The falling temperatures and the slow decay of autumn into winter bring with it the start of conference play in college hockey. The Engineers opened their conference docket this weekend against North Country foes Clarkson and St. Lawrence. After a hard-fought victory against Clarkson in front of a large and noisy Black Friday crowd—with Adam Oates ’85 on hand—the Engineers fell to St. Lawrence on Saturday night. This season’s crackdown on obstruction was also evident during both games, with 53 penalties were called, and the parade to the box continued.
RPI’s power play was on a tear coming in, and continued in style against the Golden Knights of Clarkson. The man-advantage was clicking, in scoring five power play goals over the course of the night, the first of which came during one of the most bizarre minutes in RPI hockey history. Just seven seconds into the game, Clarkson’s Jay Latulippe was whistled for obstruction-hooking. Kirk MacDonald, who has been making teams that take penalties pay all year, continued to do so, by snapping a shot past goalie David Leggio just twenty seconds into the game.
Just seven seconds passed before the next offense. Nick Economakos also got called for obstruction-hooking, and Clarkson’s Mac Faulkner tied the score on the ensuing power play. After 48 seconds, two penalties had been handed out and the score was 1-1. “That was interesting, to say the least,” mused head coach Dan Fridgen. “Not even a minute in, and it’s a 1-1 game. You talk about bang-bang . . . that was bang-bang.”
The play settled down somewhat, and RPI climbed into the driver’s seat. Led by a sizzling power play, and a superb second period effort by Andrew Martin in the pipes, the Engineers roared out to a 4-1 lead. Alexander Valentin got things going late in the first. He flicked a seemingly harmless shot, which appeared to be headed over the net. Leggio tried to catch it, but it hit the tip of his glove, and squirted behind him and into the net.
In the second, Economakos and MacDonald scored—both on the power play—less than two minutes apart to put up a three-goal margin. The goal was MacDonald’s ninth of the season, and it gave him his fourth multi-goal game of the season. “You’ve just got to shoot the puck. I’m not really doing anything different,” said MacDonald. “Playing with [Kevin] Croxton and Nick [Economakos] helps. They’ve been giving me the puck. It was a great pass by Croxton on the first goal. He put it right on my stick, and I didn’t have to do much,” adding, “I don’t know what the secret is, to tell you the truth.”
With a large lead, the Engineers let Clarkson climb back into the game midway through the third, with two goals just 17 seconds apart. After scoring the first, they clearly had momentum, and then swiftly attacked and scored. “There was a lot of standing around,” remarked Fridgen. “For one, we didn’t even have our low forward down covering the high slot. We were just spectating.
“Give Clarkson credit, though, I thought they were doing a good job beating us to the puck and making some plays offensively, and we were just a little bit tentative, when we should have been going after it. There were times in the third period where we were getting beaten to the puck, and we can’t let that happen.”
RPI clamped down shortly thereafter. Combining that with some foolish Clarkson penalties, and a later power play empty net goal, the Engineers claimed victory. RPI only had 24 penalty minutes on 12 infractions, compared to Clarkson’s 49 on 15. “We had a lot of special teams out there. Our guys are to be commended, because I thought we did a great job,” concluded Fridgen.
A raucous crowd of 4980 was on hand for Black Friday and Adam Oates night, which helped the team’s efforts. “[The] guys were real jacked up to play tonight,” said MacDonald, adding, “the student section was unbelievable.” A more subdued crowd of 2991 was present when the Engineers took on the St. Lawrence Saints on Saturday.
RPI blew two leads over the course of the game en route to a 3-2 loss, and the Saints shut down the Engineers streaking power play, only permitting it to convert one chance out of 11. MacDonald scored his third goal of the weekend early in the first, after deking goalie Mike McKenna and going top-shelf. But the Saints’ Drew Bagnall tied it less than two minutes later, with a slap shot from the point on a power play that found its way into RPI’s net.
Matt McNeely gave the Engineers the lead again in the second, when he pinched to the high slot on the power play and fired a shot that beat McKenna. But McNeely’s shot proved to be a rarity on the night, as the Engineers kept missing the mark on shots from all over. “We had our opportunities, and we didn’t capitalize on them, and it wasn’t meant to be, and we were missing by inches,” lamented Fridgen. “You’re not going to score if you’re not hitting the net, and I thought we missed the net way too many times tonight.”
An errant bounce caught Martin off guard later in the second, and the Saints tied the game on a goal credited to John Zeiler. Chase Trull then put the Saints up for good with a booming slap shot on a loose puck late in the second. RPI had 26 shots in the last two periods, but McNeely’s was the only one that found the twine.
After the opening weekend split, the Engineers find themselves in fifth in the ECAC, behind Union, Cornell, Colgate, and Vermont, who all had opening sweeps. MacDonald stands alone in first place in the nation with 10 goals, and Croxton and Econmakos’ 11 assists each are good for a tie for second in the nation.
The Engineers have a home-and-home series against hated travel partner, the Union Dutchmen this weekend. Friday’s game is at Houston Field House, and Saturday’s is at Messa Rink in Schenectady, N.Y.
