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Troy – With its playoff seeding secure, and the home ice advantage that comes with it, RPI took to the Houston Field House ice Saturday looking to win back-to-back games for the first time since mid-December and pick up the momentum heading into the Playoffs.
Then came the thud that was the first period.
A slow start for RPI was costly as Harvard scored four goals in the opening period and although the Engineers played better in the final 40 minutes, the hole was too deep to dig out of in what turned out to be a 5-1 loss.
RPI (15-20-3, 10-12-0) will enter the conference tournament as the No. 6-seed and will host Dartmouth in a best-of-3 series beginning Friday night.
“Harvard had a four-goal lead and we started to play,” RPI Coach Dave Smith said. “We were way too passive against a skilled team, we played Loose and played their style instead of our style and obviously that didn’t work.”
The silver lining, if any, for RPI was the last two periods. The Engineers outshot Harvard (16-9-3, 13-6-3) by a 21-15 margin and broke Crimson goaltender Derek Mullahy’s shutout bid when senior Captain Ture Linden scored four minutes, eight seconds into the third period.
“We weren’t looking for silver linings, just looking to play better,” Smith said. “Everything that would make you unhappy, made us unhappy. Everybody, players and coaches, the first period was just not the RPI that we’ve had all season. We gave a team that is highly skilled and gave them time and space to make plays and they capitalized on it. ”
Linden’s goal, his 17th of the season, was set up by slick passing by linemates Ottoville Leppanen and Jakub Lacka. It was Leppanen’s cross ice pass through traffic that turned into a Linden one-timer from the left Circle for the only RPI goal of the night.
“All the guys with a good hockey IQ, Ovi and Lacks have been making some great passes,” Linden said. “We hold possession well, just executing passes in the slot, we’re able to get backdoor chances and we were able to make a really nice play today. We’re going to need more of that in the Playoffs. “
Harvard came out a step ahead of the Engineers from the opening Puck drop.
The Crimson took the lead at the 8:16 mark of the first when Matthew Coronato created space deep in the RPI zone with a toe drag before firing the puck over the glove hand of RPI goaltender Linden Marshall.
Harvard kept up the pressure, outshooting RPI 12-4 in the period and took a 2-0 lead when defenseman Henry Thrum found a hole deep in the Engineer zone and broke free in the slot to beat Marshall at 10:13.
Zakary Karpa pushed the lead to 3-0 at 14:12 and Team USA Olympian Nick Abruzzese added a power play goal with 45 seconds left in the period for the 4-0 lead.
“We have to learn about that obviously, it’s not how we want to play,” Leppanen said. “At the same time, we go over that and we go to Playoffs. That’s it, a totally new hockey game when it starts. This is not going to happen again. ”
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Sources 2/ https://www.timesunion.com/sports/article/Slow-start-against-Harvard-costly-for-RPI-men-s-16950401.php The mention sources can contact us to remove/changing this article |
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