Preview: RPI at Mercyhurst
The Engineers look to finish the first half on a strong note against a struggling Mercyhurst
Well, that was a disappointing weekend. RPI is competitive in essentially every game, but too often, they are letting games get away from them. That was the case in both Maine games and the Princeton game last weekend. Against Princeton, they were actually heavily outplaying the Tigers with a 2:1 shot advantage, but once Princeton got their 3rd goal to go up 3-0, it fell apart.
This weekend, RPI gets a bad Mercyhurst team to try to “apply the lessons they have been learning” as Coach Smith put it on the radio this week. Mercyhurst is 2-14-2 and is last in the country in the pairwise. If there was a team to play to try to get your mojo back, it’s them. Coach Smith also noted this in his weekly radio appearance with Rodger Wyland. He said he doesn’t care if he gives Mercyhurst bulletin board material, and he expects RPI to go into their rink this weekend and dominate both games. Let’s hope we see that because ending the first half with a strong showing this weekend can give the team some confidence as they hit the second half. Even though they’re in last in the league, they have only played 6/22 ECAC games; there’s lots of hockey left to be played.
I feel like the stats kind of speak for themselves here, but I’ll do a bit of a summary.
With RPI’s offense going cold recently, the numbers have declined from elite and very good to about average in most areas. The goal numbers are still strong overall though. The defensive metrics continue to decline as well since the Engineers have been more leaky there recently, especially on the PK. Overall though, the numbers aren’t too bad for them.
For Mercyhurst, it’s pretty clear why they’re the worst team in the pairwise. The only thing that they do well is they can score on the PP. Every other area, they are close to the bottom of the country. There’s no disputing that this is a team RPI should and needs to beat. Let’s hope they do just that!