Men’s hockey whites out the Big Red

With their playoff fate secured entering the weekend—a first-round home series—the men’s hockey players didn’t have much, on paper, to play for. On the ice, however, they played their most inspired weekend of the entire season.

A pair of nationally ranked teams—Cornell and Colgate—came to town to face off against RPI with a lot at stake. The Engineers defeated Cornell 2-0 on Friday but lost to the Raiders on Saturday, 2-1, behind a pair of costly penalties and a missed call by the officials.

Senior Kevin Croxton and junior Oren Eizenman each had a goal in the first period against the Big Red, and freshman Mathias Lange made 34 saves to record the first league shutout of his career. The Engineers jumped out to the early lead and never looked back. They clamped down defensively and limited the Big Red’s chances, especially in the third period.

“It was important for us to have a good, strong defensive effort against a team that can really play well,” said RPI Head Coach Dan Fridgen. “We knew they were going to throw everything they had at us in the third period, but I thought we did a good job defensively, and Mathias played a heck of a game.”

Eizenman’s goal came at 16:41 of the first period. He took the puck in the neutral zone and came up the left wing. He made a series of tricky moves through the Cornell defense, including tipping the puck through his legs to himself, before cutting across to his backhand and depositing a five-hole goal past Cornell goalie David McKee.

“I got it with a toe drag, then pulled it back through my legs,” said Eizenman. “Then I was alone with the goalie. I waited for him to go down and I put it through his legs.”

RPI doubled the lead at 18:18 of the first with Eizenman’s line on the ice again. Croxton stripped the puck from a Big Red defender behind the net. The Engineers cycled the puck, and a point shot from senior Keith MCWilliams rebounded to Kurt Colling on the doorstep. Colling, a freshman, sent it across the crease, through a pair of defenders, and Croxton tucked a one-timer over the shoulder of a diving McKee and just under the crossbar.

“That was probably one of the nicest feeds I’ve ever seen,” Croxton said about Colling’s through-traffic pass. “It was easy to put that one in.”

Lange made several highlight-reel saves in the later stages of the game to preserve the shutout. Beating Cornell, number one in the conference entering the weekend, made it that much sweeter. “It feels really good,” he said. “A shutout is always really nice, especially against a team like this.”

The Engineers brought the same effort to Saturday’s game against Colgate but the Raiders emerged the victor. After weathering a difficult second period when the Raiders were out-shot 19-2 but still managed to stay even on the scoreboard, Colgate’s conference-leading power play got a lucky bounce at 6:19 of the third. A centering pass from Kyle Wilson deflected off of Jesse Winchester’s skate and found plenty of open net to give the Raiders the lead.

Minutes later, the Engineers appeared to tie things up on a power play of their own. A blast from the right point by MCWilliams appeared to go in the net. It bounced just inside the crossbar, off a pad on the top part of the net, and back out. The goal light, however, never went on and the officials allowed play to continue.

The crowd reacted angrily, and after the game, Fridgen put it very succinctly: “That was no phantom. That was a goal. No question in my mind whatsoever.”

“We just have to move on,” he added. “That’s all you can do. It’s a shame, because I thought we certainly earned it, no question about it.”

Senior Brad Farynuk gave the Engineers the 1-0 lead at 6:34 of the second while on a two-man advantage. After he and MCWilliams were denied by Dekanich on point shots, Eizenman recovered the puck in the right-wing corner and sent it to Farynuk at the point. Farynuk took a few strides toward the net and fired a shot that beat Dekanich to the stick side.

Farynuk was upbeat about the Engineer effort despite the loss. “I think that we did a real good job of sustaining pressure for most of the second and most of the third period,” he said. “Give credit to the goaltender; I think he played a heck of a game.”

Colgate’s first goal, which Jon Smyth scored on a behind-the-net feed from Peter Bogdanich, also came on the power play. Three RPI penalty killers were fighting for the puck along the left-wing boards. When the puck popped free to Bogdanich, he had plenty of space to work the puck to Smyth.

Each Raider goal came with Engineer senior Mark Yurkewecz in the box for interfering with Dekanich. The first penalty was a high-sticking call that came while Yurkewecz fought for the rebound of a Reed Kipp shot, and the second was an obstruction-interference call.

With the home split, the Engineers finish the season 14-15-6 overall and 8-8-6 in the ECACHL. They are tied with rival Union for sixth overall, but the Dutchmen posted a 1-0-1 record against them and own the tiebreaker. With the number-seven seed, the Engineers will face tenth-seeded Quinnipiac in the first round in a best-of-three series at Houston Field House this weekend. Each game (including Sunday’s if-necessary game) starts at 7 pm.

With the Saturday win, Colgate clinched a share of the regular-season league title with Dartmouth. The Big Green win the tiebreaker, but both teams—along with Cornell and Harvard—will have a bye in the first round. In other first-round action, St. Lawrence will host Brown, Union will host Yale, and Princeton will travel to Clarkson.