Ice hockey season has returned to Amherst as the No. 15 UMass hockey team is set to open its 2025-26 season with a two-game homestand against Northern Michigan this Saturday and Sunday.
The Minutemen will be an intriguing team to watch through the early goings of the year as they lost nearly all of their impact forwards to graduation or to the professional ranks from last season. However, head coach Greg Carvel retained a majority of his defensemen and most importantly, goaltender Michael Hrabal decided to return to the UMass goal crease for the Czechia native’s third, and likely final, season in college hockey.
All that is to say that Carvel doesn’t really know what he has yet after about five weeks of evaluating his squad through preseason practices.
“Everyone has asked me how the team looks and I said I can’t answer that,” Carvel said. “When you just practice against each other, you can falsely think you’re a pretty good team, if you’re not a good team and you’re practicing against just each other. We got to play somebody else and it’s time. We’re ready to go.”
Given the upheaval throughout UMass’ forward lines, some of the six freshmen forwards have stepped into key roles right away. Two of them, Vaclav Nestrasil and Jack Galanek, will start the season on the same line, just as the pair did with the Muskegon Lumberjacks in the United States Hockey League last year.
“You can tell that they’ve played together,” Carvel said. “They’ve got a sense for each other, they communicate well on the ice, so that was an easy decision to play them together, both good young players.”
Junior transfer Matthew Wilde, who left RIT to join the Minutemen, will slot in on the wing beside Nestrasil and Galanek and Carvel revealed that unlike UMass’ other forward groups, that trio has remained together for the entirety of preseason.
Beyond that, the Minutemen forward lines won’t be known until Saturday, although Carvel mentioned junior Jack Musa and former Michigan State Spartan Mikey DeAngelo will share the same line in the series against the Wildcats.
DeAngelo will be an important player for UMass as Carvel feels he possess the exact skill-set he implores of his team.
“We like to be a fast and hard team with as much skill as possible and he’s fast,” Carvel said. “We just got to see how hard he can play. I’m not saying he can’t, I’m saying he needs to evolve that part of his game. He’s got tremendous speed, he’s got a really good skill level.
“I’m excited,” Carvel added. “I think Mikey is going to have an opportunity here at UMass that he didn’t think he was going to get at Michigan State and I think it’s going to turn out to be a wise decision for him.”
DeAngelo, Galanek and Wisconsin transfer Owen Mehlenbacher appear to have locked-up the top three center spots, with either sophomore James Duerr or freshman Elias Zimmerman in the middle on UMass’ fourth forward line.
On the backend, the Minutemen bring back experienced upperclassmen and captains Owen Murray and Lucas Olvestad, plus sophomores Larry Keenan and Francesco Dell’Elce. Although, Carvel admitted Keenan and Dell’Elce will be split up to start the season after being together for basically all of last year.
Freshman Landon Nycz will be paired with Keenan while Dell’Elce will draw Charlie Lieberman, who returns to the UMass lineup after missing the entire 2024-25 season with an injury.
“What we’re getting from him is an overly hungry hockey player who had to sit for an entire year and not play,” Carvel said on Lieberman. “He’s on a mission. He’s 6-foot-6 and he plays with an edge…he needs some lessons on the ice that you can’t get in practice.”
In net, Hrabal is the undisputed No. 1 once again for the Minutemen, but the Utah Mammoth prospect didn’t find his footing between the pipes until the second half of the season a year ago.
As Carvel often said during the tail end of last season, Hrabal will once again determine just how successful UMass will be.
In terms of the opponent, it’s difficult to gauge Northern Michigan, simply due to the amount of newcomers the team will dress.
Seven transfers and nine freshmen will skate for the Wildcats this season on a team hoping to improve upon their five total wins from 2024-25.
This will mark head coach Dave Shyiak’s second season behind Northern Michigan’s bench.
“We really like our leadership group and the experience they bring, and they’ve done a great job in building our culture over the course of the last six weeks,” Shyiak said earlier this week.”
UMass has only faced-off against the Wildcats once before in its history, losing 3-0 in 1999 at the Mariucci Classic in Minnesota.
Puck drop for Saturday’s opener is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. Sunday’s follow-up will commence at 4 p.m.