Last weekend was a tough weekend all around for the conference. In all honesty it was disappointing at 4-5-1. St. Lawrence’s win against Miami and Union’s win against St. Cloud will go down as the highlights of the weekend. The lowlight’s will go to RPI, which was swept in a weekend series at home against Bentley. Union’s long streaks came to an end on Saturday, as a tough St. Cloud team defeated them in Schenectady. Union won 16 consecutive games, were unbeaten in 22 games and hadn’t lost a home game in nearly a year. All of those streaks should be a source of pride for the small school, because there have been very few teams that have attained streaks of those size in college hockey history.

The Ivies will begin play this weekend and conference play will get underway this weekend with three games. As always, it is a long road to get to this point of the season for the six Ivy league schools and its fans. I living closest to three Ivy league schools myself, Harvard, Dartmouth and Brown always look forward to this time of year as well because it means the pool of games to see is always bigger.

This weekend should be dubbed a rivalry weekend, as RPI and Union will renew their rivalry at the same time Clarkson and St. Lawrence renew theirs. RPI and Union will play back to back nights in conference games while the Clarkson and St. Lawrence weekend will be a non-conference pair.

Shot stats from school to school is pretty arbitrary and it really doesn’t matter

Some schools are very good at taking stats and shots, while others don’t do as good of a job. SLU was heavily outplayed over the weekend, there is no denying, but Greg Carvel was very upset in the way that shots were being taken and recorded in his team’s split at nationally touted Miami. It was not the first time I have heard a coach question it and it will certainly not be the last. But it also does bring about an important point in regards to stats, in that they can often lie and often do not tell the whole story.

“I don’t know who was taking care of shots in Miami, but it was a bit ridiculous they didn’t give us any shots on net in the second period because we know we had shots on net. On the other side of it, five minutes would go by and they would have ten shots on net. I watched the game and we literally only gave up ten scoring chances in the 2-1 overtime loss. I am not sure how they got 53 shots on net but Miami did outplay us and had the better of the play.”

I obtained a copy of the shot charts, the final attempts were 28 for SLU and 69 for Miami, after regulation. The second period mentioned by Carvel had a 14-0 shots on goal advantage, with a 28-3 shot attempted advantage. That pretty much means the entire period was spent in the St. Lawrence zone. Three attempts is a monumentally low number if that was indeed the case.

Carvel’s words are probably the harshest I have heard on this specific topic. I have taken shot charts randomly at various schools and have found that some have been off, everyone has a slightly different opinion of what a shot on goal really is. Is it every time a goalie touches a puck off the opposing team or is it just ones that would have gone in the net? The people taking shots are not professionals and we should not expect them to be perfect. Most schools use volunteers to do the stats and they should get the benefit of the doubt.

I use caution when looking at shots on goal because they do not tell the whole story. Some team’s by nature have more shots and attempts. Whereas Quinnipiac sends everything at the net, a team like Cornell is usually more deliberate and picky in terms of taking shots. Some teams are more opportunistic on opportunities, like SLU has been this season, while others struggle to score on a ton of shots.

When I see a 53-11 and a 42-16 shot margin in a weekend, I start to wonder. Those numbers are insanely on both ends of the spectrum for two teams in two power-conferences but then again it doesn’t really matter. What matters at the end of the day is what the top numbers read, the goals scored. The scoreboard showed SLU scored 5 goals on its first ten shots in game one, while in game two it went near 30 minutes without a shot on goal in a 2-1 overtime loss. Take it with a grain of salt because it does not matter.

RPI’s struggles have turned chronic

An opening night win against Notre Dame turned my eyebrows, but then the next five games has seen RPI crash down to earth. RPI is 0-5-0 in those five contests, since its win against Notre Dame, and has just been dominated. Three of those losses were to Minnesota and Denver, fine. I figured they would have a good weekend against Bentley but the Engineers were swept at home by the Atlantic Hockey school. They have been outscored 16-3 since its opening night win in South Bend. Just two goals in five games just isn’t going to win hockey games.

The problems that Rensselaer have shown in the early going were expected. We knew it would struggle to score goals and it has, but I am not sure we knew the struggle would lead to just three goals in five games. Scoring has been the issue but these problems tend to multiply in college hockey and that has certainly become the case in Troy. For a team that looked so good defensively against Notre Dame, it gave up nine goals in a two game set against Bentley. This to me shows a diminishing confidence level in all aspects of the Engineers’ game. RPI needs to find scorers and do it fast or, the confidence will continue to drop and thus success will keep getting further away. There is certainly something amiss in Troy and it has been for the past two seasons.

Colgate is doing exactly what we expected

The Raiders didn’t trounce Sacred Heart, as we thought they would but they did up their record to a quiet 5-1 on the season. I haven’t written much about Colgate this year mainly because I am expecting to write a ton on them later in the season. They have already shown that once conference season starts they will be ready to be one of the top teams.

Colgate has done it all on defense so far this year. It shutout Northeastern twice, held a strong St. Cloud team to four goals in a weekend and it sits in sixth place nationally in team defense. Charlie Finn has again proved why he is one of the better goaltenders in the league and country, saving nearly 95 percent of the shots he sees. This is exactly what we expected of Colgate as the Raiders should continue to impress all season. With all the experience up and down the lineup the performances will be consistent, as they were last season. This is usually the mark of a good team and they are starting to pass that test, no surprise there.

Tylor Spink remains out but his loss has been absorbed well by arguably the deepest team in college hockey. Spink’s 14 goals was second to Darcy Murphy last season, but Kyle Baun has been a scoring machine in the early going. Baun has five goals in six games. Colgate again boasts the best balance in the conference, as 16 different skaters have found the scoresheet and ten have scored goals. Look for these to continue, when all was said and done last year that proved to be the case and it is the same team, hypothetically.

Monday, October 27th, 2014 - 3:58 pm | Blogs, ECAC, Notes, Thoughts, Ramblings