The 2023–24 Merrimack Warriors Men's ice hockey season was the 68th season of play for the program, the 35th at the Division I level, and the 35th in Hockey East. The Warriors represented Merrimack College, played their home games at the J. Thom Lawler Rink and were coached by Scott Borek, in his sixth season.
Season Coming off of its first NCAA tournament appearance in twelve years, Merrimack entered the year with some expectations for its program. Though the team had lost several depth players to graduation, the Warriors returned the top three forwards as well as both of their starting goaltender. However, just before the opening game, Alex Jefferies was injured in practice and missed the first month of the season. Without their leading scorer, the team was unable to do much offensively against Arizona State but the Warriors soon recovered and posted three solid wins to finish out October.
Once Jefferies returned in early November, the team was hoping to continue their upwards trend but the goaltending gave out. Over a six-game stretch, Merrimack lost four 1-goal games with neither netminder finding much consistency. The Warriors recovered a bit over Thanksgiving, winning two matches against weak Atlantic Hockey teams, but ended the first half of their season with three consecutive losses. Both Zachary Borgiel and Hugo Ollas were struggling to keep the puck out of the net and coach Borek had no option but to hope at least one of his goaltenders would recover their form from '23.
Merrimack was able to pick itself up after the winter break when Borgiel strung three solid games together and lifted the Warriors record back to .500. Ollas joined in to help earn a split against #13 Massachusetts in the middle of January, however, Jefferies went back on the shelf after the second match and was out of the lineup for three weeks. Merrimack lost every game that their top forward missed and when he returned the team was well and truly out of the race. Borgiel's play had also degraded to the point that the goaltending rotation was ended in mid-February with Ollas taking over for the remainder of the season. Merrimack was able to salvage what was left of their season and play even in the final few weeks but that only saved the team from finishing last in the standings.
With an abysmal record in conference, the Warriors were going to have to run through a gauntlet of strong teams if they wanted to reach the tournament once more. However, the team was unable to surmount even their first challenge. Northeastern shut down the Merrimack offense, blacking the team for the first time since the opening game and swiftly ended the Warriors' season.
Departures Will Calverley Forward Graduation (signed with Florida Everblades) Tristan Crozier Forward Graduation (signed with Tulsa Oilers) Slava Demin Defenseman Graduation (retired) Hugo Esselin Forward Graduation (retired) Filip Karlsson Tägtström Forward Signed professional contract (Tyresö/Hanviken) Ryan Leibold Forward Graduation (signed with South Carolina Stingrays) Ottoville Leppänen Forward Graduation (signed with Orlando Solar Bears) Mick Messner Forward Graduation (signed with Utah Grizzlies) Kevin Sadovski Defenseman Left program (retired) Jordan Seyfert Forward Graduation (signed with Kalamazoo Wings)
Recruiting Liam Cavan Defenseman 21 Gloucester, ON Michael Citara Forward 21 New Hope, PA; transfer from Providence Ty Daneault Forward 18 Red Deer, AB Frank Djurasevic Defenseman 21 New Rochelle, NY Brady Hunter Forward 21 Enfield, NS David Sacco Forward 21 Middleton, MA Max Wattvil Defenseman 21 Stockholm, SWE Luke Weilandt Forward 21 Northbrook, IL
Roster As of September 26, 2023.
Standings
Schedule and results
!colspan=12 style=";" | Exhibition
!colspan=12 style=";" | Regular Season
!colspan=12 style=";" |
!colspan=12 style=";" |
Scoring statistics C 30 7 25 32 48 D 33 4 24 28 30 LW 22 13 10 23 19 RW 34 13 8 21 33 F 35 7 12 19 2 F 35 5 14 19 20 LW/RW 35 5 13 18 25 RW 31 6 9 15 6 C 30 4 9 13 18 D 35 4 6 10 26 F 29 6 3 9 10 D 35 2 7 9 10 LW 30 3 5 8 24 D 26 3 4 7 4 D/F 19 2 4 6 6 F 23 3 2 5 6 F 33 2 3 5 23 F 15 4 0 4 10 D 21 1 3 4 2 D 24 2 1 3 14 D 24 1 2 3 4 RW 18 1 1 2 23 C 11 0 2 2 2 F 12 0 1 1 4 RW 12 0 1 1 25 G 1 0 0 0 0 G 16 0 0 0 2 G 22 0 0 0 2 Total 98 169 267 412
Goaltending statistics 21 1162:53 7 12 0 55 540 0 .908 2.84 17 921:36 6 9 1 50 405 0 .890 3.26 Empty Net - 25:28 - - - 9 - - - - Total 35 2109:57 13 21 1 114 945 0 .892 3.24
Rankings
PollWeekPre 1 234567891011121314151617181920212223242526 (Final) USCHO.com1415NRNRNRNRNRNRNRNRNR–NRNRNRNRNRNR NRNR NR NRNRNRNR–NR USA Hockey1213NR2020тNRNRNR NR NR NR NR–NRNRNRNRNRNRNRNR NRNRNRNRNRNR Note: USCHO did not release a poll in weeks 11 and 25.Note: USA Hockey did not release a poll in week 12.
References