Preview: RPI at Harvard
RPI looks to knock off struggling Harvard team on the road
The Engineers will head out East this weekend to take on Harvard and Dartmouth respectively. Friday night’s matchup with Harvard is an interesting one, as the traditional Ivy League power currently sits at 2-10-3. Personally, I am still bitter about the playoff loss there 2 years ago, so seeing Harvard struggle doesn’t bother me much… But jokes aside, this team has way too much talent to be this bad and they are not ones to be taken lightly. Let’s jump into the matchup.
Team Breakdown
As I mentioned before, this is not a Harvard team of the past. They have been dominated 5-on-5 and are ranked in the bottom 3 nationally in Corsi, xG, and Goals. The one area RPI needs to be weary of is Harvard’s powerplay, which converts at 26.09%, good for 8th nationally. The Engineers have done a much better job staying out of the penalty box in 2024, cutting their PIMs from 16 minutes to just over 6. Some of this is due to major penalties they took in the first half, but the point still stands, they will need to minimize their time on the kill to beat Harvard. Quickly transitioning to RPI’s numbers, the shooting percentage remains a major strength of this team, as RPI has found the net on their chances at a very high rate. As Brendan showed in the most recent recap, a lot of the individual numbers have been trending in the right direction which correlates to RPI’s improving play driving statistics. The Engineers have a clear advantage 5-on-5 against Harvard, they just need to stay out of the box to minimize Harvard’s only real weapon.
Lineup Breakdown
Instead of doing the traditional game score lineup preview, I decided to take a deep dive into Harvard’s roster. This team has 11! NHL draft picks but only two wins to show for it. I am not sure I have ever seen anything quite like it in my years following college hockey. Last year’s Harvard team was 24-8-2 overall and 18-4 in the ECAC, good for a 2nd place regular season finish and a loss in the ECAC title game to Colgate. They were handed an ugly loss to Ohio State in the first round of the NCAA tournament, and that was the beginning of the bad news for Harvard.
Departures from Last Year:
LW Sean Farrell (53 points in 22-23): Now playing for Laval Rocket in the AHL
RW Alex Laferriere (42 points): Now playing for the Los Angeles Kings
RW Matt Coronato (36 points): Now playing for the Calgary Wranglers in the AHL
D Henry Thrun (31 points): Now playing for the San Jose Sharks
RW John Farinacci (20 points in 19 games): Now playing for the Providence Bruins in the AHL
D Ryan Siedem (17 points): Now playing for Notre Dame
G Mitchell Gibson (.919 Sv%): Now playing for SC Stingrays in the ECHL
So, Who is Left?
That is a tough set of departures for any program, but in Harvard’s case where they are not allowed to use the portal or 5th years, they did not have many options to replenish the roster. Ryan Healey and Joe Miller are the two top holdovers from last year’s team, and they both are NHL draft picks and are producing around a point per game. Alex Gaffney and Zakary Karpa both produced for Harvard in the past but have had an extremely rough go of it this season. To make matters worse, Derek Mullahy and Toronto draft pick Aku Koskenvuo have both struggled to take the torch from Gibson in net.
Final Thoughts
Harvard’s team is a very interesting case study because on one hand, no team with 11 draft picks should be 2-10, but on the other one, they graduated roughly 80 goals and per Ivy League rules were not able to use the transfer portal to replace them. I would imagine that if the locker room is still intact despite the adversity, this is still a team that could make a run. They simply have too much talent to spend the entire season in the basement of the league. John Beaton, Jake Gagnon, Lauri Sertti, and Jack Watson were amongst those on the ice when Harvard stopped the Lake Placid dream one game short two years ago. RPI needs to channel those memories and knock off a struggling Harvard team for the coveted 3 league points. Let’s Go Red!