Preview: RPI at Princeton
The Engineers need a bounce back game against a hot Princeton team
After last night’s close loss against Quinnipiac, RPI needs to pull out a win tonight against a tough Princeton team to split the weekend. Luckily for them, Princeton isn’t as strong as Quinnipiac.
Princeton is an interesting team. They started out 1-4-1 with the only win against a bad Yale team. The past two weekends they have totally turned it around though. They came out of nowhere to sweep a top 20 Ohio State team last weekend with a pair of 3-1 games, and then they won a close one against Union last night. Princeton is riding high with this 3 game winning streak.
One thing they’ve done well in particular in this stretch is playing good defense. They have allowed only 1 goal in each of these 3 wins with Arthur Smith heating up in net. He now has a 0.934 SV%. RPI has been struggling offensively recently after a really hot start. They have scored only 7 goals in the past 5 games, and they’re going to need to snap out of that tonight
Princeton’s strategy is pretty clear. Win low scoring games. They are a weak offensive team that’s averaging only 2 goals per game, and that’s not due to bad luck. They really struggle to generate scoring chances in all phases of the game. With RPI’s defensive struggles to begin the season, this needs to be a game where they take advantage of a team with a weaker offense.
Defensively, Princeton has been middle of the pack overall. They have been up and down during the year, but as I said, they have been excellent the past two weeks. RPI needs to raise its level offensively compared to their recent play to channel more of the explosiveness they showed at the beginning of the year.
I’m expecting another close, low-scoring game since both teams have been playing that style recently. RPI is going to have to improve on its recent showings on both sides of the puck to win a tough road game. It is imperative they do this though because starting 1-5 in ECAC will be quite a large gap to overcome.
It will be another two loss weekend. This team can't play a full 60 minutes. The last three games they looked exhausted in the third period, power play is awful. There needs to be a change. And they can't stay out of the box. Someone needs to explain to Jake Lee that you don't get points for penalties. It's another disappointing season.