RPI 2022-2023 Schedule Analysis and Predictions (Part 2)
The Engineers will play their last non-conference series against Bowling Green before getting into entirely ECAC play in the second half of the season
In Part 1, I previewed the first half of the schedule where RPI will play the majority of their non-conference schedule. Now, we move onto the second half of the schedule that begins after winter break.
12/29-30 at Bowling Green
RPI makes the return trip to Bowling Green to start their second half. Bowling Green was a solid team last year, but the three years prior, they were a top 20 team in each year. This year, I think they could get back to that level. First, their top 3 forwards all come back. Taylor Schneider, Austen Swankler and Alex Barber all had 25+ points last season, and the three of them are dynamic up front. Bowling Green also adds Chase Gresock through the transfer portal after he had nearly a point per game for Miami last season. On defense, they don’t return too many good players, but the transfers and freshmen they bring are high quality. Eric Parker is a solid defenseman returning, and they recruited 2 good and experienced transfers in Zach Vinnell from Merrimack and Hunter Lellig from Minnesota-Duluth. Dalton Norris was one of the best defensemen in the USHL last season as well. This looks like a pretty good hockey team. I think the Engineers will be playing really good hockey at this point though, so I’m going with a split.
1/6 vs Colgate
Colgate looks like a good team going into the season. The Young brothers and Matt Verboon all come back after having 32, 31 and 28 points last season. Their top 2 defensemen, Nick Anderson and Pierson Brandon, are also back. Colgate lost a couple of good depth players, but for the most part, those guys are returning too. Their biggest loss was in net: Mitch Benson transferred to BC. Carter Gylander is an NHL draft pick with high potential, but he’s been average to start his career. They’ll need him to pick up the slack. Even if Gylander continues to be average though, the top players and depth that Colgate has should make them just as good, if not better, than they were last season even though their recruiting class is underwhelming. RPI should be good too, so I’m taking RPI in this game since it’s at home.
1/7 vs Cornell
I’m expecting Cornell to bounce back to pre-pandemic levels with the team they have assembled this year. To start, their top 6 point scorers are all back. Matt Stienburg and Max Andreev were both above a point per game. Ben Berard, Ondrej Psenicka and Jack Malone all had at least 20 points. Sam Malinski is one of the best defensemen in the league. Travis Mitchell and Tim Rego are very good top 4 defensemen too. Ian Shane had a 0.933 SV% in net last season and eventually took the starting role. He should have the net full time this season, and with the way Cornell typically defends, I have confidence he will do well once again. To top it off, Union transfer Gabriel Seger joins them after a 21 point season, and Sean Donaldson was one of the best players in the BCHL. This is a very talented roster that I expect to be among the best in the league, and I foresee a return to the NCAA tournament for Cornell. In Dave Smith’s tenure, RPI has usually lost the first game in the series to Cornell and then either won or played a nail-biter the second game. I’ll predict the same for this season, so I’ll take Cornell for this game.
1/13 at Yale
Despite finishing last in the league last season, I actually think Yale will be a decent team this season. They return pretty much everyone and have a decent core to build around, like Dartmouth. Ian Carpentier, Briggs Gammill, Cole Donhauser and Niklas Allain are solid players at forward even if none of them are high-end. On defense, Dylan Herzog and Kieran O’Hearn were both great last season as freshmen and are their building blocks on the blue line. In net, both Luke Pearson and Nathan Reid showed themselves to be capable. Outside of those guys though, they don’t really have much depth, and the lack of depth and top-end talent will probably be their undoing. If this was any other team except for Yale, I’d pick RPI to win this. However, the Engineers always seem to have trouble with them for some reason, and since Yale should be competitive and it’s on the road, I’m picking this as a loss.
1/14 at Brown
Brown, like Princeton, looks to be one of the worst teams in the country this season. With Brendan Whittet’s track record there, it’s truly mind-blowing that he got a contract extension this offseason, and the team doesn’t even have the hope of a good recruiting class. Brown’s top returning forward is Nathan Plessis with 7 points last year. Yikes. On defense, they bring back Luke Krys, Samuli Niinisaari and Brett Bliss at least, but that’s it for quality players on the team. Mathieu Caron had a good freshman year in net, but he has zero help around him. It doesn’t look promising for Brown this year, and it’s easy to pick RPI to win this one.
1/20 vs Clarkson
I’ve already previewed Clarkson as a team, so we’ll just talk about this game specifically. I think RPI will be playing their best hockey at this point in the season, and at their best, I definitely think they can be competing with the top teams in the conference. Combine that with the fact that this game is at home, and I’m taking RPI here.
1/21 vs St. Lawrence
I would have chosen RPI to win on the road against SLU had the game not been scheduled so early on in the season. While I like SLU this year as I said before, RPI is the better team in my opinion and will be close to peak form at this point in the season. The Engineers get a home sweep.
1/28 Mayor’s Cup
I talked about how Union will be competitive in most games when I previewed the October series, which is why I picked a split for that. I expect no less for the Mayor’s Cup, which is always a battle. The only reason Union won last year was due to Connor Murphy playing the game of his life. This year, RPI has more talent and finishing, so I’d be surprised if he can do it again when RPI is clearly the better team. RPI brings the cup back to Troy.
2/3 at Cornell
I alluded to RPI always playing Cornell tough in the 2nd game of the series in the other paragraph about them. Both teams should be playing outstanding this time of year, and I expect a game similar to their matchup in Ithaca in 2020, when it was a very close game that Cornell was able to pull out in the end. RPI actually has a history of upsetting Cornell at Lynah Rink under Dave Smith. In 2018, they were #1 in the country when RPI was able to win, and in 2019, they were top 10 when the Engineers pulled off a win in OT. I’m going to predict a dead-even, high quality game that ends in a tie here.
2/4 at Colgate
The second half of a tough road trip, it’s easy to see this game being a battle too. Since it’s on the road, I’m going to pick Colgate to even up the season series in what will surely be another really close game. I can also see the Engineers having a sort of trap game the night after playing what will likely be a nationally ranked Cornell team. That also contributes to me picking against RPI here.
2/10 vs Brown
There’s not much more that needs to be said about Brown. After a loss to Colgate, RPI will definitely be taking this game extremely seriously, and it’s tough to see them dropping this one towards the end of the season. I think they’ll pick up the win here.
2/11 vs Yale (Freakout!)
After losing to Yale on the road in January, the Engineers will want to get their revenge here. This game is also the annual Big Red Freakout! game, which is an easy game itself for the players to be motivated to play their best for. Then, you factor in that RPI is probably going to be a better team than Yale this season, and I think they’ll get a good sweep for Freakout! weekend.
2/17 at Dartmouth
If this game was earlier on in the season, I’d actually pick Dartmouth to win. I like their core, their compete level and their coach, and I think they’ll be competitive every game. The talent level difference is just too great though, and this is at the very end of the season when RPI will be peaking heading towards the playoffs. I’m picking RPI to win, but Dartmouth should be a tough challenge.
2/18 at Harvard
RPI has a recent history of doing very well in this game. The past 2 seasons, RPI has gone into Harvard and won 2-0. I think Harvard has a better team this year than they did those two seasons though, and it’s tough to choose RPI to get a road win here. I think this will be another highly competitive game, and I’m going to go with a tie here.
2/24 vs Princeton
I could copy and paste what I wrote about the second Brown game here. I don’t think this game will be close; RPI has absolutely dominated each of its last 3 home games against Princeton by scores of 6-2, 7-1 and 4-1. I think this game will go like those did.
2/25 vs Quinnipiac
Quinnipiac will come into RPI this game likely as a top 10 team and with a first round bye for the ECAC playoffs locked up. Quinnipiac won’t have as much to play for as RPI will in my opinion. I think RPI will still be fighting around that 4-5-6 range going into the last game of the season and will want to enter the playoffs with a bang. I’m going to take RPI in the upset here as they put an exclamation mark on the regular season and enter the playoffs on a hot streak.
Projected second half record: 11-4-2 (ECAC 9-3-2)
Summary:
at BGSU L (8-10-0)
at BGSU W (9-10-0)
vs Colgate W (10-10-0)
vs Cornell L (10-11-0)
at Yale L (10-12-0)
at Brown W (11-12-0)
vs Clarkson W (12-12-0)
vs SLU W (13-12-0)
Mayor's Cup W (14-12-0)
at Cornell T (14-12-1)
at Colgate L (14-13-1)
vs Brown W (15-13-1)
vs Yale W (16-13-1)
at Dartmouth W (17-13-1)
at Harvard T (17-13-2)
vs Princeton W (18-13-2)
vs Quinnipiac W (19-13-2)
Projected final record: 19-13-2 (ECAC 12-8-2)
Full summary:
vs Mercyhurst W (1-0-0)
vs Mercyhurst W (2-0-0)
vs LIU W (3-0-0)
vs Army L (3-1-0)
at Canisius L (3-2-0)
vs Union W (4-2-0)
at Union L (4-3-0)
at SLU L (4-4-0)
at Clarkson L (4-5-0)
vs Harvard L (4-6-0)
vs Dartmouth W (5-6-0)
vs Alaska L (5-7-0)
vs Alaska W (6-7-0)
at UVM L (6-8-0)
vs UVM W (7-8-0)
at Quinnipiac L (7-9-0)
at Princeton W (8-9-0)
at BGSU L (8-10-0)
at BGSU W (9-10-0)
vs Colgate W (10-10-0)
vs Cornell L (10-11-0)
at Yale L (10-12-0)
at Brown W (11-12-0)
vs Clarkson W (12-12-0)
vs SLU W (13-12-0)
Mayor's Cup W (14-12-0)
at Cornell T (14-12-1)
at Colgate L (14-13-1)
vs Brown W (15-13-1)
vs Yale W (16-13-1)
at Dartmouth W (17-13-1)
at Harvard T (17-13-2)
vs Princeton W (18-13-2)
vs Quinnipiac W (19-13-2)