his career because they both carried their team high and far in 2013 as freshmen who were both (at the time) Winnipeg Jets property with among the top numbers nationally among goaltenders. Lowell's defense isn't impenetrable, which means that an Engineer team that struggled to hit the net at times last year has to take advantage of opportunities as they arise in order to be successful - because even if Kasdorf plays well, it'll be for naught if they can't take advantage on the opposite end.

EZAC!

So there it was, Easter night, and suddenly it dawned on me.

The national championship game could be a rematch of the ECAC consolation game.

Yeah. We're not in Kansas anymore, are we?

A couple of times this season, I've pooh-poohed some of the more excited suggestions about what the ECAC could accomplish on the national level. So far, I've been proven about right - three NCAA bids was about what I expected. So what is it to say that the ECAC now has two teams in the Frozen Four for the first time since 1983, and just a year removed from ending a nine-year drought without even a single team in the ultimate event of the college hockey season?

Some would say it was nothing but luck. Those people will point to the fact that Yale essentially backed into the tournament after failing miserably in Atlantic City (scoring a grand total of zero goals in two games), that Union could well have been out of the NCAAs themselves if they hadn't won the ECAC title (probably true), and that Quinnipiac had a lousy February and (of course) was never a deserving #1.

Ask Minnesota, North Dakota, and Boston College about what kind of year the ECAC had. Those three powerhouse programs can boast a single split regular-season title (the Gophers, with St. Cloud State earning the #1 seed in the conference tournament) between them while two ECAC teams do battle in Pittsburgh for the opportunity to claim the league's first national championship since 1989.

While I was trying to calm down the overly optimistic expectations of four or five bids, I also pointed to the upward trend the league has been experiencing in the last couple of years as a legitimate source of optimism, and this is certainly another sign of growth. In 2011, we saw the league picking up three bids for the first time in several years. In 2012, it was a Frozen Four berth. Now, it's both, plus an extra spot in the Frozen Four.

Now, we don't need to have Quinnipiac and Yale win tomorrow to make this a successful season for the league, and there are plenty of additional steps that need to be taken before we can really pound our chests. And, as I also brought up earlier this season, the ECAC is set to pretty much overtake the "new" WCHA starting next season in terms of stature.

So, what are the chances of an ECAC champion this weekend? I'd go with... fair. It sounds pessimistic to say that with half the teams being from the ECAC, but it's about as far as I'd be willing to go. UMass-Lowell, on their current seven-game win streak, has given up either one goal or none at all in six of those games. That's a defense that's dialed in. St. Cloud State played exceptionally well in the WCHA, and settled for a #4 seed based almost entirely upon non-conference stumbles against UNH, RPI, and Northern Michigan, plus a loss to Wisconsin in the WCHA tournament. They're good.

That's not to say that Yale and Quinnipiac don't have things going for them as well. The Bobcats may be as dialed in on offense as UML is on defense, and a matchup between the Q and the River Hawks could be very exciting - as could the actual Yale-UML matchup provided that the Bulldogs get the offense they had in Grand Rapids rather than the one they had in Atlantic City.

Overall, though? This is a weekend to enjoy if you're a college hockey fan. It's the Frozen Four, of course, and that's cause every year. But this year? It's an even bigger celebration of what makes college hockey special. It's borne out of Union beating Boston College and St. Cloud State beating Notre Dame. Name another sport where that result would be even remotely possible.

When the casual college sports fan looks at the Frozen Four and says "who the hell are these guys?", you can take pride when you say - these are four damn good college hockey teams, and they proved it.

Men's Hockey - UConn Holiday Classic (29/30 Dec)

The unofficial start of the second half arrived with a great deal of promise for the struggling Engineers. With three weeks off and the team finally back to 100% health for the first time all season, hope seemed to be on the horizon. Unfortunately, the games turned out to be more of the same as RPI was savaged in the opening game of the UConn Holiday Classic, 7-2, and followed with a dismal consolation game, falling to Army 3-2.

UMass-Lowell
Lee/Neal/Schroeder
Laliberte/Higgs/Haggerty
Angers-Goulet/McGowan/O'Grady

Rogic/Malchuk/Tinordi

Curadi/Bailen
Leonard/Bergin
Leboeuf/Koudys

Diebold

The big news before the game was certainly the lineup. With no injuries to work around, Seth Appert was free to start whatever team he thought gave him the best chance to win for the first time all season, and the result was a number of seniors, especially Pat Cullen and Josh Rabbani, sitting in the stands. All seven freshman skaters started, as did freshman goaltender Scott Diebold. Matt Neal made his long awaited return to the lineup after missing more than two months with an ankle injury, and Ryan Haggerty came back after missing three games with the flu.

The optimism that came with the opening of the second half lasted precisely 43 seconds. That's how long it took the River Hawks to score, following a defensive breakdown that resulted in Lowell sending two forwards in alone on Diebold to make it 1-0. They made it 2-0 about 10 minutes later on a second defensive breakdown, and scored a shorthanded goal just two and a half minutes after that to make it 3-0. All three first period goals came as part of a lightning transition through the neutral zone that the RPI blueliners simply could not stop, leaving Diebold high and dry.

The Engineers tried to pick things up in the second period with Ryan Haggerty notching his team leading fourth goal of the season - yes, that's right - on the first opportunity of the middle stanza. The momentum didn't last long, however, as yet another defensive breakdown led to a Lowell goal just 30 seconds later, making the score 4-1 and immediately and visibly demoralizing RPI. Lowell picked up another goal about 10 minutes later to all but ice the game with almost a full half of the game left to be played.

Former RPI recruiting target Terrance Wallin - who reportedly had Lowell and RPI as his two finalists before choosing the River Hawks - made things worse three minutes into the third with his fourth of the season, making it 6-1. Zach Schroeder picked up his second of the year with just over three minutes left to play, but by that time it was far too late for anything to get going for the Engineers. Lowell added a power play goal with 10 seconds left just for good measure, and RPI limped away with a five-goal loss for the first time since the North Dakota NCAA game last year (which was six).

It was the first time since the "unspeakable Freakout!" two years ago that anyone had hung seven goals on RPI. The glaring issue was not between the pipes, as Scott Diebold frequently was left hanging by his defensemen and actually had a halfway decent appearance otherwise, although the goalfest left his numbers for the season significantly damaged.

Army, 2-0 losers to the homestanding UConn Huskies, became RPI's consolation game opponent.


Army
Angers-Goulet/McGowan/O'Grady
Laliberte/Higgs/Haggerty
Lee/Neal/Schroeder

Tinordi/Rogic/Rabbani

Smith

Leonard/Bergin
Curadi/Bailen
Dolan

Merriam

The response was immediate. Joel Malchuk was benched for the first time this season, and defensemen Pat Koudys and Guy Leboeuf were also yanked, resulting in only five defensemen dressing. Bryce Merriam got the start in net, and senior Justin Smith skated as the extra forward.

With the Black Knights coming in with just one victory on the season, this had all the hallmarks of a must-win game for RPI, if only to maintain some semblance of confidence moving forward.

Once again, the Engineers got off on the wrong foot by getting behind early. After both sides had failed to score on their first power play of the game, Army was first to the scoresheet by notching a power play goal on Matt Neal's second penalty of the first period to go up 1-0.

RPI's power play struggles continued into the second period, as an opportunity right from the get-go fell by the wayside. In fact, it was not until Army went down two men six minutes into the second that the Engineers were able to get on the board, tying things with Brock Higgs' first goal of the season, getting the monkey off his back but keeping the Engineers somewhat behind the eight ball, as their efforts at even strength proved futile for the remainder of the period. RPI dominated the second in shots, 15-2, yet could only muster the two-man advantage goal.

Matt Neal's first career goal also came on the power play, arriving three and a half minutes into RPI's fifth man advantage of the game, giving the Engineers the lead for the first time in the tournament, but once again, the momentum was fleeting.

Just over two minutes later, following an interference call against Bo Dolan that Dolan, Appert and most RPI fans in attendance thought was a bit of a phantom call, Army scored on the ensuing faceoff to tie the game at two.

The Engineers pushed forward in an attempt to retake the lead, but just as they picked up the pressure, a slap shot by Nick Bailen broke the glass behind the Army net, resulting in a delay of about half an hour while  repairs were made. When play resumed, the momentum built by the pressure was gone.

In heart-breaking fashion, a weak shot by Army with only 93 ticks remaining on the clock eluded Merriam and gave Army the late lead. The Engineers did what they could to get things square again with the empty net, but they could not get one past Army's Ryan Leets, who made 29 saves on 31 shots for the victory. Merriam finished with just 13 saves on 16 shots, while the Engineers allowed 10 goals on 40 shots on the weekend.

RPI now limps home to begin the second half of the ECAC schedule, in desperate need of a bounce their way in order to salvage the season.

Other junk - Plenty of movement in the national rankings this week. RPI opponents on the chart this week are #5 Notre Dame (no change), #6 Colorado College (no change), #9 Colgate (up three), #12 UMass-Lowell (up five), #13 Cornell (no change), #14 Union (down four), #17 Ferris State (down six), and #20 Yale (down one). Also receiving votes were RIT (12) and Harvard (4).

RPI's three leading scorers - Nick Bailen, Brock Higgs and Ryan Haggerty - have scored 100% of their goals on the power play, accounting for 8 of RPI's 10 power play goals.

All of RPI's freshmen forwards - Haggerty, Jacob Laliberte, Zach Schroeder, Mark McGowan and Matt Neal - have now notched their first career goal.

Bailen, Schroeder, C.J. Lee, Alex Angers-Goulet, Mike Bergin and Curtis Leonard are the only remaining players who have not missed a game this season.

RPI's next game is their first home game since November - and it's a big one as it's not only a league game, it's also a nationally televised game as the first college game to air on the newly rechristened NBC Sports Network.  Unfortunately, it comes at a time when students are not on campus, against a team that doesn't travel well and with the team struggling significantly, so this showpiece game could be played in front of a fairly weak crowd. If you can get to the Field House on Friday, please do so.

ECAC Standings (by win% in parentheses)

1 (1). Cornell - 13 pts (6-1-1)
2 (2). Colgate - 12 pts (6-2-0)
3 (8). Quinnipiac - 9 pts (3-4-3)
4 (3). Yale - 8 pts (4-2-0)
5 (4). Union - 8 pts (3-2-2)
6 (7). Harvard - 8 pts (3-3-2)
7 (10). St. Lawrence - 8 pts (4-5-0)
8 (9). Clarkson - 8 pts (3-4-2)

9 (6). Dartmouth - 7 pts (3-3-1)

10 (11). Princeton - 7 pts (3-7-1)
11 (5). Brown - 6 pts (3-3-0)

12 (12). RPI - 2 pts (1-6-0)

#17 UMass-Lowell vs. RPI
Non-Conference Game - Freitas Ice Forum (Storrs, CT)
12/29/11 - 4:00pm
RESULT: UMass-Lowell 7, RPI 2


BOX SCORES
College Hockey Stats
USCHO

RECAPS
RPI
USCHO
Troy Record
Albany Times Union
Lowell Sun

RECORD: 3-14-0 (1-6-0 ECAC, 2 pts)

Army vs. RPI
Non-Conference Game - Freitas Ice Forum (Storrs, CT)
12/30/11 - 4:00pm
RESULT: Army 3, RPI 2


BOX SCORES
College Hockey Stats
USCHO

RECAPS
RPI
Troy Record
Albany Times Union

RECORD: 3-15-0 (1-6-0 ECAC, 2 pts)

Upcoming games

06 Jan - Dartmouth
07 Jan - Harvard
10 Jan - American International
14 Jan - at #14 Union
20 Jan - at Brown

In the Fetal Position

A gutsy move to sit some upperclassmen in favor of younger players didn't quite pay off yesterday, but a lot of credit to Lowell - they're a solid team. They perfectly exploited a serious problem we've been having.

What was the problem? I think we might have talked about it recently.

Oh well. On to Army this afternoon. And if we can't beat Army... yeah.

Oh. Hockey. Right!

Gosh... this was a first for us here at WaP. The last two winter breaks were full of RPI hockey goodness, what with Jerry D'Amigo playing in the World Junior Championships and, last year, the big exhibition against the US WJC team.

(For what it's worth, the Canadians are still cheering against whoever's playing the Stars and Stripes out of pure, unadulterated fear. They probably think D'Amigo will come back and squash them again.)

This year, with the team struggling and no one to dote on in the tournament... a little less going on. So we took a quick breather to recharge the batteries. But we're back, and the second half starts now.

There's great news to share - the team's finally at 100% injury wise, which is what we'd hoped to hear heading into the break. From Seth Appert's recent comments, it looks like the younger guys are going to get a bigger role going forward as well.

Hope springs eternal. Can the team wash away the stank of a horrible first three months? They can start this afternoon as they face nationally ranked UMass-Lowell in UConn's (almost literal) barn.

Let's get excited... nothing is over until we decide it is! Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?

Know Your Enemy: UMass-Lowell

Our next entry in the Know Your Enemy series is the first of four teams on the RPI schedule this year with a first year coach. During the Dan Fridgen era, UMass-Lowell was a regular fixture on the RPI non-conference schedule, as the Engineers and River Hawks did battle every year (with one exception) from 1992 through 2006. This season, the teams meet for the first time on a schedule assembled by Seth Appert - the last game took place in Appert's first season behind the bench - in the opening game of the UConn Hockey Classic.

UMass-Lowell
Nickname: River Hawks
Location: Lowell, MA
Founded: 1894
Conference: Hockey East
National Championships: 3 (1979, 1981, 1982 - all Division II)
Last NCAA Appearance: 1996
Last Frozen Four: 1983 (Division II)
Coach: Norm Bazin (1st season)
2010-11 Record: 5-25-4 (4-21-2 HEA, 10th place)
Series: Tied, 10-10-1
First Game: December 30, 1982 (Troy, NY)
Last RPI win: December 16, 2006 (Troy, NY)
Last UML win: October 9, 2005 (Lowell, MA)

2011-12 game: December 29, 2011 (Storrs, CT)

Key players: F David Vallorani, sr., F Matt Ferreira, sr.; F Riley Wetmore, jr., G Doug Carr, so.; F Derek Arnold, so.; F Joseph Pendenza, so., D Chad Ruhwedel, so., F Tyler Brickler, fr.; F Mike Conderman, fr.; D Colton Saucerman, fr.; F Terrence Wallin, fr.; F Scott Wilson, fr.

Much has changed about Lowell since the school's hockey program got it's start in the early 1960s - the division, the name of the school, and the name of the team are all different from the day the Lowell Technological Institute Terriers first took to the ice in 1961 and started varsity hockey as a Division II squad in 1967. Lowell Technological Institute and Lowell State College merged in 1975, creating what was at the time known as the University of Lowell, and it was shortly after this merger that the school entered its heyday on the ice.

With the merger, coach Bill Riley's team became the Chiefs, and the team quickly became one of the powers of Division II just as the NCAA introduced the Division II national championship. Their rivals from Merrimack took the first national crown in 1978, but the Chiefs claimed the title the following season, bouncing back from a 3-4-0 start to finish up 24-2 the rest of the way, defeating Mankato State in the championship with a team that included future NHLer and four time Stanley Cup winner Craig MacTavish.

That victory arguably marked the beginning of the first Division II dynasty, as the Chiefs returned to the national tournament in each of the succeeding four seasons, winning three national championships in four years with twin victories over Plattsburgh State in 1981 and 1982.

In 1983, when the ECAC's East Division decided to break off from the rest of the conference and join Hockey East, Lowell signed on as well to become the league's seventh member, making the move to Division I the following season as part of Hockey East's inaugural season, finishing fifth just a point behind fourth place New Hampshire.

The Chiefs weren't just wallflowers in the league's early days - they proved their worth early on. By 1987, the league's third year, Lowell finished in second in the league standings, and the following season got their first taste of the NCAA tournament with an at-large bid. Following that bid, however, the team became mired in a funk, finishing last or next to last in Hockey East the next three years, and Riley departed in favor of Bruce Crowder. At about the same time, the school joined the University of Massachusetts system and became known as UMass-Lowell.

Crowder spent only five seasons in Lowell before leaving for Northeastern, but the team was generally successful under him. Three of those seasons were 20-win years, including a 25-win season in 1994 that saw the team reach the Hockey East championship (losing by one goal to BU) and a second NCAA tournament apperance, backstopped by Hobey Baker finalist Dwayne Roloson. That team came within a goal of the Frozen Four, earning their first NCAA win with a 4-3 victory over Michigan State (on the Spartans' home ice) before falling 2-1 in overtime to Minnesota.

Two years later it was almost deja vu for the team by then known as the River Hawks. With a 26-win season (most in Division I in the school's history), Lowell headed back to the NCAA tournament where they once again faced Michigan State in East Lansing, and once again shocked the home team (6-2), but fell to Colorado College, once more a game short of the Frozen Four.

Crowder's departure opened the door for the man who is now Maine's head coach, Tim Whitehead. The five years under Whitehead were fairly undistinguished in Lowell, and upon his departure in 2001 to replace the late Shawn Walsh at Maine, Blaise MacDonald came into the picture. Just a year removed from a shocking season at Niagara that saw the Purple Eagles come within a game of the Frozen Four, it was hoped that he would bring the River Hawks to that level and beyond.

Unfortunately for UMass-Lowell, that was not to be. Though he led the team to three 20-win seasons (2002, 2005, 2009) in his time behind the bench, those seasons merely punctuated losing campaigns for the most part. In 2007, the team faced an uncertain future with the UMass Board of Trustees threatening to axe the program over rental fees at Tsongas Arena, their home, and due to a perceived issue with the team competing against the system's flagship campus in Amherst, but the program survived those issues.

This past season, UML endured probably their worst season to date as a varsity program. They picked up only five wins all year (two against just-as-bad Providence and another against Atlantic Hockey's Bentley) and finished dead last in Hockey East with 21 losses in 27 league games. MacDonald stepped down at the end of the year, he will be replaced by Hamilton head coach and UML alumnus Norm Bazin.

Vallorani and Wetmore were productive for UML last season, but the team's production didn't go terribly far beyond them - the team was 45th in the nation offensively out of 58 teams. Ferriera and Pendenza return 10 goals each, so at the very least, most of the team's top scorers will be back from what was a very young team last season. Additionally, the River Hawks may be getting a shot in the arm from several talented young freshman forwards, especially Scott Wilson and Terrence Wallin, the latter of which had been highly coveted by the Engineers before he chose Lowell.

Defensively, Bazin may have even more work to do as last year's UML squad 54th in the nation on that metric, allowing 4 goals per game. Carr and classmate Doug Boulanger largely split time in net last season, with neither putting up numbers that would be considered remarkable by any stretch of the imagination. They will have to improve significantly in order for the River Hawks to have a shot this year.

This will be the first time the Engineers and River Hawks face each other on neutral ice. It's hard to say exactly how this game will play out since both teams have a good number of question marks heading into the year. It does seem like some of Lowell's best players will be young, but the same can be said of RPI. Both sides will have a good number of games under their belt by the time this game is played, but it's difficult to draw a bead on what to expect in this one at this point in time. If this game were played in a couple of years instead of this year, it could prove to be an exciting matchup between a pair of talented squads, but right now it could be anything from a solid game between two young, good teams, it could be a snoozer between two teams trying to refine that young talent, or a combination of the two.

Revolving Door

It's one of the items that we touched on in our last posting about a week and a half ago, but even then, we had no idea just how crazy and how fast the coaching carousel would spin... or just how much impact it would have on the ECAC.

Here's the rundown.

Michigan Tech: Still looking for a coach after alum and long-time Michigan assistant Mel Pearson left them at the altar at the very last minute. Much of the most recent talk has been about Nebraska-Omaha associate head coach Mike Hastings, who coached the USHL's Omaha Lancers from 1994 to 2008.

UMass-Lowell: Norm Bazin, the head coach at Division III Hamilton for the last three years, will be the new head coach in Lowell, and the first alum to ever coach the program. Prior to that, he spent eight seasons as an assistant at Colorado College. So the Lowell coach doesn't touch off another search elsewhere, at least not at the Division I level.

Clarkson: If you'd asked me two weeks ago which coach in the ECAC was most likely to lose his job, I'd have told you that it was Harvard's Ted Donato, with the qualifier that he wasn't likely to get the boot. Unfortunately for George Roll, he was the right answer, he lost his job last week without much in the way of an official explanation. We can presume that the three straight losing seasons were more than the alumni, who are used to winning all the time, were willing to tolerate. I'd thought Roll would get at least one more year to turn the team around, especially considering that he brought Clarkson within a goal of playing in the Frozen Four in 2008. A lot of what happened to the team in the last two years was hardly his fault - most notably, a rash of injuries last season and some legal problems for some important recruits.

It's Clarkson's loss, in my view. Roll is a proven winner - it's the ECAC and the college hockey landscape that has changed. It's not going to be easy for Clarkson to be as dominant in the ECAC as they were for decades, but Roll knew what he was doing. The only message this firing sends is to anyone who would have interest in the job. You get very little margin for error.

At any rate, the names that were immediately thrown around are a couple of guys who have been behind the bench in Potsdam before, US Under-18 Team coach Ron Rolston and Cornell associate head coach Casey Jones, but it's worth pointing out that those guys have had their names thrown around for every opening in college hockey since the Clinton administration, including the one at RPI in 2006, regardless of prior links.

And let this be a lesson to the tiny but whiny minority of RPI alums and townies who have been agitating for Seth Appert's head. We've said it about a million times, but it still needs to be said - it's a dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb idea. Uber-dumb.

Providence: Found their man in Union's Nate Leaman. Notably for RPI fans, Ben Barr will follow Leaman from Schenectady to Providence. That begot...

Union: The Dutch wasted no time whatsoever in promoting the associate head coach, Rick Bennett, as soon as the Leaman move became official. Bennett ironically is a Providence alum, who spent five years as an assistant with the Friars before joining Union in 2005 when Paul Pooley was let go. He was promoted to associate head coach in 2007. Hard to say right now what this means for Union but they were clearly comfortable with the idea even before Leaman left, so they must believe he will be able to carry on Leaman's work in Schenectady.

Penn State: All the buzz was on Minnesota-Duluth's Scott Sandelin and Wisconsin women's coach Mark Johnson, but instead, it'll be Guy Gadowsky, the man that brought Princeton hockey back into relevance. Word came out on Easter Sunday that Gadowsky was the choice to become the first varsity hockey coach at Happy Valley, and he was formally introduced today. Therefore...

Princeton: Still too early to tell who might be a candidate for the sudden opening at New Jersey's lone entry in Division I college hockey, and truth be told, the level of fan buzz at Princeton is so generally low that we may not find out much until the process is over unless there's a present coach who ends up in the mix for this one. Eh, why not. How about Ron Rolston or Casey Jones?

Elsewhere: For a short time late last week, there was concern that something was happening at Western Michigan. It was announced that WMU had a press conference ready to go regarding the future of the head coach, which lately has been code for "he's leaving" or "he's getting canned." For Jeff Blashill, however, it was merely a much deserved raise and extension, intriguing especially considering the question marks surrounding WMU and the rest of the CCHA in the light of the pending Big 10 conference, which will likely tear the league asunder.

Also, just to throw this in - interesting story out of Tucson, AZ. Yes, that's right. Leo Golembiewski, who has run a very successful semi-independent club team at the University of Arizona since 1979, may be on his way out. Few people realize that the U of A has a fairly noteworthy club program, known as the IceCats, that draw just as many fans as many ECAC teams do on a regular basis. Golembiewski has been running almost every element of that program for 32 years, but it appears that Arizona is ready to step in and wrest most, if not all, control away. Arizona, to me, has always been an interesting "what if" candidate for Division I expansion given the popularity of the IceCats, so this may bear keeping a semi-interested eye on.