Tonight, the puck drops for the second half of Hockey East play, and the start of the Hockey East Era of the Homeless Huskies journey. With it comes one last chance to look back at the final semester of Matthews Arena’s long and storied journey. One writer already gave their thoughts on the first half.
The Huskies opened the season allowing their first goal just 3:46 in against Holy Cross. They scored the next three goals to end the first period, including one on a delayed penalty and one on the power play, a welcome sign after that unit struggled in recent years, en route to a 6-4 win. Joe Connor added two goals later in the game including the eventual game winner.
The Huskies then stumbled against Army, losing 2-1 in a performance that is among the most disappointing in memory. The Black Knights, in their first week with a new coaching staff, frankly did not look like a Division 1 team that night and NU being unable to break them looked like a depressing sign of things to come. But instead of faltering the Huskies came alive, with transfer goaltender Lawton Zacher taking the Huskies on a 6 game win streak that included three shutouts, two of them over ranked teams. The Huskies beat UMass in Amherst before a gutsy 1-0 shutout of a Denver team that had just beaten Boston College. The semester peaked for NU with another shutout and a sweep against the Eagles, Northeastern’s first home and home weekend sweep of BC in school history. A homecoming weekend sweep of Stonehill capped off the run with the Huskies breaking into the top 5 of the early season NPI.
Injuries were the theme of the rest of the semester. The Huskies faced UConn next, losing a critical piece in defenseman Jo Lemay in the first period of the weekend to injury. Lemay has yet to return to the lineup. The next night, the Huskies lost Matthew Perkins, who started the season at 1C, and Zacher picked up an injury as well. The Huskies did manage a point against their canine brethren but no more, as NU led 3-0 on Saturday before eventually falling in overtime to a Joey Muldowney strike. The shorthanded Huskies and Quentin Sigurdson took 4 points from a struggling BU team the next weekend and beat Brown on senior night before welcoming Zacher back in December.
Northeastern opened the last month of Matthews with a win over UMass on December 6, with the Huskies blowing another 2-0 lead before getting the winner in overtime. The next night Jack Henry was added to the injury ledger, leaving the Huskies with just 5 healthy defensemen and only one who plays left handed, and the Huskies fell in a special nonconference matchup with the Minutemen. The closing night of Matthews Arena saw Henry unable to rejoin the lineup and the almost defenseless Huskies lead 2-0 and 3-2 before two goals in eighteen seconds from the Terriers ripped it away. After the break, NU came back with another game against Army and their fourth multi-goal lead squandered in their last 8 contests, as a 2-0 lead in West Point became a 5-2 loss.
In summary, I think it’s safe to call the semester a mixed bag. None of the pollsters expected Northeastern to compete this season despite them bringing in a mix of experienced defensemen and high scoring freshman forwards to a team that ended last season on a strong note, but inconsistency and injuries, frustrating blown leads time and time again, as well as Zacher being a mortal who could not save .980 forever, brought them back to Earth but still in a higher position than most expected.
They enter the weekend 21st in the NPI, on the outside looking in of the NCAA field, but third in Hockey East in points per game with 4 games against the top 2 teams, BC and UConn, already behind them plus 7 points compiled and a winning record across those matchups. It’s worth noting that the schedule makers were once again unkind to NU this year, with their 4 extra HEA games against current #1 UConn, current #2 BC, current #3 overall (#4 to NU on a per game basis) BU, and always difficult UMass-Amherst.
The defense injuries and lack of defense depth are really the biggest negative to point to so far and arguably an explanation for the inabilityto hold a lead. Northeastern, perplexingly, entered the season with just two left handed defensemen and both had question marks, with Lemay having a history of injuries and Dylan Finlay joining the Huskies as a transfer from Alaska-Anchorage. It’s safe to say those questions were more than valid, with Lemay going out leading to Finlay playing a Vinny Borgesi-esque quantity of minutes by necessity while not being Borgesi.
The positives for the Huskies have included basically all of the newcomers. Zacher led them in the first half from the back while defenseman Austen May started the season on fire while paired with Lemay, though he has cooled since that pairing was broken up. The extra opportunities have been good for freshman defenseman Dylan Compton, who stepped up into the defense void to score twice against UConn and has played big minutes since. Up front, Perkins scored in his NU debut and the freshmen have been as advertised, with Jacob Mathieu coming in after 75 QMJHL goals over the last two seasons, both as captain, to be a top 5 scorer in Hockey East play in his first semester of college hockey. Giacomo Martino, last season’s leading scorer in the USHL, has 13 points in his first 17 collegiate games and fellow USHL graduate Amine Hajibi follows close behind with 10 points after starting the season in the bottom six.
The newcomers have been joined by the forces you expect, with captain Borgesi leading the way playing half the game from the blue line while notching 14 points so far. Dylan Hryckowian leads the Huskies with 10 goals and 21 points as expected, as he pushes to break the 40 point barrier for the first time in his collegiate career. Joe Connor went through a bit of a cold stretch in November as he was rumored to be playing through injury but has come on strong since and is second to Hryckowian with 7 goals. Sophomore Griffin Erdman has been the breakout forward, scoring 6 points in the first half in bottom six minutes after just 3 in all of 2024-25.
Some players we would like to see more of in the second half include freshman Jack Pechar, who has had limited impact after being a top 5 scorer in the USHL last year, Tyler Fukakusa, a well regarded transfer who has done most of his damage against Atlantic Hockey and Stonehill so far, Henry, and the eventual return of both Lemay and the Lemay-May pairing on the back end.
The Huskies return to Hockey East action tonight in Burlington against the University of Vermont, followed by road games at Vermont tomorrow and UNH next Friday. They make their 2026 home debut next Sunday against UNH at Walter Brown Arena.