Preview: RPI vs. Yale
16 ECAC Games and 1 Mayor's Cup Left. Here we go.
The Engineers are about to enter into a two-month stretch of 16 ECAC games with the Mayor’s Cup squeezed in the middle. There will be men’s hockey games every weekend up through the beginning of March (and hopefully a couple more after that). It’s a stretch of games that will answer the question: “Did the tough non-conference schedule prepare the team well for the ECAC?”
If it did, then those ugly first few games of the season will surely be forgotten.
If it didn’t, then those games just look like a real demoralizing set of losses.
Let’s hope it’s the former. It all starts this Friday against Yale. Let’s break it down:
Stephen picked Yale 11th in his preseason ECAC rankings and a big reason for the low placement was lack of offense. That’s played out so far in the numbers – Yale rank 47th in Goals For/60 at even strength and 58th in that same statistic on the powerplay. They just aren’t scoring enough.
The numbers aren’t much better on the other end of the ice either. They do have a better penalty kill than RPI (this is the one category in which the Engineers still desperately need to improve), but their even-strength defense is where the bigger problems lie. Yale are bottom of the country in save percentage and in the bottom-five in Goals Against/60 at 5v5.
This is where RPI needs to capitalize. The overall season numbers don’t reflect this because RPI was thoroughly out-played earlier in the season, but comparing 5v5 Expected Goal Share (xGF%) and Corsi (CF%) from the past 5 games to the first 10 tells the story better. RPI have become a good team at even strength:
Note: This excludes the Canisius series – we are still waiting for all the numbers from that series from Instat. Just from the eye-test though, those two games would follow the “Last 5 Games” trend.
Yale does have a good top-line of Gammill-Allain-Chen. They all have good underlying numbers (a big reason why the model likes them so much), but aren’t necessarily super high scoring. Expecting Muzzatti’s line to get most of the faceoffs against this line to help shut them down.
Outside of the top-line there is quite a dropoff. They just don’t have as much depth as RPI. This will be the type of game in which guys like McNeil and Ciccarello get some easier matchups and may be able to have a big impact.
One last note on depth, Dave did mention on the Tuesday show that the team is dealing with injuries (Lee/Dovar) and the flu themselves, so it’s very possible that RPI’s depth might be tested as well.
But all this to say, RPI are still the favorite here. They have the better team in better form. They should be winning games like this. Just as long as they don’t leak too many in on the penalty kill.