A little bit of air came out of the balloon after the Engineers dropped both games to Union to start their ECAC slate. We did our best on the pod Sunday night to level-set where things stand 8 games in, but the short of it is that this has been about as expected. RPI and Union played two very close games last weekend that should leave fans confident in the skill and compete level of this Engineers group. This will be a tough test in the North Country and a very important one for league points. RPI has had success against Clarkson and struggled against SLU of late, which is a bit opposite of what you’d typically expect. With all that being said, let’s break down the matchups.
Friday at SLU:
St. Lawrence is winless out of the gates and dropped two exhibitions to Maryville to go with it. They’re giving up close to 6 goals per game right now, the worst marker in the country by a wide margin. The offense has produced a bit, but that’s a tough statistic to overcome. The Saints were picked 10th in the ECAC coaches’ poll and figure to be a fighting an uphill battle with what we’ve seen thus far. With that being said, a winless team on home ice is very dangerous and you know they have RPI circled on their calendar. RPI was frustratingly swept by SLU last year and needs to pick up games like this if they’re going to get where they want to go.
Sophomore Center Cooper Pierson leads the Saints in points thus far after a 20-point Freshman campaign. He’s been joined on that line thus far by fellow Sophomore Sam Ledrew, who leads the team with a pair of goals. The key for the Saints will be finding some continuity in net, whether it be Colin Winn or Cameron Smith, who clearly have both struggled.
Saturday at Clarkson:
The Engineers will head to Cheel Arena on Saturday night to open their season set with the Clarkson Golden Knights after being ousted in the playoffs last year. The Engineers fought valiantly that night in March, but their efforts were not enough despite having swept the season series. This is a fairly similar Clarkson team but is missing a few of last year’s most prominent faces including Ryan Bottrill, Erik Bargholtz, and of course, Matthew Mayich. The veteran Shane Soderwall and freshman Ben Gaudreau have split time in net for 3rd year bench boss J.F. Houle.
Old friend Tyler Wallace leads the Knights in points with 2-4-6 in 7 games played, and is joined by an army of sophomores including Justin Cote, Bryce Sookro, Owen Van Steensel, and Remi Gelinas. This is a good Clarkson team who is still finding their footing, and I expect a full effort from them as they open up ECAC play.
It’s worth noting tha RPI was a bit banged up last weekend, missing Jagger Tapper, Ryan Michael, and James Guo for Saturday’s game. I continue to look for the goal scoring to broaden out from Rullers and Sitar who’ve led the way, and was encouraged to see contributions from Scherzer, Gavin, and Lindberg last weekend. This North Country trip poses a challenge to a young RPI team that’s done very little travel so far, so I wouldn’t be upset with a split. Let’s go red.