The Engineers started their weekend off with a 2-1 win at Yale in New Haven, Conn. During a scoreless and largely uneventful first period, Rensselaer was able to control the puck and dictate the game fairly well. The only real surprise of the period came when head referee Frank Murphy left the game midway through the period after being inadvertently checked into the boards; the two linesmen on the ice officiated for the remainder of the period, and Luke Galvin, a supervisor of officials for the ECAC, appeared at the beginning of the second period to wear the head referee’s uniform for the rest of the night.

The pace of the game began to pick up a bit following the beginning of the second period. With 12 seconds left on a power play, sophomore Matt Angers-Goulet fired a shot off from near the face-off circle. The puck slipped by Alec Richards, Yale’s goalie, for RPI’s first goal of the game. Yale was able to tie up the score just over a minute later, on a goal from freshman defenseman Thomas Dignard.

Despite a penalty a little after the halfway mark of the game, sophomore Andrei Uryadov was able to contribute to the second goal of the night for the Engineers. Coming out of the penalty box, he was able to get control of an attempt by Richards to clear the puck out of Yale’s defensive zone. After Richards subsequently stopped Uryadov’s shot on goal, the puck stopped near the goal with a clear path to the back of the net. Seth Klerer took the opportunity, scoring his eighth goal of the season.

Coming into the third period lagging by one goal, the Yale Bulldogs were anxious to tie the score; unfortunately, a second goal was not in the cards for them. Yale took three penalties and Rensselaer took four, but no scoring occurred despite the power play opportunities.

Most notable was the exceptional performance of Rensselaer’s defense and goalie Jordan Alford during the last few minutes of play. When the Engineers suffered two penalties in the last three minutes, Yale gave it their all to try to tie up the game and send it into overtime. Netminder Richards left the ice with 1:40 left in the period to give the team a six-on-three advantage for almost forty seconds, and a six-on-four for another minute. The Bulldogs’ efforts meant that Rensselaer was unable to clear the puck out of their defensive zone for the last two minutes of regulation time. Despite this, the Engineers were able to keep the score at 2-1 until the end of the game, finishing off with a much-needed win and another two points towards the ECAC standings.

Coming out of such a nerve-racking finish, the Engineers kept the momentum going for another one-goal win, just up the coast in Providence, Rhode Island. The Bears of Brown University put three goals on the scoreboard, but wasn’t able to stop the Engineers from lighting the goal lamp four times in another league win. This game marked the third consecutive victory for RPI over Brown, a trend which includes last year’s Big Red Freakout!

The first period of the game at Brown was scoreless again for the Engineers, although Brown junior Brian McNary was able to put Brown on the board with a goal roughly halfway into the first period. Coach Appert pointed to Brown’s loss to Union College the previous night as a cause. Teams coming out of a loss on their home ice are generally likely to want to avoid the same fate two nights in a row, so the pace was quick; however, the Engineers kept up, and netminder Mathias Lange was able to control the damage done by the Bears’ aggressive offense.

Things picked up during the second period, with junior Jonathan Ornelas scoring his fourth and fifth goals of the season in the first half of the period. The first of these was a mere thirty seconds into the period, with Ornelas taking a rebound from a shot by Oren Eizenman; the second occurred with less than twenty seconds to go on a power play. Andrei Uryadov was then able to increase the lead to two points with another goal, his eighth of the season.

Unfortunately, this two-goal lead was not to last. Brown was able to even up the score before Rensselaer finally scored the game-winning goal. Their second goal of the night came towards the end of the second period, and their third was on a five-on-three power play opportunity early in the third. Matt Angers-Goulet was able to break the tie with his second power-play goal of the weekend, and other than a penalty for each team and a time-out called by Brown, the rest of the game passed without incident to give Rensselaer the win.

It could certainly be called a successful weekend for the Engineers. Coming into Friday night tied for last place with traveling partner Union College, they are now tied for eighth place in the league. The tie is still with Union, who was also able to top Brown and Yale last weekend. Although over half of the league games have been played, there’s still quite a bit of room for movement. Nine of the twelve teams are within five points (two wins and a tie) of each other, meaning that any one weekend still has the potential to shake up the standings.