As college hockey officially moves into the offseason, it’s time to look ahead at who will be on the Northeastern hockey roster in 2025-26 for the final stretch of hockey at Historic Matthews Arena. While the Huskies have a heralded crop of freshmen coming in, including some of the top scorers in the QMJHL and USHL, as well as inevitably a few quality transfers in from other college programs, I wanted to take a look at the underclassmen who have not yet signed pro deals or entered the transfer portal and will presumably make up the bulk of the roster next year and examine their contributions in the red and black so far.
The first headline off the top should be the studs. Northeastern had an exodus of talent to the NHL, unsurprising and fully expected three years removed from the 2022 NHL draft which saw NU with an NCAA-leading and program record number of players selected by the top professional hockey league in the world. Jack Williams, Cam Lund, Jackson Dorrington, and Cameron Whitehead should all have long and prosperous pro careers. Behind them, they leave a trio who chose to return to Northeastern and should headline the team next year.
Dylan Hryckowian scored 17 goals and averaged a point per game last season, and has scored exactly a point per game in both of his seasons as a Husky, with 70 points in 70 games entering his junior year. A likely future member of the 100 point club, Ritzy has made himself a fan favorite on Huntington Ave like his brother before him and will almost certainly wear a letter next year and lead the team up front, building off his dramatic double OT winner over Merrimack in the Hockey East Tournament in March.
Vinny Borgesi is one of the top defensemen in the country and the presumptive captain of the Huskies, coming off a season where he paced the NCAA in time on ice and would have played his 100th game in college if not for injuries holding him out of action down the stretch. After a 28 point 2023-24, his scoring took a step back to 22 points last season. While Northeastern has a history of riding their top defensemen under Jerry Keefe, with the likes of Jeremy Davies, Ryan Shea, Jordan Harris, and Jayden Struble receiving the same treatment, Northeastern arguably played their best after they found more trust in their other defensemen and deployed Borgesi in a more evenly balanced top four with Jackson Dorrington, Joaquim Lemay, and Jake Boltmann. The senior defender will be a key for the Huskies and will undoubtedly excel, but having other reliable D on the roster to free him up will be critical to the team’s fortunes.
One of those reliable defenders will be the aforementioned Lemay, returning for his second and final season on St. Botolph St. A prized pickup last summer, Lemay faced injuries to open his career with the Huskies, but down the stretch showed what he brought to the table and ended the year as one of the top defensemen in the conference while also revitalizing the Northeastern power play as he got more consistent time on the unit. For my money, Lemay should have ended the year on one of all the All-Hockey East teams. 6 of his 12 points last season came after February 21st and 9 of them came in the second half, bouncing back from a disastrous Beanpot performance that saw him as a -5 in round 1 and ejected from round 2. The Huskies will need him to continue where he left off and hit the ground running in October.
Beyond the big three, the other big returner is Joe Connor. A Tampa Bay Lightning selection in last summer’s NHL draft, Connor had 17 points his freshman season, with most coming at even strength as he scored just one power play goal (and one penalty shot goal) on the season. He started out the season with his first two collegiate goals against Providence in November and finished it with another two goal game against Lowell in February and the game winner in Northeastern’s historic Hockey East tournament road upset of #1 Boston College. In-between he was inconsistent though, in part because of his frequent trips to the penalty box in the first half, while also being part of a powerplay that struggled mightily all year. Nonetheless, second year Joe Connor with experience, another offseason of training, and a bigger role is one of the biggest things to be excited for this coming fall.
The issue at hand is depth. A depth that was cited previously as a strength of this team that unfortunately failed to materialize on the scoresheet this season. As of the time of this writing, there are 13 skaters slated to return from last year’s roster. I’ve talked about 4, and have already mentioned every single returner who scored multiple goals last season. Of the other 9 skaters who are not in the transfer portal, forwards Griffin Erdman, James Fisher, Eli Sebastian, and Andy Moore all scored their first and only collegiate goal last season. Forwards Anthony Messuri and Ethan Fredericks as well as defensemen Jack Henry, Nolan Hayes, Kyle Furey are still looking for theirs. Between the 9 of them they collected 8 assists, with Moore leading the pack with 3.
This is not an indictment on those players. Erdman and Fisher were freshmen who saw limited ice time on a team that doesn’t use its fourth line very much up front, much less their extra skater. Messuri and Furey are depth players who were never expected to have their biggest impact to their team come on the scoresheet, and by all indications they are beloved in the locker room and by the coaching staff. Fredericks missed most of the season after a freak injury, and Hayes was out of action for most of the year as well. Moore is, by all accounts, a solid defensive centerman and leader, a role that all successful teams need to fill, and he made his one goal count. Henry was a freshman defenseman who spent much of the season playing on his off-hand rather this natural strong side, and then was thrust into a more demanding role when Borgesi and Lemay missed games, and he projects as a valuable piece for the Huskies for the remainder of his collegiate career.
However, what the explanations can’t fix is a numbers problem. 6 of the 8 returning forwards scored 1 or no goals last season. Of the 0-1 goal scoring group, the one with the most scoring potential based on his junior career, Ben Poitras, hit the portal. With a theoretical 26 man roster limit coming next year, depending on how the NCAA fares in the courtroom, there would be room for 14, maybe 15, players up front. As of now, half of those players can’t be expected to put the puck in the net based on collegiate results so far.
The Huskies have been a 1 to 1.5 line team in the scoring department for most of the Keefe era, and it’s simply not sustainable. In the 2025 national championship game, 20 of the 25 forwards between the two teams scored at least five goals that season, with 23 scoring at least 3. In 2024, 11 forwards for national champion Denver scored at least 5 goals, 10 of them scored 20 points, the 12th was a freshman center with 13 points, and even the extra forward options both had 6 points. Only 5 forwards on the Northeastern roster last year scored 10 points and only one other scored at least 5. 10 of the 16 forwards on roster did not score 5 points. The 13th and even 14th forward on the national champions cannot be more effective than players getting top six minutes at Northeastern. You need scoring depth to compete at a national level, as BC found out this year when their top line didn’t have remotely the same support as it did last year and flamed out in the conference and national tournaments. The current expectations being placed on the bottom six are not high enough for a program with national aspirations.
Again, this is not to say all hope is lost or that Northeastern will not score goals next season. Erdman and Fisher are players who the coaches will certainly expect to step up and become solid contributors in their second season of college ice hockey. And they have the scoring history from junior hockey to do it. The staff has been bullish on Sebastian and continued to reward him with a top six role down the stretch. Incoming freshmen Jacob Mathieu, Jack Pechar, Giacomo Martino, and Amine Hajibi will all undoubtedly be top six forwards, if not from day 1 then soon after. Dylan Compton will be looked at to bring puck movement and scoring from the back end. We will talk more about the newcomers over the summer, both the freshmen and hopefully some transfers brought in to help replace the 8 outgoing forwards as things stand. But expectations and production down the lineup need to be higher; not every team can fit the 2018 mold of Adam Gaudette, Dylan Sikura, Nolan Stevens, and Jeremy Davies playing 30 minutes a game while the rest of the team watches on.