A Win For The Rest Of Us: Union 5 - RPI 2

Still one of the great tournament names in college sports, Union beat rival RPI at the Festivus Faceoff in Lake Placid, NY, 5-2 on Saturday. #9/10 (USA Today/USCHO rankings, respectively) Union captured the Capital Skates trophy for the eighth consecutive year. (The rivals split the season series last year, meaning that the skates were titled to Union). The Capital Skates trophy is awarded annually to the winner of the RPI/Union season series. With Saturday's win against the Engineers, the Dutchmen once again sent the skates back to Schenectady. Union won its first meeting with RPI 5-1 on November 15th behind the efforts of a Daniel Carr hat trick. 

Also in action up in Lake Placid: St. Lawrence defeated Clarkson 4-1 in the other half of the Festivus Festivities. It is important to note, however, that these games are considered non-conference. Union improves to (8-3-5) overall and (3-2-2) in ECAC play. Coupled with the fact that the two teams played non-conference, Union's win against a relatively weak RPI squad will likely not be enough to significantly change the team's standings in the national polls. 

A fun tidbit purloined from ECACHockey.com: 11 of the past 16 games between these two teams have "been decided by one goal or fewer. Six of those games have gone to overtime with both teams winning twice" and tying twice. 

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• Union's 3-goal flurry in the second period was capped by Junior Wayne Simpson's 7th goal of the season (his 12th point). Simpson's powerplay goal (scored on a 5 on 3) was Union's only such goal in 8 attempts. Although the team's success rate dropped, it still has converted on 23.2% (19/82) of all powerplays this season, good enough to be tied for 9th in the country. Harvard is currently on top of the heap in powerplay goals, having scored on a stunning 32.1% of their opportunities. Although he didn't notch a powerplay goal on Saturday, Jeremy Welsh is currently tied for the second most PPG in the nation with 6 behind North Dakota's Brock Nelson.
• Union's powerplay, an integral part of the team's historic season last year, seems to be slowly working up to last year's successes. With two powerplay lines capable of scoring (see Simpson, Carr, Welsh, Zajac, Bodie et al.), the team is certainly poised to improve their conversion rate on the man advantage.
• Head Coach Rick Bennett was quoted by the Times Union: "Our powerplay finally kicked in, which was nice. We stuck with it and didn't get down." 
• Although not to nitpick: 1 for 8 on the PP could have very easily been 2 or 3 for 8 against a weak RPI squad that fell to (3-13-0) overall. 
• RPI is only 4/60 this year on the powerplay.
• Daniel Carr added a goal, as did the aforementioned Jeremy Welsh. Welsh is now second in the ECAC in points. Matt Hatch scored Union's first goal, one that tied the score at 1-1. Simpson's powerplay goal put the team ahead 3-2.
• Congratulations to Freshman Shayne Gostisbehere, who scored his first collegiate goal.
• Goaltender Troy Grosenick is ranked fifth in the country in GAA, at a paltry 1.78. Interestingly enough, there are two ECAC goaltenders ranked above him: Andy Iles (Cornell) and Alex Evin (Colgate). Iles may be the most valuable player in the ECAC so far.
• Union's schedule only gets tougher from here: up next? #5 Merrimack, and their star goaltender, Joe Cannata. 

A note: following college hockey from Buenos Aires, Argentina (where I am currently on a mini-term), is one of the oddest experiences I've ever had. I've tried to explain (in broken Spanish) what it is, but all people can think about here is the warm weather (not to rub it in) and soccer. 

--ZP