Preview: RPI vs Colgate
The Engineers look to stay in the hunt for home ice in the playoffs
We’re onto the last weekend of the regular season, and RPI will take on Colgate tonight. It should be a good game, but before we get into it, let’s go over the ECAC standings first.
RPI sits in 9th right now. They’re 4 points behind Brown for 8th and 2 points ahead of Princeton in 10th. Currently, RPI has the tiebreaker against both teams. They have locked in the tiebreaker against Brown due to getting 4/6 points head to head. Against Princeton, they have 7 wins in regulation or OT, while Princeton only has 5. That essentially locks in the tiebreaker, but there are likely some weird and unique scenarios that could flip it.
RPI will likely need to sweep the weekend to get 8th above Brown. The only way RPI can get 8th without a sweep is if they split and the loss is in OT, while Brown gets 0 points on the weekend. If RPI can get the sweep, they’ll need Brown to only pick up 2 points max on the weekend. Since they have the tiebreaker, that’d be enough to get it. It’s pretty unlikely now that RPI will be able to get that since both Colgate and Cornell are top 6 teams, but there’s still a chance.
To stay in 9th, RPI can clinch if they get at least one more point than Princeton tonight. So a Princeton regulation loss and RPI OT loss, RPI OT win and Princeton loss, or an RPI win and Princeton doesn’t win in regulation would all clinch 9th for them.
Colgate is a team with really good results, but they haven’t had the underlying process to match those results. RPI actually matches up with them fairly well overall.
Colgate really struggles with possession and scoring chances. Offensively, they don’t get very many shots, and they are below average in generating scoring chances. Their saving grace offensively is that they have been extremely lucky. They have the second highest shooting percentage in the country at even strength, and that has propelled them to having a top 10 offense. Colgate does have talent and good finishing ability, but second best in the country? I don’t think it’s at that level. It’ll be important for Giesbrecht to be at his best.
Defensively, Colgate struggles in every area except the penalty kill. Their defensive metrics are worse than RPI’s across the board, so with RPI’s strong offense, they should be able to score tonight. The penalty kill is solid in terms of goals allowed, but that’s been mostly on the back of good goaltending with a man down. In terms of chances allowed and xG against, they struggle as well.
With the strong finishing and a 10-7 record in 1 goal games, Colgate has managed to be a good team despite not always looking that strong. RPI will need to continue their strong recent stretch of play where they have had more xG than their opponents in 4 of their last 6 games. They’ll also need a good game from Giesbrecht. If they can do that, I like their chances tonight. Let’s Go Red!