I'll give you some of my observations on why the French COnnection were held
without a point against RPI and Union.
 
Against RPI there were a few reasons that I saw.
 
1) Faceoff wins.  When the line was out on the ice and there was a faceoff,
RPI won approximately 60-75% of the faceoffs against Perrin.  If you don't
control the puck off the faceoff, you can't set it up.  I have seen Perrin
win many faceoffs and that has set the tone for an ensuing goal by the line.
 
2) Neutral zone play.  RPI smothered the line in the neutral zone.  Not only
their line, but the others as well.  It forced a dump and chase game, and
RPI recovered instead of UVM on the dump.
 
3) No skating room.  RPI checked these guys REAL tight.  There was no open
ice for any of them at all.  Ruid was alone in front of the net perhaps two
times the entire night.  St. Louis and Perrin got hit on the boards constantly,
and could not find the room to get open.
 
4) Loss of temper.  St. Louis and Perrin both took unsportsmanlike penalties.
It has been said that to get them to stop scoring you have to upset them.  It
looks like RPI did a fine job in that.  They also upset Thomas very well.  He
took six minutes in penalties.
 
Just judging from what I have seen from Union this year there are also a couple
of reasons.
 
1) Union's defense.  They are a smothering bunch.  They will check you and
they will hit you.  Their forwards also play a great game defensively.
 
2) Trevor Koenig.  He has been simply awesome this year.
 
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* Jayson Moy  RPI '89 '93  *  One of the Voices of Rensselaer Engineer      *
* [log in to unmask]             *  Hockey, Baseball, Football, and Basketball    *
* The "Asian Invasion"     *  on Crystal Clear 91.5FM  WRPI, Troy           *
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* Check out the WRPI Sports Web Pages on:                                   *
*           http://www.rpi.edu/~stuttk/wrpispts.html                        *
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