Know Your Enemy: Union

The Route 7 rivalry is no longer just the top rivalry for both of the teams involved - as both teams approach the top of the ECAC standings together for the first time, it's slowly evolving into one of the fiercest rivalries in the league. It doesn't have the historical precedence of Clarkson-St. Lawrence, or the aristocratic hatred of Cornell-Harvard, but when both teams are good and hate each other, that's when it starts to get good.

Union
Nickname: Dutchmen
Location: Schenectady, NY
Founded: 1795
Conference: ECAC
National Championships: 0
Last NCAA Appearance: 2013
Last Frozen Four: 2012
Coach: Rick Bennett (3rd season)
2012-13 Record: 22-13-5 (10-8-4 ECAC, 4th place)
Series: RPI leads, 45-31-10
First Game: February 26, 1904 (Albany, NY)
Last RPI win: November 13, 2010 (Troy, NY)
Last UC win: January 26, 2013 (Albany, NY)

2013-14 games: November 15, 2013 (Schenectady, NY); November 16, 2013 (Troy, NY); January 25, 2014 (Albany, NY)

Key players: D Mat Bodie, sr.; F Daniel Carr, sr.; F Matt Hatch, sr.; F Cole Ikkala, sr.; F Kevin Sullivan, sr.; F Daniel Ciampini, jr.; D Shayne Gostisbehere, jr.; F Max Novak, jr.; G Colin Stevens, jr.; D Sebastian Gingras, so.; F David Roy, so.; F Matt Wilkins, so.; D Griff Martin, fr.; D Jeff Taylor, fr.; F Mike Vecchione, fr.

Key losses: F Wayne Simpson, F Kyle Bodie, D Greg Coburn, D Shawn Stuart, D Ryan Forgaard, G Troy Grosenick, F Josh Jooris

Previous KYE installments:

• 2010-11
• 2011-12
• 2012-13

The series between RPI and Union used to be incredibly lopsided in the Engineers' favor, but with the increased number of games the teams have been playing of late - now including the "Mayor's Cup" game in Albany, plus a playoff series in 2012 - combined with the winning streak the Dutchmen have put together, and RPI retains "only" a 14-win edge over the Dutch. Three full calendar years will have passed since the last time the Engineers put together a victory over their Route 7 rivals by the time they get another crack at what has become the team's biggest rivalry.

RPI fans can take heart that this isn't going to be the Union team of two years ago that went to the Frozen Four, but if you're expecting the (no longer) "normal" Union to return, that isn't in the cards this year either - probably ever, considering how long Union was considered the joke of the conference. They've found a metric for sustained success in Schenectady that was missing for quite some time, but there are fewer weapons in the arsenal than we've seen in recent seasons.

One of the most successful classes in Union history (if not the most successful) reaches their senior season this year, though they do it without their goaltender, Grosenick, who after two seasons as an outstanding top-choice netminder at UC followed his predecessor's lead by jumping early for an NHL contract. That leaves defense as the top concern for the Dutchmen moving forward, especially after graduating three seniors last year. The class also moves on without Jooris, who signed with the Calgary Flames in late July.

Stevens, a Niskayuna native, got to see a bit of action last season while Grosenick was injured. He had three shutouts in seven starts (albeit against AIC, Penn State, and the March version of Clarkson) and had some decent overall numbers (better than Grosenick's, in fact), although there are a few warning signs - a save percentage near .900 in league play last season, for instance.

Mat Bodie and Gostisbehere are two blue-line stalwarts who return to the mix, but with the exception of Gingras, who had some tough moments as a freshman, there are no other returning defensemen who played more than half of the team's games last year. That opens up options for a number of Union d-men, but the defensive unit that was 7th in the nation last season is going to look very different this year.

But even if Union's defense ends up being weaker than last year - no sure thing - the core of the offense that has boosted the Dutchmen's fortunes these last two seasons are the senior forwards, Carr and Hatch especially. This is a group that has clicked well together ever since their arrival on campus, and Ciampini and Novak add additional experienced goal-scorers just a year back. It's tough to say what kind of impact Jooris' departure will have on his classmates, but they are plenty talented on their own.

That said, Jooris' late departure seals a situation in which Union loses four of its top five scorers last year, which means more will be expected of names like Wilkins and Sullivan, but also on incoming freshman Vecchione, one of the top scorers in the USHL last year.

Although there's not a great deal of buzz about Union's freshman class outside of Vecchione, the upperclassmen are strong enough to carry Union to another successful season this coming year. They've found a tremendous amount of success against RPI and whatever the team's losses from last season, they remain a formidable threat. As we've mentioned in the past, that bodes well for the Engineers for much of the year, since having a strong travel partner is usually considered a good thing in the ECAC, but it's going to make for three tough games similar to what we've seen recently. The major difference is that RPI now has a team that should be good enough to go directly toe-to-toe with Union, especially after having finished ahead of them in the ECAC standings for the first time in five years.

Know Your Enemy: Colgate

When your team is powered by freshmen - and you're not a Minnesota or North Dakota - chances are pretty good you're in for a tough season. Colgate last year looked like they were defying that logic during the first four months of the season, but February can be very hard on teams without a lot of crunch-time experience, and the Raiders petered out in a hurry. From where we are now, however, it's more of a building block than a stumbling block going forward.

Colgate
Nickname: Raiders
Location: Hamilton, NY
Founded: 1819
Conference: ECAC
National Championships: 0
Last NCAA Appearance: 2005
Last Frozen Four: 1990
Coach: Don Vaughan (21st season)
2012-13 Record: 14-18-4 (6-13-3 ECAC, 11th place) 
Series: RPI leads, 59-56-3 
First Game: February 19, 1916 (Hamilton, NY) 
Last RPI win: February 23, 2013 (Hamilton, NY)
Last CU win: February 4, 2012 (Troy, NY)

2013-14 games: November 9, 2013 (Troy, NY); January 4, 2014 (Minneapolis, MN - possible); February 14, 2014 (Hamilton, NY)

Key players: F Mike McCann, sr.; G Eric Mihalik, sr.; F John Lidgett, jr.; F Joe Wilson, jr.; D Spiro Goulakos, jr.; F Kyle Baun, so.; F Michael Borkowski, so.; G Spencer Finney, so.; D Ryan Johnston, so.; D Kevin Lough, so.; F Darcy Murphy, so.; F Tylor Spink, so.; F Tyson Spink, so.; F Emilio Audi, fr.; F Andrew Black, fr.; F Tim Harrison, fr.

Key losses: F Robbie Bourdon, D Jeremy Price, F Kurtis Bartliff, D Thomas Larkin, D Nathan Sinz

Previous KYE installments:

• 2010-11
• 2011-12
• 2012-13

At 13-9-2 when January ended, Colgate's season was looking like a qualified success - they weren't near the upper reaches of the league, but considering the very young forwards who were called upon to lead the team, things were looking pretty decent overall.

Then, on January 29, Spiro Goulakos left the team and the school to begin chemotherapy treatment to battle Hodgkin's lymphoma - a battle, thankfully, it appears he is winning, especially since he was able to make a return to the team on February 16, having missed only five games.

There's probably no direct causality here, but after Goulakos left the team, the Raiders went 1-9-2 to finish out February and March - late in the season certainly looking distinctly like a team that had thrown in the towel prematurely. They had their close calls - beating Union and taking highly-ranked RPI and Yale to overtime in the last two weeks of the season - but they were outscored 13-4 in the final three games of the season, including two playoff games at St. Lawrence.

Ignoring the ignoble end, however, there's plenty to look forward to in the future when it comes to Colgate. The dynamic Spink twins combined for 58 points playing on the same line, with Tylor leading the team in points, Tyson in assists, and linemate/classmate Baun in goals. Raider fans have to be salivating at the prospect of that impressive line staying around for three more seasons.

The trio were not even the only solid freshman forwards - Murphy scored 10 goals as well in his freshman year, while Borkowski picked up 14 assists working for much of the year with Bourdon, the top senior scorer on the team. All told, 12 players reached double-digits in points last season, 8 of which are back this season, another year wiser.

Defense is the place where Colgate still needs to improve, and losing three senior starters is not going to be helpful there. For much of the season, Finney was part of the success of the youth movement, though the Raiders turned to Mihalik, who Finney had displaced, down the stretch as the difficulties mounted. Finney's numbers were certainly acceptable for a freshman, Mihalik's needed to be better. Whichever goaltender the Raiders decide to ride this season will need to turn in better numbers for the team to be successful. Goulakos returns as the team's captain, but he's also the team's most experienced defenseman as a junior - sophomore Lough has the second most college games under his belt on the blueline after appearing in all 36 games his freshman year.

This is still a very young team, and Colgate could still be a year out from being competitive at the very top - although a run like RPI made last year isn't out of the question, since, with the exception of the goaltending situation, this team is probably going to be led by its sophomores (though RPI had a more solid freshman class last year than Colgate appears to be gaining this year). As early last season proved, the Raiders can be a dangerous team to contend with when the top forwards are clicking. Scoring early is going to be key against this team for anyone, including RPI.

From the Intriguing Stats Department

Check this out.

Over the last couple of years, we've put out a statistic of "returning offense" for ECAC teams in conference games. It's fairly easy to calculate - take the total number of goals scored by the team in the last completed season, subtract out graduated and otherwise departed players, and bam - returning offense. For the most part, these figures are frequently between a quarter of a goal to a goal and a half per game less than the total goals per game for that season, depending on how heavily the team relied on players who are not returning in the upcoming season.

So, mostly, what you're left with is the output from the soon-to-be seniors, juniors and sophomores. It's something of a baseline figure, since you're looking at usual improvement in returning classes and added output from freshmen (which is hard to pin down before the season starts), and the final goals-per-game figure at the end of the year tells you just what the improvements/freshmen contributed.

Here's how each team improved in 2013 on what they brought back from 2012 - each figure represents the total increase in goals-per-game from the baseline 2012 return.

Colgate: 1.31
Clarkson: 1.23
RPI: 1.13
Brown: 1.00
Quinnipiac: 1.00
St. Lawrence: 0.91
Yale: 0.78
Dartmouth: 0.46
Union: 0.41
Harvard: 0.10
Princeton: 0.09
Cornell: -0.13

Looking at the figures, one thing sticks out more than any at first - holy cow, Cornell managed to lose goals from their baseline last year. That underscores just how rough things were - not only did the freshman class not provide a major boost, returning players had a decrease in output from the previous year.

What about the high numbers? Well, Colgate's top total is attributable in part to a freshman class with a high amount of output (which we're going to touch on in a few days), and being tops in the league for added offense didn't help them finish high in the standings, in part because even adding the most goals from the baseline (1.05, lowest in the league) didn't get them back to were they had been in 2012 (3.27 GPG). Clarkson was in a similar boat, starting out at 1.41, second lowest in the league. Quite simply, these teams had voids that had to be filled by someone.

So this statistic by itself doesn't relate to overall success last year, but it does at least tell us a little about what to expect in coming years offensively. The teams ranked higher on this list got more out of their freshmen and more development from their upperclassmen last season.

The teams that surpassed their 2012 total offensive output in 2013 were RPI, Quinnipiac, Clarkson, and St. Lawrence, while Brown's was exactly equal.

Now, take a quick gander at this year's returning offense (lost goals-per-game is in parentheses):

Clarkson - 2.45 (-0.19)
RPI - 2.23 (-0.54)
St. Lawrence - 2.18 (-0.60)
Quinnipiac - 1.86 (-1.46)
Yale - 1.86 (-0.87)
Dartmouth - 1.86 (-0.69)
Brown - 1.86 (-0.59)
Union - 1.77 (-1.14)
Princeton - 1.72 (-0.64)
Colgate - 1.63 (-0.73)
Harvard - 1.22 (-0.83)
Cornell - 1.18 (-1.05)

As an aside, the effect on Union of Josh Jooris signing with Calgary was to drop them from 4th to 8th on this list, and also moved them into the position of having the second most offense lost behind Quinnipiac, who were previously tops by a country mile. That illustrates the margins a bit.

Bear in mind that teams don't have to score a lot of goals to be successful - but it helps. Cornell, for instance, seems to rely more heavily on their defense year in and year out, so just because they're at the bottom of both of these lists means relatively little other than that they have some work to do considering last year's finish. Yale, on the other hand, as long relied on offense to keep them afloat.

In some ways, being farther down the list simply means that those offenses have more room for returning players to fill in gaps where they were unable to contribute in the past simply because others were doing the team's scoring.

The question that must be asked when viewing this list is simple - what capacity does each team have for expanding on what returns? Food for thought.

Know Your Enemy: Cornell

Last year was what you would call an "outlier" in Ithaca. At least, that's what it looks like right now. Plenty of teams have seasons like Cornell had last year and shrug it off fairly easily, but when you finish with a sub-.500 record for the first time since the Clinton Administration, it can be a little jarring. How does the follow-up season look for the Big Red? Well... it's safe to say that this year's team is going to look a lot like... well, Cornell.

Cornell
Nickname: Big Red
Location: Ithaca, NY
Founded: 1865
Conference: ECAC (Ivy League)
National Championships: 2 (1967, 1970)
Last NCAA Appearance: 2012
Last Frozen Four: 2003
Coach: Mike Schafer (19th season)
2012-13 Record: 15-16-3 (8-11-3 ECAC, 9th place)
Series: Cornell leads, 60-33-7
First Game: January 31, 1908 (Albany, NY)
Last RPI win: January 19, 2013 (Troy, NY)
Last CU win: February 22, 2013 (Ithaca, NY)

2013-14 games: November 8, 2013 (Troy, NY); February 15, 2014 (Ithaca, NY)

Key players: D Kirill Gotovets, sr.; G Andy Iles, sr.; F Dustin Mowrey, sr.; F Cole Bardreau, jr.; F Brian Ferlin, jr.; F Joel Lowry, jr.; D Jacob MacDonald, jr.; F John McCarron, jr.; D Joakim Ryan, jr.; F John Knisley, so.; D Reece Willcox, so.; F Matt Buckles, fr.; D Clint Lewis, fr.; D Patrick McCarron, fr.; D Eric Sade, fr.

Key losses: F Greg Miller, D Nick D'Agostino, F John Esposito, F Erik Axell, D Braden Birch

Previous KYE installments:

• 2010-11
• 2011-12
• 2012-13

To say that Cornell had an all-around terrible season last year is actually very false. The team did, however, have a beyond dreadful six-week period from January into the middle of February that was absolutely atrocious and completely sunk the team's season.

Before falling to Maine in the Florida College Classic championship game on December 29, the Big Red had a rather Carnellian record at 7-3-2. Within those wins were home sweeps of Colorado College and the North Country teams, and a win over Michigan at Madison Square Garden. Heading into the Maine game, they'd won four games in a row, so it wasn't like there were big, flashing warning signs on the side of the road.

The Maine loss kicked off an 11-game stretch that saw Cornell go 1-10-0, an unbelievable run for a program whose streaks are practically always positive ones (and for those who claim that the streak was due to Bardreau's season-ending injury against RPI, that game was the fifth of that stretch, and he finished that game). During the streak, offense and defense were hard to come by in Ithaca. By the end of the season, the Big Red were a mind-numbing 6-5-2 at Lynah Rink and were under .500 at home coming into the last home weekend of the year against the Capital District, salvaging a winning record with a sweep.

What's more striking looking at Cornell from the current vantage point is what they did at the end of the season. Although their historic drought put them in 11th place for much of the late season run, the Big Red almost salvaged a home playoff series late with a 4-1-1 record in the last three weeks of the regular season. Having to hit the road for the playoffs, they then won three games straight and came within a goal in a double-overtime Game 3 at Quinnipiac of going back to Atlantic City anyway.

Bottom line? Just because Cornell was elsewhere for six weeks last season doesn't mean they've gone away.  Far from it. Although they lose two solid NHL-draftee defensemen in D'Agostino and Birch, they gain a number of talented blue-liners this season to compliment a still-strong defensive pack.

Iles was not as strong last season as he has been in the past, but his numbers were far from being terrible. Now in his senior year, he remains one of the top netminders in the ECAC despite being largely forgotten come awards time last year in light of some of the performances of other goaltenders, most of whom are now out of the league.

Offensively, Cornell has to do better than they did last year, as too much of the scoring was bottled up in a few players. Fortunately, two guys with 10 or more goals return with Ferlin and Lowry, while classmate John McCarron netted 7 himself last year. Bardreau, it should be noted, appeared in only 13 games last season due to his injury and the World Junior Championships - expect far more offensive output from him this season.

One problem that needs to be improved in Ithaca this season is the discipline - the Big Red were the nation's most penalized team last season (although in part, taking 100 penalty minutes in Game 2 against Quinnipiac pushed them over the edge on that). Special teams needs to be improved, too: Cornell was 42nd in the nation on the power play and 47th on the penalty kill, the latter being a real problem considering the high number of penalties the team took last year.

Cornell remains a team without a great number of flaws. Provided they straighten out the special teams, this should end up being a Big Red team that the ECAC is used to seeing - one without a lot of holes that plays its style of hockey well enough to be in every game they suit up for. So if you're hoping that these are going to be a couple of pushover games for RPI, you're sadly mistaken.

Know Your Enemy: Dartmouth

Poor Dartmouth. It has to be absolutely maddening how many halfway decent seasons the Big Green can put together and still, they remain on the outside looking in for the NCAA tournament. In December, it seemed to be obvious that the 32-year drought, the longest in the nation, was going to come to an end. By March, a 33rd year had been added as inconsistency on both sides of the puck dogged Dartmouth out of a first-round bye, almost into a first round loss, and out of the playoffs after being dominated by Union in the quarterfinals.

Dartmouth
Nickname: Big Green
Location: Hanover, NH
Founded: 1769
Conference: ECAC (Ivy League)
National Championships: 0
Last NCAA Appearance: 1980
Last Frozen Four: 1980
Coach: Bob Gaudet (17th season)
2012-13 Record: 15-14-5 (9-9-4 ECAC, 5th place)
Series: RPI leads, 42-32-5
First Game: January 17, 1908 (Albany, NY)
Last RPI win: February 2, 2013 (Troy, NY)
Last DC win: November 9, 2012 (Hanover, NH)

2013-14 games: November 2, 2013 (Hanover, NH); January 24, 2014 (Troy, NY)

Key players: D Taylor Boldt, sr.; G Cab Morris, sr.; F Eric Robinson, sr.;  F Jesse Beamish, jr.; F Brandon McNally, jr.; F Charlie Mosey, jr.; F Eric Neiley, jr.; D Rick Pinkston, jr.; F Tyler Sikura, jr.; F Nick Bligh, so.; D Ryan Bullock, so.; D Geoff Ferguson, so.; G Charles Grant, so.; F Tim O'Brien, so.; F Brett Patterson, so.; F Brad Schierhorn, so.; D Josh Hartley, fr.; F Kyle Nickerson, fr.

Key losses: D Mike Keenan, F Dustin Walsh, F Matt Lindblad

Previous KYE installments:

• 2010-11
• 2011-12
• 2012-13

Conventional wisdom had Dartmouth and Quinnipiac heading off to the races as December wound down. The Big Green had a 5-0-1 record heading into mid-November, and were 8-3-2 as champagne corks popped for New Year's 2013. Unfortunately, the team picked up just seven more victories in the two and a half months that followed, two of them coming in the ECAC First Round against last-place Harvard, but only after dropping Game 1.

By January, Dartmouth had become a team that lived and died with its offensive output as the Big Green's defense, which had been solid in the waning months of 2012, began to falter a bit. All season, Dartmouth won just one game in which they didn't score at least three goals (a 2-1 win over Brown at home in early November), but it became far more pronounced in the second half of the season as the team started putting up a number of one and two goal outputs that simply didn't get the job done.

Although Morris put up some decent numbers in net overall - .915 save percentage, 2.14 GAA - by the end of the season he was splitting time with Grant, and heading into this season both goaltenders appear to be vying for the top position, especially given that Grant backstopped the come-from-behind series victory over Harvard before being lit up by Union. Numbers-wise, although Morris' save percentage could be better, only Jason Kasdorf returns to ECAC play this season with better overall numbers than him in league play.

Offensively, a bit of a gut-punch followed the end of Dartmouth's season as Lindblad bolted for the Boston Bruins with a year of eligibility left in Hanover. The junior was second on the team in scoring and would have been a likely candidate to reach 100 career points this season had he stuck around. Walsh (3rd) and Keenan (6th) were also among the top scorers on the team.

Fortunately, there's still plenty of talent that powered the Big Green's early-season successes. Sikura led the team in both goals and assists, Robinson had a breakout season, and Dartmouth enjoyed eye-opening successes from O'Brien and Schierhorn in their freshman campaigns. With Lindblad's departure, things might open up more for McNally, who hit a touch of sophomore slump last season after an outstanding freshman year.

The incoming class isn't huge, but like the Engineers, the Big Green should have an outstanding core of juniors and sophomores to power the offense. The question comes on defense - Dartmouth has a mostly young d-corps and question marks, albeit with some good available answers in net. Although both Morris and Grant offer decent options between the pipes, this team is going to need stability there quickly to back the offense.

RPI should expect a Dartmouth team closer to the one that breezed past them last November in Hanover rather than the disorganized one that was turned aside in last year's Freakout for sure, but with Dartmouth, it's a matter of reaching a high level and staying there throughout the season, something they've just been unable to do despite a decade that has seen more successes than failures overall.

Know Your Enemy: Harvard

It's time to get familiar with the teams RPI and its fans should already be the most familiar with - the ECAC teams, which the Engineers will play twice each during the league schedule. Today's entry represents the first team the Tute will face off against for league points - and if you blink this year, you're going to miss them, because both games against one of the oldest teams in the nation will take place almost right away.

Harvard
Nickname: Crimson
Location: Cambridge, MA
Founded: 1636
Conference: ECAC (Ivy League)
National Championships: 1 (1989)
Last NCAA Appearance: 2006
Last Frozen Four: 1994
Coach: Ted Donato (10th season)
2012-13 Record: 10-19-3 (6-14-2 ECAC, 12th place)
Series: Harvard leads, 47-36-5
First Game: December 27, 1951 (Troy, NY)
Last RPI win: February 1, 2013 (Troy, NY)
Last HU win: November 10, 2012 (Boston, MA)

2013-14 games: October 29, 2013 (Troy, NY); November 1, 2013 (Boston, MA)

Key players: D John Caldwell, sr.; D Danny Fick, sr.; D Dan Ford, sr.; G Raphael Girard, sr.; F Colin Blackwell, jr.; F Tommy O'Regan, jr.; F Petr Placek, jr.; F Kyle Criscuolo, so.; F Greg Gozzo, so.; F Brian Hart, so.; F Jimmy Vesey, so.; D Kevin Guiltinan, fr.; F Sean Malone, fr.; D Victor Newell, fr.; D Wiley Sherman, fr.; F Devin Tringale, fr.

Key losses: F Alex Fallstrom, F Luke Greiner, F Marshall Everson, D Danny Biega, D Brendan Rempel, F Conor Morrison, F Max Everson, G Stephen Michalek, D Patrick McNally

Previous KYE installments:

• 2010-11
• 2011-12
• 2012-13

The Engineers' two games against the Crimson are practically back to back - they are Tuesday and Friday of the same week, and represent the team's first two ECAC games of the season. The Tuesday game will be RPI's first ever ECAC league contest to take place in the month of October.

Harvard is a hurting team, there's no doubt about it, but they're also a team that has more than a few question marks flying around it, not the least of which relate to the cheating scandal which rocked the school in 2012. Four players left the team - and the school - last season in December. Two, Patrick McNally and Max Everson, appeared in games last season for the Crimson.

Their status is kind of up in the air. Both McNally and Everson will have used up their sophomore season of eligibility due to appearing last season, but an Ivy League rule, according to the Harvard Crimson newspaper, seems to indicate that if these players return to school, they will be ineligible to compete this year and would have to wait until 2014-15 to suit up again.

Before December, perhaps not coincidentally, the Crimson seemed to be doing kind of OK. Nationally ranked in the preseason, they started the year off 4-3-0, including wins over Cornell and RPI (albeit against a shorthanded RPI team that was going through a "message sending" game). But after a 20-day layover between a 1-0 loss at Colgate in November and a 2-2 tie at Merrimack in December, Harvard was just plain awful.

Following their 4-1 win at Cornell on November 16, the Crimson went 1-13-2, scoring three goals just twice during that 16 game stretch and allowing three or more 13 times in a row. The Harvard power play during the team's 3-0 loss at RPI on February 1 was bad on an epic level, resulting in easy kills for the Engineers.

All of it combined to place Harvard in last place in the ECAC for the first time ever. To make matters worse, the team now loses its top two scorers from last season, Fallstrom and Greiner, one of its top goal scorers in Marshall Everson, and two top defensemen in Biega and Rempel.

Fortunately for the Crimson, there's a definite youth movement on in Cambridge. While the losses of solid talent in Max Everson and McNally to the scandal hurt, there is lots of young talent on hand led by Vesey, whose 11 goals tied Marshall Everson for tops on the team last year as a freshman despite missing time for the World Junior Championships. Hart matched Vesey with 18 points on the year and paced the team in assists.

Harvard's incoming class of freshmen boasts talent as well, led by a pair of 2013 draft picks with Sherman and Malone. As long as Vesey and Hart get a little help offensively - probably from names like Criscuolo, O'Regan, and Blackwell, the Crimson will not be the pushovers they were last season.

Defensively, having three seniors on the blueline is big, but Girard is going to have to be more solid in net than he was last year in his first go-round as the top choice netminder. He had fared much better as a regularly-used second option during his sophomore season, if his numbers can get closer to those, it'll keep the Crimson in more games that under similar circumstances, they were way out of last year.

Merrick Madsen, a highly touted goaltender, arrives in 2014, which may dovetail with the potential return of Michalek, which would present a very daunting goaltending duo - just a little more evidence that while Harvard's down, they're not likely to stay there for long.

All of this adds up to a net benefit to the Engineers that both Harvard games will take place at the start of the season. A team that fell as far as Harvard last year pretty much always takes some time within a season to get themselves up. It will be important for RPI to strike quickly in both games and keep Vesey and Hart bottled up, but these should still be two games that the Engineers should be favored in.

Your 2013-14 RPI Engineers

The official recruit announcement for the Class of 2017 was released today - five new skaters will be arriving on campus next month, giving the Engineers a total of 26 players on the roster for the upcoming season.

The names are ones you've heard and seen before, especially if you've been following recruits here at Without a Peer (and elsewhere). So without further ado, we present to you the team's preseason outlook for the 2013-14 season, now that we know with confidence what the roster will look like.

Forwards

Gone: Greg Burgdoerfer, Andrew Commers, C.J. Lee, Marty O'Grady.

Returning: Milos Bubela, Travis Fulton, Ryan Haggerty, Brock Higgs, Jacob Laliberte, Mark McGowan, Mark Miller, Matt Neal, Johnny Rogic, Zach Schroeder, Matt Tinordi, Mike Zalewski.

Arriving: Riley Bourbonnais, Jimmy DeVito, Jake Wood.

At the end of the season, we thought we'd see 17 forwards on the 2013-14 Engineers, and now it turns out we'll have 15, down one from last season. Why the change?

Well, we thought Drew Melanson was bound for Troy a year earlier than originally expected after it was learned that he'd signed a Letter of Intent. Apparently, he'll be back in the USHL instead. That's certainly not bad, especially if he can continue to learn on the pace he did last year as a 17-year-old, but it does deprive the Engineers of his more raw services for the upcoming season.

Commers has also departed a bit unexpectedly, although it had certainly become obvious that he was going to have a hard time cracking the lineup in the near future. He'll likely do very, very well at St. John's in Minnesota, where he's off to, and best of luck to him.

That leaves the Engineers with a little less padding for injuries up front - although, realistically, the competition for ice time and the talent depth is improving even if the roster depth isn't. O'Grady had functionally been replaced midway through the season last year due to his injuries, and Commers played only sparingly, usually because of injuries. Burgdoerfer and Lee are the only roster losses that played key roles for most of the season.

Adding Schroeder back into the mix off a season that saw him injured long enough that he retains his sophomore season eligibility through use of a medical redshirt, and really, you're adding four players to replace two from last season. To some extent, Tinordi's return from injury is also a boost over the end of last season. There are plenty of players returning that are going to be on the ice more often than not - even Fulton grew enough during his freshman season that he was not only one of the most improved players on the team, he was somewhat indispensable down the stretch even before considering injuries. Add to that mix a couple of very talented scorers in Bourbonnais and Wood, and we can expect to see some very good players as healthy scratches if the injuries are few.

That's a good place for a team to be.

Defensemen

Gone: Nick Bailen.

Returning: Craig Bokenfohr, Chris Bradley, Luke Curadi, Bo Dolan, Phil Hampton, Guy Leboeuf, Curtis Leonard.

Arriving: Parker Reno.

This is kind of cut and dried, and yet, at the same time, not. You'd have to look far and wide to find someone who wouldn't consider Bailen the Engineers' biggest loss to graduation, and if you found that person they would probably need to be slapped. He was in the top three in scoring on the team in each of his  three seasons in the Cherry and White, and he actually led the team in scoring in 2013 - the first defenseman to do that at RPI since Jake Luthi in 2007 (tied with Kirk MacDonald), the first to do it on his own since Al Jones in 1966. With 31 points, it was the most by a defenseman since... well, his sophomore season (36), which was the most since Mike Dark's own 35 in 1986 and Ken Hammond's 39 in 1985. If the point hasn't been hammered home quite yet, offensive defensemen like Bailen don't come around frequently.

That said, Bailen's replacement on the blue line promises a solid amount of talent, if not a similar kind of offensive firepower. While Bailen's offensive output will almost certainly need to be made up more by the forwards, Reno enters as one of the top players in Minnesota high school hockey last season, a finalist for the prestigious Mr. Hockey award. We know Lincoln in the USHL made a big play for him to stick around for a full season this year, but RPI certainly needs him as soon as possible and he's basically college hockey ready as it is. We had expected to see Reno taken in the late rounds of this year's NHL Entry Draft, and it was a light shock to see that he was not taken. In the evolving college/professional atmosphere, that could be a blessing in disguise for the Engineers.

The defensive corps certainly began to gel late last year, and now is becoming solidly experienced, with four juniors and seniors expected to be regular starters - with one battle-tested sophomore and a highly-touted freshman rounding things out. All that is missing, really, is a major offensive presence which was lost to Bailen's graduation.

Goaltenders

Gone: Bryce Merriam.

Returning: Scott Diebold, Jason Kasdorf.

Arriving: Jake Soffer.

Goaltending is always the easiest position to take a look at just on a sheer numbers level. Merriam made some outstanding contributions to Engineer hockey during his four years in Troy (becoming the first RPI goaltender to defeat Clarkson in a playoff series, and he especially gave BU fits when he played them), but was the No. 2 man for the second half of his senior year as Kasdorf firmly positioned himself as the top man. Much as with O'Grady, at the end of the day you're talking about a guy who had essentially already been replaced in real terms late last season.

His physical replacement on the roster is a guy that we don't know much about yet, but the fact that we even knew his name before the end of the 2013 season was a little surprising. Expecting a walk-on goaltender that we'd learn about just before the start of the season and who would probably see all of his work in practice, Soffer's name cropped up in February. Playing for the Boston Bandits in the EJHL, the Maryland native put up some pedestrian numbers in a weaker junior league. He comes into RPI firmly in the #3 spot, but potentially as a more useful #3 than we are used to from the average walk-on/practice goaltender.

Meanwhile, Kasdorf will enter the 2013-14 season as the top returning goaltender in the ECAC - there were only four goaltenders in the conference who could be put up against him from last season statistically, three of which have graduated and the fourth signed a pro deal. That leaves Kasdorf as the pre-season favorite for the Dryden Award, although Cornell senior-to-be Andy Iles has put up far superior numbers in the past than he did last year, so it's not cut and dried.

That leaves Diebold as RPI's firm #2 option right now, a step up from #3 where he was late last season, but he's a fine option that was not far removed at all from Merriam at any point during the year. He's already proven himself to be a capable Division I goaltender, so there's not much worry here for Diebold or the Engineers.

Overall outlook
In real terms, the Engineers lose only three pieces of a team that barreled down the January and February schedule as a very tough team to beat - Bailen, Burgdoerfer, and Lee. The rest of the team will be a year older now, more experienced, hopefully a bit bigger, and with a taste of success in their mouths tempered by the bitterness of an early defeat.

A healthy Tinordi had already been doing largely the same job Burgdoerfer performed down the stretch. The potent junior and sophomore forwards are in line to perhaps collectively replace the offensive elements of Bailen, and Reno should be able to come in and at least approach where he was defensively. As long as RPI finds the leadership and corner-grinding ability of Lee, they're likely to be starting off in the same place they were last season before considering the growth of players and the addition of offensive capacity through the freshman forwards.

It adds up to a very strong team in an increasingly stronger conference. Offensively and defensively, it looks like an outstanding group. If the special teams perform as admirably, the sky could be the limit for this team.

It's always worth taking a look at the longer-term picture as well, so here's quick look at where we stand with recruiting down the road.

2014-15
Out: Higgs, Rogic, Tinordi, Leboeuf, Dolan
In: F Carlos Fornaris, D Charles Manley, F Drew Melanson, D Meirs Moore, F Evan Tironese, D Michael Prapavessis(?)

As has become the norm in terms of recruiting for seasons two years out, the 2014 class is rounding into shape nicely - the bottom line is that if you don't at least have a general idea of who you've got coming in two years, you're in trouble these days. Fortunately, the class of 2018 is quite possibly set, with only one or two more forwards possibly left to be recruited.

Defensively, the Engineers are set for this season, with three potential names ready to replace two graduates. Moore, a highly touted blueliner out of Duluth East High School in Minnesota who will likely play a role similar to that of Bailen at RPI, will almost certainly be coming this year. We've been projecting Manley to be arriving in 2014 for a couple of years now, and Prapavessis has been thought of as a potential 2014 or 2015 arrival since he committed in February, but Prapavessis is also about six months older than Manley, so anything's possible. As of now, it looks like Moore and Manley (both of which should be in the USHL next season) to replace Leboeuf and Dolan, as Prapavessis was not chosen to join Lincoln, the USHL team that holds his rights. That means he'll likely be back in Ontario this coming season, and could potentially join them in 2014.

Offensively, Tironese will be an outstanding addition, and it appears he'll be one of the top players in the BCHL this coming year. He's good enough that Green Bay, one of the top programs in the USHL, spent a first-round draft pick on him hoping to lure him south of the border for next season, though it appears he will stay in Alberni Valley. Fornaris has a lot of potential as well, but we'll have to see how he does in the USHL himself this coming year with Cedar Rapids, should he make the team. We've already discussed Melanson's potential at length. With Commers' departure to Division III, there could be another forward in order to bring the forward complement back to 16, and a second one would put it back to 17, where it hasn't been since the Pirri/D'Amigo/Watts departures in 2010.

2015-16
Out: Haggerty, Laliberte, McGowan, Neal, Curadi, Leonard, Diebold
In: Prapavessis(?)

Much less is known thus far about the class of 2019 than we knew about the class of 2018 at this time last year, however, there's definitely still time for this class to fill out. We expect to see Prapavessis as part of this class, but there's going to have to be a number of forwards, hopefully in the coming months, that are added to this list, as well as a goaltender capable of being the top dog in this group. We'll keep all eyes peeled.