RPI Beats Princeton 5-3, Also Defeats Yale for Second Consecutive Weekend Sweep
Dave Aiello wrote, "U.S. College Hockey Online reports that RPI beat Princeton 5-3, in spite of being outshot 40-19. The game was made more lively by the presence of a large number of members of the RPI Pep Band and the largest contingent of RCNJ member at any single event in recent memory. Thanks to everyone who turned out for the game."
"On Saturday, the Engineer winning streak reached five with a 5-2 victory over Yale in New Haven. This game was played before a sellout crowd of nearly 3,500, and the WRPI announcers remarked that many in the crowd were fans of the visitors."
"RPI has now won both scheduled ECAC league games on two consecutive weekends. This is the first time that they have done this in recent memory. Read on for a comment on the Princeton game...."
Dave Aiello continued:
Ken DeGhetto '50 asked me why Princeton was able to exert so much offensive pressure on RPI during the second period? The implication in his comments was that Princeton had the advantage in terms of momentum at that point in the game.
At the time, I agreed with him that Princeton had kept Rensselaer bottled up in their defensive zone for a lot of the second period, but that Princeton had not converted the pressure into many serious scoring opportunities.
I was glad to see that RPI Coach Dan Fridgen saw it this way also. USCHO quotes him as saying, "The shots {17 by Princeton in the second period} indicate that they turned up the heat. However, we did a god job positioning ourselves, taking the right angles, and there weren't many Grade A quality chances."
Rensselaer capitalized on just about every good scoring opportunity it had. Princeton did not. Nor did they create many good scoring opportunities from all of the forechecking they did. When you combine that with solid goaltending from Nathan Marsters and good defensive play in front of him, you get the margin of victory.
Congratulations to RPI Senior Jim Henkel from Hazlet, NJ, who scored a goal at 4:39 of the second period. Jim had a large number of friends and family at Friday night's game, and every college hockey player wants to score when his family's in the building.