Good morning!
Less than five months ago the UMass hockey team lost by a goal to Western Michigan at the regional finals in Fargo, N.D., to end with a respectable 21-14-5 record. Almost a year to the day earlier, UMass lost in double overtime to Denver at the NCAA regionals in Springfield. Their record was a nearly identical 20-14-3.
“It doesn’t matter who you are, you need a little luck,” UMass coach Greg Carvel said in a recent email discussion. “Last year was the second year we were knocked out by the eventual national champion, and I believe we could’ve won both those games.”
Asked what it will take to compete for a national title this year, Carvel said, “We need our best players to hang around and not turn pro. We’d be a top team in the NCAA this year if (Cole) O’Hara, (Kenny) Connors, (Aydar) Suniev and (Dans) Locmelis were all coming back.”
All told, UMass lost eight players who accounted for 80 of the team’s 133 goals. Suniev signed with the Calgary Flames, O’Hara with the Nashville Predators, Locmelis with the Boston Bruins and Connors with the LA Kings. All four signed for about $1 million each and began playing professionally.
Suniev played one game for Calgary and went scoreless but his plus/minus was a plus-2. Locmelis had three goals and nine assists in six games for the Providence Bruins, and O’Hara had one goal in two games for the Milwaukee Admirals.
FIGHTING CASH WITH CASH
On June 6 a federal judge approved a deal between the NCAA and attorneys representing college athletes that gives coaches new leverage to keep their players. The settlement allows Division I schools to directly pay student athletes for the use of their name, image and likeness, meaning coaches can fight cash with cash.
“Revenue sharing is now a reality of college hockey,” said Carvel. “All of our players will be earning money above and beyond their athletic scholarships, but if a kid’s decision is solely based on how much money he’ll get he should go somewhere else. Our program emphasizes culture.
“It would be great,” Carvel added, “to have a major benefactor beyond the many generous donors and alumni who already help.”
SEEKING RE-ALINEMENT
Seven forwards are gone, leaving junior Jack Musa to carry the load. Musa scored 18 goals and won 66 percent of his faceoffs. The others— Daniel Jencko, Nick Van Tassell, Cam O’Neill, Michael Cameron and Bo Cosman— are muckers who combined for 13 goals.
Consequently, said Carvel, “You’ll probably see a lot of line combinations with so many new forwards.”
Among the newcomers, Jack Galenek progressed from Shattuck-St. Mary’s to the USHL’s Muskegon Lumberjacks and notched 68 points (29-39) in 74 games. Meanwhile, 23-year-old Ontario native Matthew Wilde transferred from RIT where he scored 37 goals in two seasons for the Tigers. In juniors, Wilde scored 81 goals in two seasons for the Toronto Jr. Canadians.
“Galenek was a very good forward in the USHL and we expect him to fill one of the three spots now open at center,” said Carvel. “We hope Wilde can bring the scoring touch he showed at RIT but it will be a step up for him. Hockey East is a fast, hard league.”
Carvel won’t have trouble finding a spot for 6-foot-6 Vaclav Nestrasil who was taken 25th overall by the Blackhawks in this year’s draft. The 18-year-old Prague native had seven goals and six assists in 14 playoff games this year for the Muskegon Lumberjacks.
HRABAL IS THE KEY
UMass’s only losing season in the last seven years was 2022-23 when all three goalies were backups. Enter Czech-born Michael Hrabal who was drafted in the second round by Utah, started 21 games his freshman year and 35 games last season and finished with the third most saves (1,028) and 12th-best save percentage (.924) of the 87 goalies who qualified, according to the College Hockey News.
Utah player development director Lee Stempniak told KNRS-Radio in Salt Lake City that the 20-year-old Hrabal is a fast learner: “His presence in the net is commanding but his athleticism and puck-tracking are what make him special.”
Utah starter Karel Vejmelka was 22nd in save percentage (.904) last season and backup Connor Ingram’s save percentage was an anemic .882. Consequently Hrabal could step into the crease at the Delta Center next season and bypass the AHL entirely.
Asked to compare him with any other goalie in college or the NHL, Carvel said, “I don’t have a comparable for Hrabal. I’ve never had a goalie like him before. NCAA or NHL.”
EMPHASIS ON DEFENSE
The Minutemen aren’t nearly as decimated on the blue line. “We bring back our top four,” Carvel said of Lucas Olvestad, Owen Murray, Francesco Dell’Elce and Larry Keenan, “and we have a very good young D in Landon Nycz.”
A Detroit native, the 6-foot-2, 200-pound Nycz progressed rapidly through juniors and played for the Sioux City Musketeers last season. He turns 18 on Oct. 4, the same day UMass opens at home against Northern Michigan.
Another defenseman, Charlie Lieberman, was recruited to play last season but was redshirted by a preseason injury. Lieberman’s a 6-foot-5, 230-pound Illinois native who turns 22 in January.
Springfield’s Kennedy O’Connor will push hard to keep suiting up as the extra player. O’Connor’s a stay-at-home defenseman. He’s played 56 games in three seasons but has yet to tweak the twine. Hopefully he’ll get an empty-netter and retrieve the puck to put over the fireplace.
THE HANRAHAN FACTOR
Carvel’s not sure what to expect from 20-year-old defenseman Coleson Hanrahan. According to MassLive he scored 75 goals and had 62 assists for the Longmeadow High School lacrosse team his junior year. He subsequently left lacrosse to focus on hockey, telling Brian Yauger of the Tribune Chronicle of Warren, Ohio: “UMass has been my dream school for my entire life.”
According to eliteprospects.com, Hanrahan played 83 games in two years with the Youngstown Phantoms. He scored nine goals with 24 assists but here’s the kicker— he spent more than three hours (201 minutes) in the penalty box.
“He’s tough. He’ll stick up for his teammates,” Phantoms coach Ryan Ward told Yauger. “He’s a leader. The guys want to get into the fight with him. He drags guys into it with his energy.”
Carvel concurs: “He’s a tough local kid who has the potential to work his way up our lineup. He was captain at Youngstown and that’s a strong statement about his character— a tough, tough kid. Old school. You don’t want to play against him. We’ll see if he has the size and skating ability to be effective for us. I’m betting on him.”
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Other newcomers who will need to step up include:
—Freshman forward Lukas Klecka of Bratislava, Slovakia, was teammates with former Minuteman Daniel Jencko at last year’s World Juniors.
—Six-foot-five, 205-pound Michigan native Justin Kerr was promoted to Youngstown after garnering first-team all-rookie honors in the North American Hockey League where he helped the Lone Star Brahmas win the NAHL championship.
— Michigan State transfer Mikey DeAngelo had three goals in 33 games for the Spartans after a promising 52 points in 58 games for the USHL’s Green Bay Gamblers.
—Freshman forward A.J. Lacroix skated for the Brooks Bandits whose alumni include Cale Makar.
—Junior forward Owen Mehlenbacher transferred from Wisconsin and was drafted in the seventh round by the Detroit Red Wings.
— Freshman forward Elias Zimmerman stands 6-foot-6 and weighs 216 pounds. A native of Sweden, Zimmerman spent five seasons moving up the ladder to the USHL’s Fargo Force where he had nine goals, nine assists and 66 penalty minutes in 57 games.
THE FUTURE IS NOW
Practice starts on Sept. 2 and Carvel and assistant coaches Tom Upton and Nolan Gluchowski will have less than five weeks to prepare the team for a rocket launch of a schedule that includes 18 games in the first nine weeks.
UMass is a longshot to win the national title. Penn State became the 4-to-1 favorite after the presumed top pick in the ’26 draft— Gavin McKenna — accepted a reported $700,000 offer to play for the Nittany Lions.
At this writing BU and Michigan State are 6-to-1 to win the title, Maine is 9-to-1, BC is 13-to-1 and UMass is 35-to-1.
Next year’s Frozen Four is in Las Vegas. Betting on in-state college teams is prohibited, but if you can find an out-of-state casino that offers futures betting on college hockey, it might be worth a bob or two on UMass to win its second national title. Nobody was betting on Western Michigan last year and look what happened.
Chip Ainsworth is an award-winning columnist who has penned his observations about sports for decades in the Pioneer Valley. He can be reached at chipjet715@icloud.com.