Preview: RPI at Brown
RPI looks to finish the weekend with a road sweep
That was a great win last night! RPI did exactly what they needed to pull that one out on the road. They controlled the puck very well and generated lots of chances in the offensive zone. The power play scored twice, and Jack Brackett had a SportsCenter worthy shorthanded goal. The only real negatives from that game were the multiple times that RPI had an easy clearing chance that they couldn’t get out of the zone. Those led to 2 of Yale’s goals. All in all though, that was a good performance to get the 5-3 win.
Tonight, the Engineers will face a hungry Brown team coming off of a loss to Union last night. Brown will be a tougher test for them as they have more talent and a better defense. One thing to watch for is Ryan St. Louis, arguably Brown’s top forward, left last night’s game with an injury. Brown’s other top scoring threats are freshman Brian Nicholas, who has a point per game, and sophomores Tyler Kopff and Max Scott who are building off of their great freshmen years. The biggest and most important player in the game will be sophomore goaltender Lawton Zacher though. He is 2nd in the entire NCAA in SV% with a whopping 0.944. RPI will need to generate a lot of opportunities again tonight against a goalie as good as him.
.Offensively, Brown is struggling, and it mostly has to do with a lack of depth scoring outside of their top forwards that I mentioned above. They are basically a 2 line team, and those lines aren’t good enough to pull Brown’s offense up. RPI will have to focus on shutting down those lines, and then their bottom 6 should be able to outplay Brown’s bottom 6.
Defensively, Brown is actually a weak team. They give up a ton of shots and chances, but Zacher has been one of the best goalies in the country. That tends to solve all your problems as the goaltending has vaulted Brown up to a top 5 defense in the country at even strength. The PK has been pretty solid as well, so RPI can’t rely on the power play like last night. RPI will have to figure out a way to solve Zacher; they’ll need to be aggressive generating chances in all phases.
Brown profiles pretty similarly to Yale overall. They are a little better offensively, and the defense is only better due to goaltending. RPI will need another strong performance tonight to get the sweep. A sweep would be huge given that Brown is also near RPI in the standings currently, and it would move the Engineers into either 8th or 9th place. Let’s Go Red!