RPI vs Union
Houston Field Fouse
Troy, NY
officials: Melanson,Bouyea,Berquist
attendance 4221
period 1
P 12:42 U Varady (holding)
P 16:56 RPI Coupal (interference)
P 19:40 RPI Eberly (hooking)
period 2
P 1:47 U Varady (high sticking)
G 2:50 RPI (1-0) Tapper(Pothier,M. Cavosie) ppg
P 3:18 RPI Butterwick (elbowing)
P 5:55 U Varady (hit from behind)
P 5:55 U Todd (roughing)
P 5:55 RPI Migliore (roughing)
G 6:11 RPI (2-0) Murley(Tapper) ppg
P 6:28 RPI Gardiner (high sticking)
P 12:11 RPI Munn (hooking)
G 14:30 RPI (3-0) Dupee(Gardiner,Murley)
P 17:28 RPI Munn (interference)
period 3
P 5:47 U Jones (boarding)
G 7:17 RPI (4-0) Reigstad(Shepherd,Graham)ppg
P 11:30 RPI Butterwick (high sticking)
12:00 U Union pulls goalie
G 13:10 RPI (5-0) Gardiner(Laing) shg, eng
13:10 U goalie returns
P 18:03 U Dagenais (slashing)
P 18:03 RPI McPherson (slashing)
saves 1 2 3 t
Union (Snee) 7 9 6 22
RPI (Laing) 10 10 11 31
RPI learned their lesson well Friday night as they came out flying against Union tonight and played a full 60 minutes of hockey, defeating the Dutchmen 5-0. RPI scored three times on the power play and one empty netter while short-handed 6x4
as well as one even strength goal and held Union scoreless despite giving up 7 power play opportunities.
The Engineers were fired up after last night and, by comparison, Union looked quite flat as if last night's game took all the energy they had.
After a scoreless first period, RPI got on the board at 2:50 of the second when freshman Marc Cavosie picked up the puck behind the net and fed Brian Pothier in the high slot. Pothier
fired a slapper from the top of the faceoff circle that Snee cleared to his right side but Brian Tapper picked up the rebound and fired it over Snee's right shoulder for his 24th goal of the season. At 6:11 of the second, Brad Tapper poke checked the puck away from a Union forward in center ice and weaved his way into the Union zone. He fired a shot toward Snee that was deflected in front by the defense right onto the stick of a charging Matt Murley who blasted it past Snee to make the score 2-0.
At 14:30 of the second, RPI scored its only even strength goal of the weekend when Matt Murley fed the puck from behind the net to Pete Gardiner standing in the right face-off circle. Gardiner put a hard shot into Snee's mid-section. Snee made a really nice save but the puck trickled out of his glove and fell to the ice where Keith Dupee poked it in for a 3-0 lead
At 7:17 of the third, RPI scored their 3rd power play goal of the night when Jared Reigstad blasted the puck past a shielded
Snee from just inside the blue line. With the crowd in front of the net, it's unlikely Snee ever saw it coming.
The final goal came at 13:10 of the 3rd when Union, taking advantage of a power play opportunity, decided to pull Snee to try to put one on the board. A Union forward took a slapshot
that Joel Laing saved. Laing steered the rebound out front to Pete Gardiner who turned around and fired a bullet the length of the ice into the empty net for the 5th goal of the night
(both an empty netter and short-handed). Laing got credited with the lone assist.
RPI dominated most aspects of tonight's game (as they did for 57 minutes of last night's game) but apparently learned their lesson that "it ain't over til it's over". As a matter of fact, when RPI scored their second power play goal early in the 2nd period, I overheard two Union fans sitting behind me,
say "Now we got 'em where we want 'em!"
The other difference tonight was Joel Laing between the pipes. While the reason that RPI lost Friday night was due to a total defensive breakdown at the end of the game (in addition, of course, to a tremendous burst of offensive pressure from Union), the truth of the matter was that Alex Todd's first goal (short-handed) was a slap shot from the outside that Prekaski should have steered aside easily. He let in the soft goal and things went downhill from there. That
isn't the first time that Prekaski has let in the soft one near the end of the game. Laing seems to keep his head in the game for the full 60 minutes. It's not that he never lets in a soft one, it just seems that Prekaski lets more go by and at more inopportune times. Yet Fridgen keeps rotating the goalies.
The Engineers were able to defeat Union despite committing 9 penalties and giving up 7 power play opportunities. You may be able to get away with that when you're playing Union, but
that's probably not going to work next week against Michigan State or with the rest of the ECAC schedule coming up in February. Next weekend, the Engineers travel to Michigan to play Michigan State in their final non-league contests of the regular season. It should be interesting to see how the Engineers can adjust to the more physical CCHA style of hockey. It should also be interesting to see which RPI team shows up; the one that beat BU and UNH earlier this year or the one that lost to Dartmouth, Union and tied UVM.
--
Mark Lewin
RPI class of '69
--
HOCKEY-L is for discussion of college ice hockey; send information to
[log in to unmask], The College Hockey Information List.
|
