After the Massachusetts hockey team’s NCAA tournament appearance last season, a lot of big pieces were lost. Ten players, including the likes of Cole O’Hara, Aydar Suniev and Dans Locmelis, left a big hole to fill for this season’s team. Head coach Greg Carvel has gone to the transfer portal and brought in a big freshman class to try to keep his team a high-caliber competitor.
Matthew Wilde, Mikey DeAngelo and Owen Mehlenbacher are the three transfers, with the latter two brought in to bolster the center position after losing the three top centers from last season.
Wilde is a natural goal-scorer coming in from RIT, where he scored 37 goals in his first two seasons in the NCAA. Those 37 goals will lead the Minutemen in career goals as he makes the jump to Hockey East from Atlantic Hockey America, where he was a forward of the year finalist and a Hobey Baker nominee last year.
“[Wilde] has great size and a great offensive skill set,” Carvel said. “As his game continues to develop, he should become a very effective power forward in Hockey East, a player that can score around the net or from a distance with his excellent shooting ability.”
Mehlenbacher and DeAngelo were third and fourth-line centers at Wisconsin and Michigan State, respectively. As a freshman last year for the Spartans, DeAngelo put up 11 points through six goals and five assists in 34 games played on their fourth line. Throughout his career, DeAngelo has been a pass-first playmaker with a strong hockey IQ. Mehlenbacher is a junior transfer with five NCAA goals and will bring experience to a very young forward group that doesn’t have a single senior on the roster. The two former Big 10 centers will be getting more playing time than they have in the past and will be important pieces for UMass.
Carvel added eight new freshman forwards; some may not see regular time on the ice, but two that will most likely fill right into the first few lines are Jack Galanek and Vaclav Nestrasil. The two played together as teammates for the Muskegon Lumberjacks of the United States Hockey League and were part of a playoff run to win their team its first Clark Cup.
Galanek, an assistant captain for Muskegon, is a Massachusetts native from Hopkinton. He is a smart, skilled forward who can play at center or on the wing with a strong quick release shot. The 19-year-old has been productive for two years in the USHL, but took a step up last year, finishing the season with a stat line of 22-28-50 in 60 games played through the regular season, ranking 25th in points in the entire USHL.
“[Galanek] is a very smart and skilled forward from Massachusetts who plays the game the right way and can play in all situations,” Carvel said.
Nestrasil is a big-bodied power forward who comes in at 6-foot-6. He’s not afraid to get gritty in front of the net, but that’s not his only skill set. He is a very talented playmaker who likes to create space for his teammates in scoring opportunities. The Czechia native was drafted by the Chicago Blackhawks in the first round, 25th overall, at the 2025 NHL entry draft this past June. Nestrasil scored 19 goals and recorded 23 assists in the regular season for the Lumberjacks and found the back of the net seven times during the playoffs in just 14 games.
“[Nestrasil] is a right-shot forward that can play both center and wing. He possesses an elite skill set at his size, has great vision, and makes great plays with the puck,” Carvel said.
Don’t be surprised if Carvel chooses to play the teammates on the same line for the Minutemen. He’s done that before, including with sophomore defensemen Francesco Dell’Elce and Larry Keenan, who played together for the Penticton Vees and were paired together at UMass.
Other freshmen include Lukas Klecka, a right winger who has spent his last three seasons in the J20 Nationell, the top under-20 feeder league for the top two leagues in Sweden. He’s scored 30 goals in 134 games in the league. Klecka played with his fellow Minuteman and Slovakian countryman, sophomore Daniel Jencko, in the 2025 U20 World Junior Championships.
Elias Zimmerman has also played in the J20 Nationell before, where he had 21 goals in 64 games. Most recently, the 6-foot-6 center played in the USHL for the Fargo Force and had nine goals and nine assists in 57 games played.
A.J. Lacroix, another center, has played a combination of USHL and British Columbia Hockey League seasons for the past few years. Last season in the BCHL for the Brooks Bandits, he had a stat line of 11-17-28 in 44 games played. The year before, he recorded 15 goals and 15 assists in 61 games with the USHL for the Tri-City Storm.
The final freshman forward is Justin Kerr, another tall presence at 6-foot-5. The 21-year-old is the oldest of the freshman group. He scored six goals in the USHL last year for the Youngstown Phantoms, bringing added size and maturity to the lineup.
The defensive group for UMass hasn’t seen nearly the amount of turnover that the forwards have, with 5 starters on the back end returning. Landon Nycz and Coleson Hanrahan are the two freshmen who are competing with redshirt returner Charlie Lieberman for that sixth spot in the pairings.
Both defensemen had very similar season statistics in the USHL last year. Hanrahan contributed 26 points through seven goals and 20 assists for the Youngstown Phantoms, and Nycz finished with 27 points on eight goals and 19 assists, split between the Waterloo Black Hawks and the Sioux City Musketeers. Hanrahan has proven himself to be a leader, exemplified by winning the USHL Curt Hammer Award last season. Nycz, meanwhile, at just 17, will be the youngest on the team and is already expected to be an early prospect for the 2026 NHL entry draft.
UMass will get its first look at the retooled roster when the Minutemen face Northern Michigan on Oct. 4 and Oct. 5 at 7:30 p.m. and 4 p.m., respectively.
Myles Donato can be reached at [email protected] and followed on X @myles_donato.
