Last night's Engineer victory at the 20 Anniversary Big Red Freakout was a
blow-out in every sense of the word.  If you weren't an Engineer fan,
you'd be bored.  So I'll keep the comments basic and describe the scoring
plays.
 
First Period
 
Brown opens the game the worst possible way--allowing a goal in the first
12 seconds, thereby ensuring the Freakout crowd will be in a feeding
frenzy for the remainder of the night.  Brian Pothier comes down the slot
and gets off a hard wrister that Audette makes a kick save on, but the
rebound is buried by the trailer, Eric Healy.
 
At 5:25 Dan Riva skates in alone and shoots a wrister from the lower
face-off circle.  Audette misses it and Gosselin and Murphy receive
assists.
 
The Engineers go on to an offensive parade, with Audette keeping the
period from going completely under.  My notes show the first real Brown
shot occurs at the 17:24 mark.  Yet the official scorer credits RPI's
Laing with 13 saves.
 
Second Period
 
Matt Garver answers the question "What did you do on your Xmas vacation?"
by screaming down right wing, cutting to the front of the net, and letting
loose a backhander that zips past Audette.  Garver, previously Mr.
Futility, has suddenly learned how to finish, tallying three goals this
weekend, all of them pretty.  The score again beats the fans to their
seats, at 00:25, Healy and St. Hilaire receiving assists.
 
It's now off to the races and Eric Healy scores the most artistic goal of
the night.  Displaying his spin move, he gets Audette to move and then
goes back to his forehand for the score.  Healy has tried the move before,
but Audette apparently didn't understand how to stop it (and I'm not
telling...)  Garver and Brownlee get the assists, at 8:10.
 
Midway through the period Brown will gain a 30 second 5-3, but will fail
to score the entire power play.  At 12:37 Pothier makes another hard wrist
shot to Audette's blocker.  This time Shepherd cleans up depositing the
puck in the open stick side.  At 15:23 Matt Garver takes the puck behind
the net and threads a pass to the front, which Pete Gardner comes up with
and scores from directly out front.  At 17:56 the scoring play is turned
around as Matt Garver receives the pass from Gardner and sends it by
Audette's glove, with Healy also getting an assist.
 
Third Period
 
Holowaty replace Audette at the beginning of the period, to no avail.
 
Doug Battaglia posts his name on the scorer's sheet in the final stanza.
At 13:24 Brian Tapper skates the puck deep into the Brown zone and sends a
pass cross crease which Gardner taps on to Battaglia, who shoots the puck
glove side.  Battaglia also gets the final goal, strangley the only power
play goal, at 18:47, with Caley and Gardiner getting assists.  In between
Brown ruins Laing's shut-out, after Laing had made some quality saves
throughtout the third.  At 14:25 an RPI defenseman (missed the name)
overskates the puck and Lawlor goes in unmolested.  Laing guesses wrong,
and the puck goes five hole, Andersson getting an assist.
 
Laing finishes his work with 2:26 remaining, allowing third string goalie
Anthony Pergolotti with some playing time.  Pergolotti gets credited with
2 saves for his night, Laing gets credited with 40.
 
Junior forward Eric Healy passes a milestone during the game, notching his
50th career goal and his 50 career assist.
 
The head referee for the game was Bruce Cole, apparently making a rare
ECAC appearance.
 
At this point in the season RPI's destiny is in its own hands.  If it wins
all its remaining games it will receive the automatic bid to the NC$$
tournament.  ( :-) )
*****************************************************************************
Brian Morris                    RPI Engineers--Big and Nasty
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