Preview: Miami hockey opens 2026-27 season on the road at Northern Michigan University

The Miami University RedHawks hockey team is coming off its best season since 2014-15, and for the first time in a long time, there’s an air of expectation.

Head Coach Anthony Noreen’s squad finished seventh in the National Collegiate Hockey Conference (NCHC) last year, but fell in the quarterfinal of the conference tournament to No. 2 Denver University. The Pioneers would end up winning not just the conference playoff, but the NCAA Frozen Four championship. 

Despite the postseason loss, Miami hockey fans took pride in a season for the first time in a long time. The team fell to the eventual national champions, won a championship at the Friendship Four in Belfast, Northern Ireland (the first piece of hardware for Miami in the Noreen era) and finished with a record above .500 for the first time in over a decade. It was clearly a step in the right direction.

But it still wasn’t good enough. 

Now, the Miami hockey program looks to take another step forward as the 2026-27 season begins against the Northern Michigan University Wildcats.

The last time the RedHawks and Wildcats squared off was the 2012-13 season in early January. On Friday, Jan. 11, Miami lost a tightly contested 2-1 game, but came back Saturday and won in a shootout following a 3-3 score in regulation.

However, the historical record for Miami against Northern Michigan is not favorable. The RedHawks are 21-35-5 all-time against its upcoming Central Collegiate Hockey Association (CCHA) opponent, with an away record of 7-22-2. 

But the focus for the RedHawks isn’t on the past. Instead, it’s in the present. 

With 16 returners, the largest number of any team Noreen has coached at any level in his career, and 11 newcomers, nine of which are freshmen, the RedHawks are excited to finally be out of preseason training and hitting players in different colors.

“Camp is long at this level,” Noreen said. “The offseason is long at this level. We love the commitment and extra time that guys put in, but you feel like it starts getting to that time in camp where it’s time to go against somebody else. And we’re going (against) a team probably a lot like us a year ago with a bunch of newcomers. It’s a storied program with a good and experienced coaching staff that’s going to be hungry to prove what they are and what they built. So it’s going to be a good challenge going up there.”

The series will have a handful of players to watch as the new season gets underway.

A player who stuck around for the Wildcats under third-year Head Coach Dave Shyiak is sophomore goaltender Oliver Auyeung-Ashton. 

The 5-foot-10, 21-year-old from Coquitlam, British Columbia, Canada returns to the blue paint having posted an impressive 2.67 goals-against average (GAA) and .930 save percentage last season. He was also a finalist for CCHA Rookie of the Year and earned a spot on the Mike Richter Award watchlist – an award given annually to the best goalie in all of college hockey. Lastly, he was the Wildcats Hobey Baker Award nominee, the award given annually to the best player in college hockey. 

Suffice to say, Auyeung-Ashton’s 2-13-1 record last season wasn’t for a lack of stopping pucks. Entering the 2026-27 season, he was selected to the media’s All-Preseason CCHA team.

“I would say those are better than solid numbers,” Noreen said. “Those are top-of-the-country numbers. And that’s going to give you a chance every night, which is why we know they’re going to be competitive. Dave Shyiak’s got a lot of history in this league working at St. Cloud and Western Michigan with some great staffs, and moving to an area he’s got a lot of pride in. It’s their home opening weekend, they’ve got a lot of change and they’re going to be looking to establish themselves.” 

The Wildcats will be without their top goal scorer from last season, Caidan Gault, who graduated and is now with the ECHL’s Greenville Swamp Rabbits. Northern Michigan also lost eight players to the transfer portal over the offseason, on top of those without any remaining eligibility, so there were plenty of holes to fill.

In contrast, nine of the top 12 scorers on the RedHawks last season will be back in red and white jerseys this season, including the top line of sophomore Kocha Delic, senior Matteo Giampa and sophomore Ilia Morozov down the middle. 

Delic and Giampa were the top two scorers for the RedHawks with 25 and 24 points in 36 and 29 games, respectively. Morozov, the youngest player in college hockey last season and fresh off being drafted by the Buffalo Sabres this summer, finished last year with 20 points in 36 games. 

Sophomore David Deputy was the highest goal scorer for Miami last season and looks to continue that through 2026-27. His 15 goals in 31 games was not just the best in Oxford, but it was tied for 12th-highest in all of the NCHC. 

Junior defenseman and transfer from Michigan State University, Vladislav Lukashevich, led the RedHawks in assists last season with 19 in 33 games, but the other biggest story was in net with junior goaltender Matteo Drobac.

Drobac came to Oxford after playing in Canada’s USports league with the University of Western Ontario, and he made a statement in his first season. The 6-foot-2 netminder started all but one game and finished with a 2.69 GAA and .913 save percentage. He was a finalist for the NCHC’s Goaltender of the Year Award, losing out to Jan Špunar from the University of North Dakota Fighting Hawks. 

Drobac comes into the 2026-27 season with more experience, but he also returns with a new face in the goalie trio: Freshman Yegor Yegorov.

A sixth-round selection by the Calgary Flames in the 2023 NHL Draft, Yegorov will be playing his first games in the United States this season. Last year, he played in Russia’s junior hockey league, the MHL, and posted a 2.97 GAA with a .918 save percentage.

How Noreen and his staff will deploy the three goalies this season is yet to be determined, especially considering how strong the third man, sophomore Benji Motew, has been during practices. But for Drobac, it’s just good to be around the rink again.

“When you’ve been (in Oxford) for 10 months in a row doing school and everything, it’s nice to get a little breather and be home with the family,” Drobac said. “But a little bit into it, I was missing being at the gym and the rink with the guys every day. I’m really happy to be back. There’s no place like being here every day.”

The upcoming series will not only give the coaching staff and fans a first look at how the new skaters are adapting to the tactics put in place, but it will also provide a glance at who is leading the battle in net. 

The goalie competition, according to Drobac, has been stiff, and all three want to get games under their belt. But in the end, just to be in a game atmosphere in general against Northern Michigan is an exciting moment and perfect launching point.

“Obviously, they’ve got a good team over there,” Drobac said. “It’s going to be interesting with our first game of the season. Everyone’s still learning the systems, and it’s going to be our first real go at implementing it with the new players. So it will be good for us to get some real game time under our belt with our full team together now. It will be tough. It’s in their barn, so we’ve got to be ready as a group.”

The quicker the new players acclimate, the better it will be for the RedHawks. While the Wildcats may have been voted to finish last in the CCHA Media Preseason poll, they’re not a team coached to go down without a fight. 

However, that’s why the culture around the inhabitants of Goggin Ice Center’s locker stalls and second floor offices is so important, and that’s what the players need to fall back on when times get tough.

“Our guys are going to find out pretty quick, (those) that haven’t played a Division I college hockey game, why we practice and workout the way we do … because every detail matters,” Noreen said. “It’s going to be a hostile environment in a home opener. It’s going to be challenging, and that’s why you love college sports.”

The RedHawks and Wildcats square off for opening night at 7:07 p.m. ET on Friday, Oct. 2 at the Berry Events Center. Puck drop is set for 6:07 p.m. ET on Saturday, Oct. 3.