60 Days. 60 Teams. 600 Words (or Less): RPI

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

2018-19 Record: 10-23-3 (7-13-2, 11th in ECAC)
Head Coach: Dave Smith, 3rd Year
Top returning scorer: Ottoville Leppanen (4G-15A)
Top returning goaltenders: Owen Savory (So.), Linden Marshall (Jr.)

Slowly but surely, the Rensselaer rebuild seems to be underway.

RPI went from six wins in head coach Dave Smith's first season to 10 last year. There were reasons to be happy. The Engineers were 2-0-1 against Capital District rival Union. RPI, for a second straight year, also had success against Cornell in Ithaca.

Still, the jump is slowly incremental. Once again, RPI finished 11th of 12 teams in ECAC. The OT win over Cornell was followed by a five-game losing streak to end the season while Yale swept the Engineers 4-1 and 4-0 in the ECAC first round. No player had more than eight goals throughout the season. The power play (13.3%) was 55th of 60 teams nationally.

One thing, however, that sticks out in rebuilding is the use of transfers in the lineup. Few teams can say they have a national champion on the roster. One is RPI. Redshirt senior Mike Gornall was a member of the 2016 North Dakota team who raised the trophy in Tampa. Shane Bear (Massachusetts) and Chase Zieky (Providence) also transferred to the Engineers. All three played a major role during the team's second half.

What's New: Teams who live by the transfer can see the transfer swing back the other way. Smith's team loses RPI's two-time leading scorer, Jacob Hayhurst, to a grad transfer. Hayhurst will be heading to Ann Arbor for his final season of college eligibility. For all the transfers the Engineers had coming in, none match the scoring ability of Hayhurst, who had 12 goals as a sophomore.

Rensselaer has nine freshmen coming in this fall. That includes defenseman Simon Kjellberg, who becomes the first RPI freshman drafted by an NHL team since senior forward Todd Burgess. Kjellberg, who is from Sweden and played last season with Dubuque (USHL), was a 2018 6th round draft pick of the New York Rangers.

Smith also brings in one of his former assistants at Canisius, Scott Moser, for the same position. The teams meet for the first time ever, playing a single game October 19th at Houston Field House.

Closing Thoughts: One of the prevailing themes many early teams in this series share deals with what went wrong and how teams can improve.

For a school like RPI, in the midst of a stretch of 24 wins in 3 seasons, the question is not just about improving. It's about how much and how quickly the Engineers can improve. Rensselaer has reasons for optimism. The team, after being near rock bottom in Smith's first season, had a solid freshman season of goaltending from Owen Savory. RPI maintains a senior class of contributing players led by Burgess and Will Reilly on defense. Zieky scored eight goals, all in the second half, to tie for the team lead.

Is this a year where RPI can transfer some goodwill into a larger win total? Do the Engineers take a smaller step, gaining a few more reasons to be happy and ECAC wins? While rebuilding takes time, the moral victories don't taste as good after seeing how quickly other schools in a similar position have been able to make a leap.

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