RPI Splits the Route 7 Rivalry
Coach Lang picked up his first win on Friday but Union stormed back on Saturday for the split
This weekend, RPI split Union with both teams winning on the road. This represented a big milestone for the Eric Lang era as Friday night was his first win at RPI. Pretty sweet that it comes against Union, and I have no doubts that it’ll be the first of many!
Friday
This game embodied everything this RPI team needs to be about to have success this year. There’s no disputing that this is a rebuild, and no one is expecting a lot of wins this year. However, that doesn’t mean they cannot be competitive against, and even beat, good hockey teams.
That was the case Friday night. RPI skated hard, finished checks, and competed their tails off. They will need to do that to beat any good team. Those are the non-negotiables; you can’t expect to beat anyone, let alone a good team, if you’re not competing hard.
On the ice, they were excellent in transition and were able to move the puck quickly through the neutral zone to generate offense. They were opportunistic with their scoring chances to get 3 goals through two periods and then able to shut it down at the end and get 2 ENGs.
Lastly, but certainly not least, Krawchuk was excellent in net. Union was also good at generating offense and scoring chances, but Krawchuk shut the door time and time again. He was the best player on the ice in the game and was the main reason RPI rolled out of Schenectady with the win.
That’s the formula RPI needs to win: compete hard, be opportunistic, and get good goaltending. Hopefully, we will continue to see it down the line.
Saturday
Saturday was unfortunately the opposite. From the moment the puck dropped, Union was all over RPI and thoroughly outcompeted them. Union clearly wanted it more the entire game, and they played with a level of desperation not seen from the Engineers. It was a pretty disappointing effort in a rivalry game at home.
The main issue to me though was just a ton of sloppiness. Tons of bad passes into skates or missing entirely, lots of passes not caught cleanly, lots of fumbled pucks, etc. It was especially frustrating on the power play when you have more time and space to ensure your puck handling and passing is clean. To me, it was another symptom of some of the lackadaisical play from RPI, and it’ll be impossible for them to win any games they play like that. There’s not much more to say than that for this game.
Krawchuk was again extremely strong in net, limiting Union to 2 goals on 35 shots, before they scored an empty netter at the end. Honestly, RPI deserved a worse score than 3-0, and they have Krawchuk to thank for keeping it respectable. It bodes very well down the road that he was able to put up great performances on back to back nights. I expect that RPI will keep rolling with him until he gives them a reason not to given how he played this weekend. This weekend thoroughly put him ahead of Bruveris for the #1 goalie role for the time being.
Looking Ahead
This week, RPI will welcome St. Lawrence and Clarkson to the HFH for some more ECAC games. We will have previews on those games soon. Let’s go red!