Miami hockey is making waves as midseason mark passes and postseason approaches

While the Miami University basketball teams are turning heads on the north side of campus at Millett Hall, RedHawks sports fans can also head to Goggin Ice Center on the south side to see the men’s hockey team take the ice. And, like those basketball teams, there has been significant tangible improvement for head coach Anthony Noreen’s group on the ice over halfway through the 2025-26 season.

With an overall record of 14-8-2 and a conference record of 5-7-2, Miami hockey fans are already seeing significant jumps from last season and even years before the first of Noreen’s tenure. The team is one conference win away from reaching its highest total since 2017-18, marking a sharp improvement after last season saw Miami win zero conference games and three total. They’ve reached national rankings twice through the first half of the season, the first time the team has been ranked since 2015.

The RedHawks’ most recent conference wins came against the University of Omaha-Nebraska Mavericks at home just before students arrived back on campus. They won the Jan. 16 matchup with a 3-0 shutout after going into the third period tied 0-0. Sophomore goaltender Matteo Drobac recorded a 19-save shutout, his third of the season. On Jan. 17, the RedHawks took a 6-2 win for a series sweep.

Before those two wins, though, the RedHawks took home an overtime victory against the Arizona State University Sun Devils on Jan. 9, a thrilling 6-5 overtime win against the St. Cloud State University Huskies at home in front of a raucous student crowd and their first conference win of the season came against Arizona State.

For the RedHawks to make the National Collegiate Hockey Conference (NCHC) playoffs in March, they will need to finish at least eighth out of the nine conference teams.

“This time of year, you want to be playing meaningful games,” Noreen said at his midweek press conference. “We’ve put ourselves in a situation where we’re playing extremely meaningful games at the best time of the year. We all know there’s nothing that compares to crunch time, playoff time in hockey, and you’ve got to take advantage of every moment.”

A handful of different scorers have led the RedHawks through the course of the season, but the first line of junior forward Matteo Giampa (19 points in 20 games), freshman forward Kocha Delic (19 points in 24 games) and freshman forward Ilia Morozov (14 points in 24 games) have been the catalysts.

Two sophomore defenders, Michael Quinn and Vladislav Lukashevich, are making their impacts offensively as well, both tallying 17 points through 24 games, tied for third in team scoring.

And in the net, Drobac has been the go-to guy since the beginning. Shika Gadzhiev, the projected starter for the RedHawks coming into the year, could not find a way to gain NCAA eligibility and went from the ECHL’s Cincinnati Cyclones to HK Nitra in Slovakia’s professional league.

Miami added Mathis Langevin from the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League (QMJHL) following Gadzhiev’s departure from the program, and he started his tenure with a 4-2 win against the Ferris State University Bulldogs, making 30 saves in the final matchup of the Great Lakes Invitational.

The RedHawks’ special teams have played a crucial role in delivering them wins since the midway mark of the season and into the final few series. Their power play, while they have found ways to strike at critical moments, has not been particularly lethal. Instead, it’s been the team’s penalty kill that has pushed them to greater heights.

“I think for the penalty kill, you can’t go to the well too many times, so that’s where it starts,” Noreen said. “You’ve got to have a good time, and we feel like [assistant coach] Leo [Mauron] has had a good plan and a good approach to the teams we’ve been going against. And then, all else fails, you’ve got to get a save, or you’ve got to block a shot, and there’s been a really good commitment to that.”

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A key piece of the penalty kill is sophomore transfer forward Nicholas Mikan, who spoke in a midweek press conference about the upcoming competition for the RedHawks as they enter their final push for the season hoping to make the postseason.

“The competition is going to be hard every single night in this league, but we’ve really amped ourselves up because we’ve put ourselves in a good position, and we want to jump up in the rankings,” Mikan said

The RedHawks, sitting with 16 points in the conference standings – one point out of last place but also four points out of fifth – have every opportunity to control their destiny. With students beginning to realize the turnaround taking place, just as they have with basketball, there’s plenty to look forward to with a few series remaining and everything on the line.

“This is a special place,” Noreen said. “When everybody’s pulling at one thing together, I think it makes you punch above a little bit, maybe, of what you’re capable of. But I know it’s something our guys feel. I know it’s something they feel from the student body here and from the other athletes and everyone. We want to represent this place and play to a standard and style that people are going to be proud of.”

@jjmid04

middleje@miamioh.edu