The Massachusetts hockey team’s season kicks off on Saturday, Oct. 5 against Bentley on the road. With a new season on the horizon, what will the new Minutemen team look like?
UMass has a new captains group, headed by graduate Linden Alger with seniors Ryan Lautenbach and Lucas Mercuri grabbing the “A.” The new group of leadership will be a huge boost to the Minutemen. The three captains have been a part of UMass since their freshmen years and have proven themselves as leaders during that time.
Alger, Lautenbach and Mercuri have been under big leadership for the Minutemen, including Bobby Trivigno, Ryan Ufko and Aaron Bohlinger. With the examples the past captains have given to the three, this year’s captains will be a large part of the success UMass can have this season.
While the Minutemen lost key pieces to their lineup, including Scott Morrow, Ufko and Bohlinger, they make up for it in the players they added through the freshmen class and transfer portal adds.
Transfers Joey Musa and Lucas Olvestad will add experience to a UMass lineup with a team that is dominated by underclassmen.
Despite the Minutemen being a young team, the freshmen coming in have opportunities to be immediate impact players. Players like Larry Keenan, Charlie Lieberman and Daniel Jencko will be impressive for UMass in the backend.
Head coach Greg Carvel doesn’t shy away from pairing freshmen defensemen together, and a pairing like Keenan and Francesco Dell’Elce could be dangerous as the season goes along. With junior Owen Murray and Alger being the only consistent returners for UMass on defense, players like Keenan and Dell’Elce may be relied on much more.
With the mix of returners and new additions, the Minutemen will be in a perfect spot to be in the top or middle of Hockey East rankings. During the 2023-24 season, UMass was a tough team to play against, and that will not change this year.
For goaltenders, sophomore Michael Hrabal is the clear first string with the performance he put up in net as a freshman. While the goaltender’s last game didn’t end how he’d wanted, letting a goal past in overtime to fall to Denver in the NCAA tournament, it shows how stellar of a goaltender he is. In 92:25 minutes in net, he blocked away 41 goals, putting up a .952 save percentage.
Sophomore Jackson Irving and freshman James Norton will be solid backups for Hrabal when they are needed. It wouldn’t be shocking to see the three goaltenders split time in net during the exhibition game against RPI.
The forward group won’t be changing much for the Minutemen with just a few new adds to offense. Mercuri and Lautenbach will likely be a large part of that forward group, and they should be.
Both the junior and sophomore class of forwards have a shot to grow this season and be a big part of the Minutemen offense. For the juniors, Kenny Connors and Cole O’Hara are primed to grow into their roles in the lineup. Dans Locmelis, Jack Musa and Aydar Suniev can also be difference makers for UMass right away in their sophomore seasons.
Last season it wasn’t rare for the Minutemen to score many goals, and their offense this year has a shot to be the same way.
With all the tools put together with the forward group, defense, goaltending and leadership, Carvel has a chance to put together a good season.
While UMass never looks at any matchup as an easy one, the first week of the season will be a great glance into what the Minutemen will look like. Bentley isn’t exactly a tough team, going 16-17-2 last season. An exhibition game against RPI the next day will be perfect to make adjustments and also allow Carvel to play around with the lineup.
The first few weeks of the season may be an adjustment period for the new faces, but I have no doubt that as the season goes along, college hockey teams will find UMass a hard team to play.
Kayla Gregoire can be reached at [email protected] and followed on Twitter @Kaygregoire.
