Miami hockey loses in NCHC quarterfinal but comes away with a positive outlook

After the 2024-25 season, Miami University hockey Head Coach Anthony Noreen and his staff cut ties with almost every player on the roster. The cuts and transfers (along with the eventual influx of new names) signaled a new era at Goggin Ice Center, and the team’s results in the 2025-26 season showed what is possible for the program moving forward.

The RedHawks swept their first series of the season at home against the Ferris State University Bulldogs, and fans saw many of the 21 new players in action. Canisius University transfer Matteo Giampa made his presence known, alongside Boston University transfer Doug Grimes, Michigan State University transfer Vladislav Lukashevich and others. The presence of the youngest player in college hockey, 17-year-old freshman Ilia Morozov, made waves around the rink for opening series attendees.

After that first series sweep, Miami met and surpassed its previous season win total on the road in its second series against the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Engineers. Two overtime victories on the road against the Lindenwood University Lions put the RedHawks at a 6-0-0 start. With one more non-conference series, Miami began National Collegiate Hockey Conference (NCHC) play.

Having not won a single conference game in the 2024-25 season, the RedHawks returned home against the Arizona State University Sun Devils, hoping to change their outlook in the conference standings. They faced adversity after a 4-1 loss on Friday night but hit the ice on Saturday and were powered to a 5-2 win, their first conference win in 658 days. University of Alaska-Anchorage transfer Maximilion Helgeson and Quinnipiac University transfer Ryan Smith each had a pair of goals.

The RedHawks participated in two separate non-conference tournaments through the middle of the season: The Friendship Four in late November and the Great Lakes Invitation in late December

Miami came away with the Belpot Trophy in the Friendship Four in Belfast, Northern Ireland, triumphing over the Rochester Institute of Technology and then-No. 20 Union College.

Following two NCHC series against Denver University and Colorado College, the RedHawks lost 5-2 to the Michigan Tech University Huskies in the first game of the Great Lakes Invitational.

Though they were unable to play in the championship game against Michigan State, they won their third game against Ferris State 4-2. This was the only game sophomore netminder Matteo Drobac didn’t play during the season. Noreen decided in favor of 19-year-old Mathis Langevin, who took the open goaltending roster spot when freshman Shika Gadzhiev left the program after being unable to play due to eligibility issues.

Following the tournament, Miami returned to NCHC ice and had its best stretch of the season, winning six of seven games from early January to early February, including a home overtime win against the reigning national champion Western Michigan University Broncos.

However, the RedHawks’ ship took on some water when they lost six-straight games, including the second game of the series against Western Michigan, both games at the University of North Dakota Fighting Hawks, at home against the University of Minnesota-Duluth Bulldogs and the first game on the road at the University of Omaha-Nebraska in their final series of the year.

Miami won its last game of the season at Omaha and finished the year with an 18-16-2 overall record (9-13-2 in-conference), good for the seventh seed in the NCHC tournament.

The RedHawks headed into Denver back in form. Freshman defenseman Shaun McEwen, who scored his first collegiate goal at Omaha and took on a larger role through the back-half of the regular season, spoke before the quarterfinal series at Denver about playing against a team that swept them early in the season.

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“I’m pretty excited, and I think a lot of the guys are too,” McEwen said. “We’re heading out to Denver, and we know obviously they’re a great team, but I think we have a lot of belief in that room.”

However, the excitement was short-lived, as the RedHawks' season ended in the best-of-three series with a 3-0 shutout loss and a 5-2 loss.

“We just weren’t ourselves,” Noreen said after the final game. “We didn’t have our normal leg drive and didn’t have our normal detail. I thought in the third period we got back to our game minus one bad penalty that wound up in the back of our net, as it should. We played until the last minute, the last second, and that’s what this group has done every time.”

After the season ended, there was a mix of feelings around the Miami locker room. Of course, there was disappointment, but it was hard to walk away without appreciating those who helped create the atmosphere that put the team back on the map.

“I’ll keep most of it in [the locker room], but I obviously wanted to thank our six seniors,” Noreen said. “They’re six guys that, in different ways, have all made a major impact on this program, mainly because of who they are as people, the way they interacted with the rest of the guys and the way they represented Miami.”

The RedHawks experienced their first sellout game since 2015 against St. Cloud. The increase in attendance shows the team’s improvement from last season and the level that the athletes are playing at.

“There haven’t been many programs in the history of Division I hockey overall – on the ice, off the ice, community, attendance, alumni interaction – every single thing these guys did, there’s a lot to be proud of,” Noreen said. “There’s certainly a lot of work to get it to the next level, which is what the expectation is.”

@jjmid04

middleje@miamioh.edu