Preview: RPI vs Brown
The Engineers look to put last year's sweep at the hands of Brown behind them
On Saturday, RPI will complete its home ECAC weekend with a matchup against Brown. Brown is currently 4-9-1 overall and 2-5-1 in the ECAC. Their 2 ECAC wins came against SLU and Colgate at home, while their 2 non-conference wins were both against Stonehill.
Team Breakdowns
Note: This excludes the Canisius series – we are still waiting for all the numbers from that series from Instat.
Brown looks like the typical Brown team that we have gotten accustomed to seeing over the years.
They generally struggle to score much, and this year is continuing that trend. They are not producing many scoring chances at even strength. Brown is actually doing a decent job of turning those chances into goals, but they still have a below average offense overall. The power play is a similar story with poor results there.
However, Brown does defend well. They are a solid team at limiting chances and opportunities against, and they have received pretty good goaltending as well. Tyler Shea and Lawton Zacher have split the net thus far, and Zacher has played better. He has a 0.907 SV% this season.
Roster Breakdowns
Note: This excludes the Canisius series – we are still waiting for all the numbers from that series from Instat.
Brown’s top line featuring a trio of newcomers is pretty good. Max Scott has been their top scorer with 14 points in 14 games, and he has good play driving results to go along with it. On his wing, Ryan St. Louis has been doing much better his second time around the college game. He leads the team with 9 goals and has 12 points in 14 games.
Ryan Bottrill and Jordan Tonelli may not have the play driving results that they want, but they have also been producing fairly well with 8 and 7 points, respectively, in 14 games.
On the back end, Nick Traggio and Tony Andreozzi have quietly played pretty well and gotten good results for Brown on the second pairing even though they aren’t putting up points. Alex Pineau and Jackson Munro both have 6 points but have struggled in terms of play driving, which is why they have such low game scores.
Summary
On paper, these two teams look pretty even considering their full bodies of work. However, there’s a few factors that I think tilt the odds towards the Engineers.
A massive strength of schedule difference
By KRACH, Brown has the 60th ranked SOS, while RPI has the 25th ranked SOS. Out of Brown’s 4 wins, 2 of them were against a winless Stonehill team in their first year of D1 play. That’s a drastic difference in difficulty.
Recent play
The difference between RPI’s play at the beginning of the year and their recent stretch to finish out 2023 is pretty big. The Engineers have been playing much better, and while you can’t ignore the struggles to begin the season, the further we get into the season, the less relevant they become. Brown went 1-3-1 in the month of December on the other hand.
Home cooking
RPI will be in the friendly confines of the Houston Field House for this one. I know their record this year isn’t very good at home, but they’ve only played 7 games at home so far, which isn’t much of a sample size. However, last season, they went 12-6-1 at home.
Overall, RPI has the slight edge accounting for these factors, but Brown should not be taken lightly. They have some talented players who can score, they defend well, and Lawton Zacher is an extremely capable goaltender. This is a winnable game, but RPI needs to bring their best to beat an opponent that is often a pesky underdog against many ECAC teams.