Shane Mudryk scored on the power play with 4:43 left in the third period to knot the game at two goals apiece for Brown, and the Bears and Rensselaer each withstood a power play in overtime as the two teams came away with one point apiece in a 2-2 tie.
On the tying goal, Mudryk received a quick pass from Brent Robinson as a two-on-one developed in front of Engineer goaltender Kevin Kurk, and tapped home the puck into an open net.
“I thought we played lousy in the second period,” said Bear head coach Roger Grillo. “[Rensselaer] did a nice job of bottling us up in our own end. I thought we started slow and then kind of battled back in the first. The second period was awful for us, and then we adjusted and did some nice things in the third. We had some opportunities to put the game away and we didn’t finish, but I’ll give the guys credit for coming back and getting the point.”
“You can’t give a team an opportunity to get back in the hockey game and we allowed them to do that,” said Engineer head coach Dan Fridgen. “It’s something that we need to learn right now. It hasn’t been a problem, but tonight it was. You let them back in the game, and they have some life — then we took another penalty and we have to kill that off [after] we had them going on the ropes pretty good.”
The Engineers had taken the 2-1 lead in the second period when Matt Murley, returning after missing a month due to mononucleosis, found a loose puck in a scramble and put it by an outstretched Yann Danis.
“He felt real good out there and he got himself a goal,” said Fridgen. “He worked hard, his timing was off, but to get right back into it like that it shows how well he took care of himself in his time off.”
The teams had traded goals in the first period, with freshman Matt McNeely scoring his first collegiate goal with a wrist shot from the top of the circle just 1:03 into the game.
The Bears tied it later in the first when Pascal Denis found the puck in a scramble in front of Kurk and backhanded one past him.
“In the third period I thought we had them on the run, but we end up taking a penalty and they wind up scoring,” said Fridgen. “Those plays happen, and I don’t think it’s a very good time to be taking a penalty like that.
“We’ve got to get smarter.”
“I thought RPI outplayed us in the second period, but otherwise I thought it was pretty even,” said Grillo.
“I thought we dominated for the most part, and we had some opportunities where we just shot the puck wide,” said Fridgen. “We had real good scoring opportunities [that failed] instead of getting the puck in the net, maybe scrambling for a rebound or getting a garbage goal, but give Brown credit. They scored at a time when they needed to.”
“Overall, to be honest, I have a little sour taste in my mouth based on the way we played because I think we’re better than that — we’ve played better than that,” said Grillo. “The way we played, it certainly wasn’t a winnable game. Going into the game, I certainly felt like we could beat anybody.”
Brown (4-6-2, 3-4-2 ECAC) will travel to Union on Saturday while the Engineers (7-5-2, 2-2-2 ECAC) host Harvard.
