With a chance at taking second place in the ECAC, the Engineers stormed into the final weekend of the season having won six of their last seven. The Engineers needed at least one win—and some help besides—to claim home ice in the first weekend of the playoffs, a tough task against a Cornell team that had already clinched first and a scrappy Colgate squad.
RPI came out firing on Friday night versus Cornell. They attacked a team known for their special teams and quickly showed how good their power play is. With a two-man advantage three minutes into the game, Marc Cavosie fired a puck through Big Red goalie Dave LeNeveu for the first goal of the game. RPI’s offense was firing on all cylinders but lost steam when Hamish Cunning went to the penalty box on a tripping penalty. Cornell’s power play answered right back with a goal just over a minute into the penalty—defenseman Mike McRae blasted a shot from the point over Nathan Marsters’ right shoulder to tally the first goal for Cornell.
With the scored tied up, the Engineers looked flat, missing opportunities and skating sloppily. They stumbled through the first period and skated into the locker room with a one-all tie.
The tie wouldn’t last for long. One minute and 40 seconds after RPI co-captain Matt Murley took a holding penalty, Cornell’s power play found the net again. Center Krzysztof Wieckowski pulled a rebound off a shot by Denis Ladouceur and shot around Marsters to give the Big Red a big one-goal lead. The teams traded chances and skated very defensively until the end of the second.
The two teams came out ready for action in the third period, but they didn’t have as much to do with the outcome as the referees would. With 14:38 remaining in the game, the Engineers’ offense clustered in front of LeNeveu, and Jim Vickers appeared to shoot the puck in off of a Cornell skate. After conferring with the linesmen, referee Jeff Fulton waved off the goal, claiming that the whistle had been blown when the goalie apparently covered up the puck. The Engineers kept up the offensive pressure, mustering shots on a power play, but not managing to find the net. RPI’s big break came when Cornell’s Doug Murray took a two-minute interference penalty with 2:37 remaining in the game. Marsters left the net at 1:17, and Vickers again appeared to poke the puck in. Again, Fulton initially waved it off. After conferring with the linesman and goal judge Kirk Reynolds, who had already turned on the goal light, Fulton decided that the goal didn’t count. Livid, Head Coach Dan Fridgen yelled across the ice at Fulton, while RPI fans did the same through the glass.
After the game, Reynolds said, “That goal was definitely in the net. He (Fulton) came over and asked me and I told him it was in the net. I don’t know why he asked me if he wasn’t going to listen to what I had to say.”
The Engineers skated into their must-win game on Saturday night with fire under their feet. The game was going end-to-end very quickly, causing the Raiders to put too many men on the ice. This led to RPI’s first goal, a power-play goal by Carson Butterwick from Murley and Cavosie. The rest of the period was slowed by penalties, but both teams did a good job clearing the puck and killing the penalties.
The Engineers got their next scoring opportunity at 9:37. With Raider forward Dmitry Yashin just out of the box, Jim Henkel ripped a shot over Raiders’ goalie David Cann’s shoulder to give RPI a two-goal lead. Colgate closed the gap less than two minutes later, when winger Etienne Morin put a shot over Marsters’ glove hand to pull Colgate within one goal.
After than, RPI started to put the game away, smothering every Raider chance with a stifling defense. Ben Barr capped off the period with an impressive one-timer over the goalie’s shoulder to give the Engineers a 3-1 lead.
The third period went by very quickly, with many of the fans watching the scoreboard to see if Yale could beat Brown to give the Engineers home ice. A roar came from the crowd when the horn went off giving RPI the win, and many fans stuck around until the Yale score came over the PA.
The Bears ended up losing to the Bulldogs, dropping them below RPI and putting the Engineers into a three-way tie for third place in the conference. Because of tiebreakers, RPI is the fifth seed in the conference playoffs—good enough for home ice. The Engineers will host the Princeton Tigers this weekend in a best-of-three series, and the winner will advance to the ECAC tournament in Lake Placid on March 14-16.
