A quick note not the Clarkson-RPI game. As far as I could tell, Clarkson
played ony 2 offensive lines during the first period. If this was an
attempt to generate some quick firepower, it backfired as Clarkson only
had something like 5 or 6 shots on goal during the period.
 
I could see possibly doing this for the first handful of line changes.
But after not generating any significant firepower, it seems like keeping
up with that tactic could only tire out the players that they would
need at the end of the game. Comments??
 
Overall, I thought the game was a good game with both teams playing
well.  Both goalies were very good. Rogles let in one goal that I
though was stoppable - a slap shot from near the blue line high to his
glove side.  There were no players blocking his view. The game winning
goal was a power play goal coimg from a real nice pass from behind the
net to Jeff Gabriel who one timed it past Rogles, who really didn't
have a chance.
 
Clarkson showed some lapses at times where they couldn't seem to complete
passes to save their lives. Their power play, which was suppose to be
good, didn't look so good. On a couple of power play opportunities, they
just couldn't seem to get their act together and, to RPI's credit, RPI
was able to shut them down on most of the others. On the other side,
Clarkson did a pretty good job of shuting down RPI's power play, with
the exception of the last goal.
 
RPI made some mistakes that I would attribute to a young team. They took
a handful of retaliation penalties. A Clarkson player would make a maybe
not too legal hit which wasn't seen by the ref, but the retaliation was.
Also, on a few Clarkson break-aways, RPI committed some not so bright
penalites at the beginning of the break away, often leading to a delayed
penalty. I see RPI only getting better as the year goes on.
 
As for Clarkson? I thought that they needed the win to get them back into
the ECAC picture. And they didn't get it.
 
Derek Snyder
GE CRD
Schenectady, NY
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