"We're looking to play honest hockey," Smith said. "We hope that teams look past us, and we can sneak by them. We don't have mirrors or smoke here. We have a group of seniors here who have been through some lean years. We'd like to salvage their experiences, record-wise."

At Rensselaer, a good offense is not the bestdefense.

The skate-and-shoot Engineers finished first inECAC team offense--averaging a whopping six goalsper contest.

But RPI's porous team defense finished deadlast in the league, inviting nearly five goals pergame.

RENSSELAER

1989-90 Record: (14-8-0 ECAC, 20-14-0overall)

Coach: Buddy Powers

Captains: Joe Juneau, Bruce Coles

The Engineers goalies have already surrendered18 goals in just three games, and should continueto hear a lot of "Sieve" chants again this year.Al Kummu and Stephane Robitaille will try to dothe impossible on defense. The way they're going,the Engineers may as well play the full 60 minuteswith an empty net.

Good thing RPI can score. The Engineers mayhave given up 18 goals this season, but they'vescored 18 as well. ECAC scoring leader Joe Juneau(12-38--50) and number-four ECAC scorer andperennial annoyance Bruce Coles (18-20--38)captain a goal-thirsty squad.

"Defense is our weakness," Coach Buddy Powerssaid. "We have to check better and be moreconscious on defense. We have plenty ofexperience. We're just not executing. We've got alot of guys who can score: Gary Wohlford, KevinMazzella and Mickey LeBlanc are all capable ofscoring 15 to 20 goals."

"We should be a team that scores a lot ofgoals," Juneau added. "Each line plays hard. Butif we're not tough mentally, it will be easy forteams to beat us."

The Tigers are basically your typical averageteam. No-frills potato chips. Mike Dukakis.Three's Company.

The Tigers are good but not great on offense,defense and in the net. No glaring errors, butnothing to write home about.

Princeton returns leading scorer Andrea Faust(9--28--37)--a second-team All-ECAC forward and aneighth-round New Jersey Devils pick on 1989--butloses its next two most prolific scorers in GregPolaski and Mark Khozozian.