Well that went by fast. It feels like yesterday when I was settling in to catch the Maine game on a cold Thursday night back in October. It has been tough sledding most of the year for RPI, but there is still a chance to salvage some success with a strong playoff push. The Engineers will almost definitely be heading on the road for Round 1 of the recently shortened ECAC hockey playoffs, so this weekend will be a final tune-up before it is do-or-die time. Let’s take a look at the matchups and some potential playoff and standings implications.
At Colgate:
Team Breakdown:
Chris: Colgate has certainly had the more successful season than RPI, but they don’t have many significant advantages in this matchup. The area that sticks out the most to me is their advantage in puck possession, but RPI clearly game planned against this well in the Freakout, where they outshot Colgate by 14. The other troublesome stat for RPI here is that Colgate has the 9th best powerplay in the country, converting at nearly 26%. RPI’s PK on the other hand, is last nationally. If the Engineers are going to win this game, they will have to work hard on the penalty kill to keep Colgate off the board. All in all, Colgate is the stronger team but as RPI showed a few weeks ago, this game should be close. They will have to work to get pucks deep and get shots on Gylander tonight.
Roster Breakdown:
Despite Colgate’s superior record and conference standings, you can see that the roster breakdown is not terribly different. Colgate’s top 9 is a bit better than RPI’s, and their top defenseman have also been a tier better. The Labelle, Dipaolo, Mitton line has been Colgate’s best, and will need to be a point of emphasis if RPI wants to win this one. As I look deeper into Colgate’s roster, it stands out to me as something RPI should shoot for next year. Improvements to puck possession will raise the game scores of the defense, which in turn will increase the scoring for the top 9. This is a very attainable goal, especially because Colgate does not have a significant talent advantage.
At Cornell:
Team Breakdown:
Cornell’s system has actually resulted in some strange results this year, specifically the shot metrics. Historically, Cornell limits shots that their goaltender faces in an elite fashion, which has been no different this year. But this year their Corsi for% is actually low, so they are not really turning this stellar defense into offensive possession and chances. What they have done instead is similar to RPI, convert at a high shooting % by generating top-notch chances. Cornell’s special teams are just okay, with a PK around 80% and a PP that is performing worse than RPI’s. RPI has had a hot powerplay lately, which has been really exciting to see after the tough start. The Engineers will need to take advantage of their powerplay chances, because very few teams have success against Cornell 5-v-5.
Cornell has an unbelievable team again this year, which is really a testament to the program Coach Schafer has built out there. They produce a national contender every year and have become known for their shut down defensive system. I left the game scores off of the Cornell matchup because there wasn’t much to gather from it except the strength of Cornell’s team, which we already knew. The Big Red actually find themselves squarely on the bubble after a disappointing weekend in the North Country. I expect to see a very hungry team that knows their tournament chances are on the line. A loss to RPI would be a killer for their pairwise, so dealing Cornell a death blow would be pretty awesome.
ECAC Standings Look
Stephen: Right now, RPI sits in a really tough position in 11th place but 3 points behind 9 and 10 with games on the road against the #2 and #3 teams in the conference. The highest they can get in the standings is 8th, and the odds of that are extremely low. You might be looking at the standings and seeing they could catch SLU in 7th. However, Yale plays Harvard and Princeton plays SLU, and at least one team has to pick up points in those games.
Additionally, Harvard and Yale have the tiebreakers over RPI, and Princeton most likely does as well barring some wacky results.
The road to 8th:
RPI sweeps in regulation
Yale beats Harvard in OT/SO and loses to Dartmouth in regulation
Harvard loses to Brown in regulation
Princeton only gets 2 points max against SLU and loses to Clarkson in regulation
The 8-12 standings would end up:
RPI 27
Harvard 26
Yale 26
Princeton 24-26
Brown 23-26
You can probably now see why getting 8th and home ice is basically impossible.
The road to 9th:
This road is the same as 8th except you can away one of the conditions for Yale, Harvard or Princeton to allow them to move ahead of RPI in the standings. RPI still needs to sweep to get 9th (or 10th). Only one win this weekend would nearly lock them into 11th.
The road to 10th:
Once again, the road is the same as 8th except you can away two of the conditions for Yale, Harvard and Princeton to allow two of the three teams to move ahead of RPI in the standings. RPI would need to sweep for this as well.
The road to 11th:
RPI’s most likely finish is 11th by far. Only one win would basically lock them into this spot because Brown needs to pick up 2 points on them this weekend to move ahead. RPI has that tiebreaker locked up due to their sweep of Brown.
They can clinch this spot on Friday with a win and a Brown regulation loss or a regulation win and a Brown OT loss.