rpi professionals

[engineerhockeyfan]

I knew that Murley was having a good rookie season, but he is now third on his team in scoring. With Pittsburgh looking to unload Kovalev it might not be unreasonable to see Matt in Pittsbugh before the seasons over.

http://www.theahl.com/StatsHKA/BC-HKA-STAT-WLKSBRSCRNSTAX-R.html

[engineerhockeyfan]

Pothier sent back to Binghamton.

http://www.ottawasenators.com/news/press/2003/nr0131.aro

[Ralph Baer]

Originally posted by engineerhockeyfan
Pothier sent back to Binghamton. That wasn't unexpected. Hopefully, he made a good impression and will be back up soon.

[engineerhockeyfan]

The following interview has nothing to do with hockey, But DrD touched on Brad Tapper's upbringing and this just gives some insight to what he was talking about.

http://www.atlantathrashers.com/View.aspx?CID01=d8545575-1b79-458b-a304-07da81c643bf

[Ralph Baer]

Originally posted by engineerhockeyfan
The following interview has nothing to do with hockey, But DrD touched on Brad Tapper's upbringing and this just gives some insight to what he was talking about.

http://www.atlantathrashers.com/View.aspx?CID01=d8545575-1b79-458b-a304-07da81c643bf See message on this thread from 01-29-2003 02:53 PM . :D

[engineerhockeyfan]

Ralph, I don't know how I missed that.:(

[Ralph Baer]

No problem, ehf.

An article about Brian Pothier from the Troy Record: http://www.troyrecord.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=6914227&BRD=1170&PAG=461&dept_id=7021&rfi=8 .

Rich, Any comments about Pothier's comparison of Binghamton to Troy? :D

[Ralph Baer]

Brian Pothier had two assists in the AHL All-Star game.

[engineerhockeyfan]

Ralph, nice article on Pothier, it is nice to hear a professional athlete admit that he is having fun. I was beginning to think that fun was left out of the professional equation.

[leemy]

I did watch the 2nd half of the AHL all star game, and saw Pothier playing in a white jersey. I missed the skills competition. Amazing that Foster hit 101.0 mph in the hardest shot competition beating out NHL's best Al MacInnis' 98.9 mph. I could find that Pothier participated in that competition, but his result was somewhat less satisfying. Here are the recap of the skills competition. (From hboards.com)

Results:

Jason Spezza beats Jeff Taffe on the 1 on 1 puck control relay...

Fastest Skater Competition...

Brad Boyes: TOR...........14.695
Joe Corvo : LA...............14.771
Jon Sim: Dal..................14.745
Andy Hilbert -BOS.........15.225
Justin Papineau- STL....14.570
Sergei Varlamov- STL...14.730

Justin Papineau wins Fastest the event.... 14.570

Rapid Fire : Goaltender event :

Philippe Sauve - goals allowed 3
Maxime Ouellet - 3 goals
Marc Lamothe - 2 goals
Karl Goehring- 4 goals
Ray Emery - 4 goals
Derek Gustafson - 4 goals

Marc Lamothe wins event....

Hardest Shot: (best of 2 shots)

Cutris Murphy:.......91.5, 89.4
Brian Pothier:....... 93.3, 92.7
Kurtis Foster:....... 101.0, 97.7
Mike Komisarek..... 94.1,97.2
Charlie Stephens...93.4, 95.3
Sergei Varlamov....91.1, 91.4
Ross Lupaschuk....92.0, 92.7
Joe Corvo:............ 96.6, 94.6

Kurtis Foster wins with a 101.0 mph New AHL record...

Target shooting:

Jason Spezza : 4 of 7
Jeff Taffe : 4 of 8
Jared Aulin : 1 of
Trent Hunter : 4 of 6
Peter Ferraro : 1 of 8

Trent Hunter wind shooting accuracy... 4 of 6 targets

Top Goaltender : Marc Lamothe 13 saves total..

Team Canada beats Team PlanetUSA 15 -13 overall...

[DrDemento]

Brad Tapper scored his 10th of the season last night as Atlanta beat Montreal on the road 4-3. Tapper had an all around very goo dgame with 4 shots on goal. Joey Juneau had two assists for the Canadiens. Tapper now has 10 goals and 2 assists in only 23 games this year with only 12 minutes of ice time per game. The next two games are really the test for how much this Thrasher team has improved this year as they are on the road here in NJ and then in Ottawa.

[Ralph Baer]

I was correct not to post that Brad Tapper got his 10th goal as I figured that it would bring DrD back from whereever he has been the last week. :)

BTW, Adam Oates also got an assist. (So, what's new?)

[DrDemento]

Ralph: We were away spending some time with friends in Scarborough. Kind of glad I missed the North Country fiasco but caught up on the action from the posts on the board. Not sure if we will be here for Friday as we have been invited to the Devils/Thrashers game that evening and I try not to pass up free tickets if offerred.

[engineerhockeyfan]

DrD, I envy your tickets for the Thrashers against "my" Devils. I hope Tapper scores a hat trick in a loss to the Devils. I may have to miss both the RPI and Devil games this Friday as I have We have been invited to a friends house for the evening.
Ten goals for Tapper in such a short period of time bodes well for his staying in Atlanta.
I have a nephew who sells golf equipment in Atlanta and some of the Thrashers are customers of his. He recently asked Marc Savard what he thought the chances of Tapper staying in Atlanta were. Savard said that if he continues to play the way he has, he would retire from the NHL.

[DrDemento]

ehf: Not sure if we will take advantage of the offer but I sure would love to go. Right now the Devils are the hottest team in the league undefeated in their last 10 and play the type of team defense that could make a young team like Atlanta look awfully bad. By the same token, this thrasher team is definitely not the team most people saw early in the year. Obviously the coaching change has helped but I like to think some of the player moves helped also and bringing Brad up from Chicago a part of that. Brad's 10 goals makes him tied for 140th highest this year in the NHL of the over 800 players who have played in the league so far this year. Not bad as you point out since he has only played 23 games. His shooting percentage of over 20 gets him into the top 40 in the league and as I love to point out he is a +3 this year on a team where everyone else is minus and many are minus double digits. I agree with your assessment and feel his performance has certainly shown he is NHL calibre and should stay up until he proves otherwise. The real question is how and if he fits into the Thrasher plans. This, as all sports, is a mercenary business and if they feel they can get a better fit for their future, for example a rock solid defensemen, for him alone or with another player, then he will be dealt without hesitation. What is nice is that each game that has gone by he has shown that he can be a valuable offensive asset at this level. We at RPI have had darn few fellows get this far and stay. I can only think of Oates, Juneau and McPhee as those who have scored far more career NHL goals than he has and two others, Carter and Nienhuis are both within hailing distance. Not sure if Ken Hammond as a defensemen qualifies in any comparison.This may not sound like much of an achievement to some of the other big programs who have had far more players get to this level and play long careers, but for those of us who have followed RPI hockey for so long, it just adds a little luster.

[Ralph Baer]

DrD,

Nienhaus had 20 NHL goals, and Brad now has 14. If he sticks around, he could pass him this year. Hammond had 18, so Brad will pass him first. Carter is at 40, so at best, that is next year. Source: http://www.hockeydb.com/ihdb/stats/alumni.php3?tid=232 . I hope that I did all the addition correctly.

[engineerhockeyfan]

DrD, your point about how he fits in with the Thrashers is right on. I have watched very closely how he has been used since his call up. He started out on the second line with Stefan and Kovalchuk. When Farkas was brought up he was dropped to the third line with Koslov and anyone they wanted on the other side. Now Farkas has been sent down and he is back with Kovalchuk. He has had limited time on the power play and very rarely plays when the Thrashers are ahead in the third period. The Thrashers do not seem to have confidence in his defense. One constant is, he has scored with all lines and on the power play. I personally liked him better with Koslov's line but I will take what I can get.
I think that they will find a place for him. As players come off the IR, he remains and someone else is sent to Chicago. That can't be a bad sign.:D

[DrDemento]

Ralph thanks for the goal numbers which I just did not have at my fingertips but knew he was close to Nienhaus and a bit further back from Carter. I did not really feel I should compare him to Hammond who after all was not a forward. He has already surpassed any other RPI forwards who had brief visits to the league. It would take a Herculean effort for him to approach Oates' numbers and perhaps Juneau and McPhee are also pretty far out of sight for a long time.
Ehf-Your perception of their use of Brad and mine agree for the most part. I do not like him on the line with Kovalchuk as he is forced to get back on defense far to often as Ilya gives up a zillion turnovers trying to do it all himself. Kovalchuk is an immense offensive talent but he has significant defensive liabilities as his +/- numbers show. I also feel Brad is put in an awkward position having to try to get the puck into Ilya's hands. I am not sure what line he fits best with but he has scored with every combination he has been put with. It might be interesting to see him with Heatly for a spell but that is the one combination they have not tried. I have also not seen him play any time shorthanded and with his speed and disruptive forechecking I cannot understand why that has not been tried unless in practice he has not shown the ability. His career is still vey new and young and I am a realist. Any sort of injury at this stage or any type of slump or consecutive streak of bad performances and he will quickly lose favor. And then of course there is the matter of salary and money, and we all are familiar with how that governs a career.

[Ralph Baer]

An extract from a message by Charlene Markham:

Jim Henkel was named ECHL Rookie of the Month today. There's a story at
http://www.boardwalkbullies.com/headlines/02052003henkelrookie.htm. He owns the ECHL's longest scoring streak this season with 28 points in the last 17 games. He's 22-26-48 in 45 games with a +26. Jim Vickers has 2-6-8 in 44 games and Steve Munn is 0-6-6 in 48. Both are +9.

Interesting that the article spelled Rensselaer correctly but decided that our nickname was the Tigers.

[DrDemento]

Tigers huh? Grrrowl. I kind of like it at least better than the Red Hawks.