Wednesday morning, former Merrimack forward Liam Walsh announced on his social media that he is transferring to Northeastern to continue his hockey career and his education.
Walsh played three years at Merrimack, graduating with his Bachelor’s Degree in that time and playing as an assistant captain last season for the Warriors en route to scoring a career-high 27 points (10 goals) in 34 games. In the pandemic-shortened 2020-21 season, he scored 12 points (7 goals) in 17 games, so his career has been on an upward trajectory in terms of his output and development. He is a left-shot forward, standing at 6-foot 190 pounds, and he can play center or wing. He played center mostly at Merrimack last year with a 45% faceoff success rate after a 49% success rate in 2020-21. Prior to Merrimack he played for the Cedar Rapids Roughriders in the USHL where he was teammates with Aidan McDonough, and he was captain for the Roughriders in 2018-19.
With Northeastern losing the Jackson twins to the transfer portal (rumored to be headed to Arizona State), it was expected that the team would dip into the portal themselves to fill those gaps. Walsh could conceivably be seen as the replacement for either player with his versatility at either forward position, and his experience in Hockey East will prove invaluable next season.
It’s hard sometimes to predict how a transfer will play or have their scoring affected when changing leagues, similar to a new recruit coming to college hockey for the first time, but with Walsh coming from a competing Hockey East school, Husky faithful knows they are getting a proven commodity at this level. Depending on how the line chart shakes out, we could see Walsh’s game translate to any of Northeastern’s top three lines. At this point we predict he will settle in the middle six, and couple pair nicely with other players who do well in a cycle-heavy game such as Riley Hughes, Matt DeMelis or the aforementioned Aidan McDonough.
Congratulations to Liam on his commitment to transfer to Northeastern! We look forward to seeing him on the ice next season!
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As always, go Huskies!
Feature photo c/o Merrimack Athletics