Takeaways from UConn men's hockey's media day

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On Tuesday, UConn men’s hockey held its annual media day at Toscano Family Ice Forum. Despite coming off the most disappointing season of the Hockey East and Mike Cavanaugh Era, the team expressed excitement and optimism for the coming season. The dark clouds from last year have lifted and hope springs eternal once again in Storrs.

Changing the vibes

Everything about UConn’s 2023-24 season was miserable. The players, coaches, fans, media — they were all miserable.

As a result, the team’s two new captains — Hudson Schandor and John Spetz — set out to change the mood around the team this offseason. As the coaching staff worked to rebuild the roster after being hit with significant departures via the transfer portal, graduation and the pros, Schandor and Spetz focused on rebuilding the culture.

“I think establishing a super consistent culture that can be continued year over year — whether us two are at the forefront or whoever the next captain and leadership group is on this team — and finding a way to really bring out consistency in this program was at the both of our minds throughout the whole summer,” Schandor said.

In particular, they wanted to strengthen the team chemistry and bring the locker room closer together — especially with 14 new players on the roster.

“The chemistry has been really good,” Schandor said. “You can ask the new guys that have come in, especially the younger kids. We have a huge freshman class coming in, it's been almost a seamless transition for them. Still have lots to learn, of course, always, as we will throughout the whole year. But for the preseason, it's as good as it could be.”

It’s not just the players, either. There’s even been a difference in the coaches.

“After last year, this staff, I can see it in their eyes again. They're super motivated and so excited to get this year going and strive for excellence once again,” Schandor revealed. “I don't think we ever lost our flair for that but I haven't seen it out of these guys [like] I have in this preseason.”

Team speed

While UConn’s goal scoring (or lack thereof) overshadowed everything last season, the team also suffered from a lack of speed across the board. When the Huskies lost the likes of Ryan Tverberg and Justin Pearson, they didn’t have any burners to take their place.

That shouldn’t be the case this season.

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“I like the team speed that we have that I've watched early on here,” Cavanaugh said. “I think we're a quicker team than we were a year ago.”

Some of that is a result of who isn’t on the roster anymore — Matthew Wood, Samu Salminen and Nick Capone weren’t exactly fleet of foot — but the freshmen deserve credit for helping UConn improve in that regard.

“Guys that are coming in these days, these kids, they can wheel,” Schandor said. “They see kids like (Connor) Bedard on the ice, they grew up with (Patrick) Kane and obviously Johnny Gaudreau, guys like that who can make plays at super high speed, and they come in making those plays.”

Not a rebuilding year?

With the exodus of talent out of the door over the offseason and a 10-player freshman class, expectations are understandably low for the Huskies. They were picked eighth in both the Hockey East media and coaches’ polls, while College Hockey Insider’s Mike McMahon projects them to finish last in the league.

The most recent time UConn brought in this many freshmen? 2018-19, a campaign in which the Huskies had a 12-20-2 record, went four months without a Hockey East win and missed the postseason by finishing ninth in the standings. While that turned into the core that eventually propelled UConn to its first national ranking and a trip to the Hockey East championship game, they struggled in the early going.

Cavanaugh doesn’t see many similarities between the two situations, though.

“It's an interesting comparison because that was a really big freshman class as well. However, I don't think we were quite where we wanted to be as a program just yet when all of those guys came in,” he said. “We still have a lot of experience back on this team, and I think some guys that are really hungry to show that they are, you know, great players in this league.”

To the coach’s point, the freshmen needed to fill practically every hole on the 2018-19 roster whereas this season, they won’t be counted on as heavily. Barring injury, UConn probably won’t use more than six freshmen in a given contest — four up top, one on defense and one in goal.

That doesn’t mean the Huskies won’t deal with their share of struggles this season, but at least they won’t feature an overly freshman-heavy lineup.

Tyler Muszelik finally healthy

Once Arsenii Sergeev left for Penn State, UConn turned to the transfer portal to find a replacement and came away with Tyler Muszelik. Though a former member of the US National Team Development Camp and a draft pick of the Florida Panthers, he struggled in his first two seasons with UNH.

As a freshman, Muszelik posted a 3.24 goals against average and .883 save percentage in 13 games, though he backstopped a bad Wildcats squad that failed to win in its first 12 Hockey East games. But when UNH took a step forward this past season, the net-minder went backwards with a 2.28 goals against average and .874 save percentage.

Despite the ugly numbers, UConn is hopeful that it can help Muszelik turn his career around — in part because they believe some of his sophomore struggles were related to a knee injury that he dealt with for most of the season.

“Before he got hurt last year, he had some big wins over BU and Quinnipiac,” Cavanaugh said.

“It was something that had to get scoped, but he tried to play through it all year long,” the coach added later.

Those problems appear to be in the past now.

“He certainly, knock on wood, looks healthy right now,” Cavanaugh said.

Stock risers

Throughout the course of Cavanaugh’s press conference, he highlighted a handful of players on the roster.

Forwards

Jake Percival: “He's going to be an important piece of our team. His energy, his compete level is always really, really high. I think he's going to take another step. He's been snake bitten a little bit. I don't know if anybody's hit more posts since I've been here than him. But he's a great defensive player, he's an excellent penalty killer, and I see him adding more offensively this year as well.”

Oliver Flynn: “Doing a nice job. He's had a really good preseason so far.”

Joey Muldowney and Ryan Tattle: “[They] have kind of picked up where they left off last year. I thought they were really strong for us down the stretch.”

Defensemen

Nick Carabin: “I think Nick Carabin, who's a grad transfer from Princeton, has been excellent.”

Tom Messineo: “Doing a great job. He's got some experience… has played pretty well this preseason.”

Viking Gustafsson Nyberg: “He's kind of had a seamless transition in here.”

Video

We’ll have a story on UConn women’s hockey later this week.