From The Statesman
By Anthony DiCocco
After reaching a near-program low last season, the Stony Brook hockey team will look for its revamped roster to right the ship and start off its “new era” on the right foot in 2024-25.
During the 2023-2024 season, the Seawolves hit rock bottom. Following a season during which it failed to make the American Collegiate Hockey Association (ACHA) National Tournament for just the second time in program history, Stony Brook went 7-17-4 overall and 5-5-2 in Eastern States Collegiate Hockey League (ESCHL) play en route to one of its worst seasons ever.
Despite their struggles in the regular season and missing the ACHA National Tournament for a second straight season, the Seawolves’ .500 record in conference games allowed them to sneak into the ESCHL playoffs as the league’s sixth and final seed. However, their new lease on life came to a screeching halt when they were narrowly bounced from the first round by third-seeded Rhode Island.
Now entering its final ESCHL season before making the move to the brand new Atlantic Coast Conference Hockey League in 2025-26, Stony Brook is hoping to get the train back on the tracks in order to go out with a bang.
“We were all pissed off about how last year went,” forward James Kozicki said in an interview with The Statesman. “Not a single one of us was happy about that and we’re coming for it all this season. Our goal is the ESCHL championship and a national championship at the end of the day and if that doesn’t happen, the season’s a failure.”
To aid the Seawolves in their chase for their first national title and sixth ESCHL championship, head coach Chris Garofalo recruited over a dozen new players made up of both transfer students and freshmen for the new campaign. Though they have yet to play a game together, he has high hopes for the group and strongly believes that the new additions can help address a plethora of issues that plagued the team last season.
“Skill wise, I think this group is one of the best we brought in as far as recruiting in one shot,” Garofalo said. “Now I have the culture combination with it so I feel even stronger that this is one of the best teams we’ve had in a while.”
Starting off with the blue line, defensemen Colin Wenrich and Kiernan Gately may be Stony Brook’s biggest additions, as they can provide an immediate impact for a team that allowed 3.96 goals per game last season. The duo is already penciled in to be the team’s top defensive pair and Garofalo compared them to former defensemen Dominick Molfetto and Brendan Pepe, respectively.
In Gately’s case, he is coming off a major injury. The freshman has been out of action since February 2023 due to a deep laceration in his quad that required surgery, as he tore his quad, tendon and ligament. Prior to his injury, Gately — a physical, two-way defenseman — was an NCAA Division I commit at St. Lawrence.
“The injury was pretty intense,” Gately said. “I had a few hundred stitches internally and the skate went pretty deep, so it was a four or five hour knee construction surgery. I think it’s a good thing though since I was able to come back from it and fight through things.”
Wenrich is another two-way defenseman that can help with the Seawolves’ breakout game. Over the past five seasons, Wenrich has played with the Boston Junior Bruins in the National Collegiate Development Conference (NCDC), where he notched five goals and 10 assists through his final 80 games.
Behind the top pair, defensemen Andrew Mancini and Owen Larson have played together for most of training camp. Now that he is fully recovered from a fractured skull that he suffered last season, Mancini will be looking to build off a campaign that saw him score four goals and rack up six assists over 24 games played. However, he will carry extra responsibility in his final year with the team, as he was named Stony Brook’s captain following the departure of last season’s co-captains — forwards Devin Pepe and Nick Zarrilli.
“It’s obviously a huge honor,” Mancini said. “Being the assistant captain for the past two years, I’ve tried to build the mold for myself as a natural leader. It’s definitely a phenomenal feeling to have that label, but my biggest preach is that everyone needs to be a leader in our locker room to win a national championship.”
As an offensive-minded defenseman, Larson will look to improve on the two goals and 13 points that he posted as a rookie last season. Rounding out the Seawolves’ back end will likely be a combination of returning defensemen in Nolan Towne, Joe Trazzera and Dylan Kowalsky. Defensemen Ted Valenti, Brendan Fess, Anthony Marra and Jackson Haskins will also provide depth.
In the crease, Stony Brook’s last line of defense will feature a fairly different look. After three years of serving as the team’s starting netminder, goaltender Matvei Kazakov is back with the squad this season in a new role — the Seawolves’ goalie coach. With Kazakov’s time as a player now up, the net will likely belong to goaltender Scott Barnikow.
Despite beginning last season as Kazakov’s backup, Barnikow worked himself into a timeshare in the net with his counterpart before slowly taking over the starting job at some points and earning the team’s Most Improved Player award. With an increased workload in 2023-24, the senior posted a .903 save percentage and 3.63 goals against average in 26 games.
“I’m excited to take the reins,” Barnikow said. “This is something that I’ve wanted for years. I love playing in games, I love fighting with the guys next to me. Being that veteran player, it’s going to be even more fun being able to teach these younger guys and leave them with a legacy that I can be proud of.”
As for Barnikow’s backup, goaltenders Heath Goldsmith, Steven Reganato and Garrett Simpson are all in the mix for playing time. During Goldsmith’s lone collegiate start last season, he turned aside 30 of the 33 shots he faced for a .909 save percentage against the New York University (NYU) Violets.
Reganato spent last year with the New Jersey Rockets of the United States Premier Hockey League (USPHL), posting a .894 save percentage and 3.94 goals against average through 21 games. Like Wenrich, Simpson also spent time with the Junior Bruins while recording a 3.10 goals against average and sparkling .917 save percentage.
Perhaps the most drastic changes that the Seawolves made during this offseason was to their forward group, which averaged just 2.93 goals per contest in 2023-24. Along with losing Pepe and Zarrilli, Stony Brook also lost lineup staples in forwards Jesse Edwards, Frank Anastasio, Matteo Daita, Kyle DePalma, Victor Nikiforov and Matt Minerva. In particular, Minerva is a big loss, as he led the team in both goals (15) and points (26) last year.
Leading the charge on the first line is expected to be a trio of returnees. Kozicki is set to center the Seawolves’ top line with forwards Grant Ermellini and Justin Nakagawa flanking him on left and right wing, respectively. During his breakout campaign that earned him the team’s Most Valuable Player (MVP) award, Kozicki accumulated five goals and the joint-fourth most assists (10) on the squad through 21 games played.
“Last year, I came in and wanted to make a name for myself,” Kozicki said. “I put my head down and went to work that offseason to make sure I came into camp in the best shape possible and I feel like I set myself up for success. It was a great feeling winning the MVP, but we didn’t have great success as a team, so I’m just focused on winning this year.”
Similar to Kozicki, Nakagawa also paid immediate dividends during a breakout season last year. During his Rookie of the Year campaign, Nakagawa led Stony Brook with 12 assists and finished second on the squad with 19 points despite enduring a second-half slump.
“At the end of the day, I’m here to make an impact on or off the scoresheet,” Nakagawa said. “That stretch was rough. I wasn’t getting any points whatsoever, but I was playing my game and playing it right. Everyone still had trust in me to be a top guy that they can try to rely on. Over the summer, I worked on trying to be a better player on the ice and in terms of fitness so for this season, I just have to do my job and see how it works out.”
On the other side, Ermellini will look to make his mark after shoulder surgery prematurely ended his rookie season. Prior to the season-ending surgery, Ermellini buried five goals and added a helper in just 12 games played.
Forward William Kormanik will likely be down the middle on line two with some mix of forwards Kristian Malec, Paul DeSaro, Alex Scimeca and Nick Newman on his wings. Kormanik has potential to make a huge impact for Stony Brook, as he endured an injury-riddled campaign last season. Despite playing in just seven games due to a hand and shoulder injury, he tallied four goals and added three assists.
Though he got off to a slow start that saw him in and out of the lineup, Malec was the Seawolves’ hottest player down the stretch. After failing to register a point through his first eight games of the 2023-24 season, Malec closed out the year by netting six goals and 11 points over his final 11 games.
“Malec looks great,” Garofalo said. “He’s been on fire in practice, he’s been going. We’re really excited about him.”
Newman is a transfer from Fredonia — an NCAA Division III program. There, he scored two goals and collected a pair of assists in 13 games last season.
Unlike Newman, DeSaro and Scimeca are NCDC additions. DeSaro — who Garofalo and a number of players pinpointed as having an elite shot — split time between the Jersey Hitmen and New Jersey Rockets last year, accumulating eight goals and 12 points over 36 total games. Continuing that trend, Scimeca played minutes for both the Hitmen and Junior Bruins last season, totaling 10 goals and 19 points across 33 games.
With the large influx of new talent, the other five spots up front are all up for grabs. Forwards Thomas Liebold, Edward Molfetto, Michael Rocco and Lucas Puccia, along with new forwards Jake Gusavitch, Cooper Smith and Nate LeGrette, are all vying for spots. LeGrette drew heavy praise from Nakagawa, who labeled him as a “literal workhorse,” while Mancini praised Gusavitch’s high hockey IQ.
Through 41 games with the USPHL’s Rockets last year, Gusavitch netted 25 goals and 42 points. LeGrette lit the lamp seven times and tallied 14 points in 45 games with the Eastern Hockey League’s New England Wolves last season, while Smith buried 20 goals and played at a point-per-game pace in 43 games for the Connecticut RoughRiders.
Similar to the high praise that Gately, DeSaro and Scimeca received from Garofalo and multiple players, Smith is a favorite to potentially break out, as well.
“I feel like [Smith] is going to have the same path as I did last year,” Nakagawa said. “We both have similar builds and I’ve been trying to tutor him on what he can do better. We’re both similar playmakers with a small frame and we’re trying to make an impact.”
Playing in the bottom six for most of last season, Liebold scored a goal and notched two assists while serving as a depth player and penalty killer. Molfetto registered a goal and two helpers last season, while Rocco tallied two assists. Puccia played in just one game but scored 17 goals and 26 points in 18 games with Stony Brook’s Division II team.
Forward Kyle Nestepny is also back after notching six goals and 12 points with the team from 2021-23. Forwards Hudson DiNapoli and Joey Lomtevas will round out the squad’s forward depth.
DiNapoli — a rookie — cashed in three goals and four assists last season while playing for the Wolves and the EHL’s New York Apple Core. Last year, Lomtevas deposited three goals and five assists across 26 games with the NCDC’s Connecticut Junior Rangers.
The Seawolves are hoping their newfound forward depth will improve their power play, which has struggled over the past two seasons. Last year, the team operated at a 17.2% clip (20-for-116), prompting for a system change along with the new personnel. However, Garofalo is keeping his game plan close to the vest.
On the opposite side of special teams, Stony Brook will look for its penalty kill to remain a strength, as the unit successfully killed off 82.1% (106-of-128) of the power plays it faced last season. Despite losing key penalty killers like Pepe, Edwards and Zarrilli, Garofalo and the Seawolves are confident that they will be up to the task of replacing them as long as they keep their structure.
Along with the on-ice additions to the team, Andrew Veglucci — who served as an assistant coach at Long Island University last season — is returning to the program as an associate coach for the new season, making for an impactful off-ice move.
“Bringing back Andrew Veglucci behind the bench is truly one of the most tremendous things we did,” Mancini said. “His attention to detail is immaculate. The guys love and appreciate that and it’s an honor to play under him. The insight that he’s provided has helped change our culture.”
Stony Brook will debut its new-look roster and “new era” this weekend, when it takes on NYU — an ESCHL rival — in a home-and-home series. The Seawolves’ home opener at The Rinx in Hauppauge, N.Y. is set for Friday at 7:30 p.m. On Saturday, the two-game set will conclude with a 9 p.m. puck drop at the Chelsea Piers Sky Rink in New York City. Neither game will count towards the ESCHL standings, as the Violets remain on probation for violating the ACHA’s scheduling rules.
Kevin Broderick, Kiera Cassar, Tommy Pardo and Aidan Steng also contributed reporting.
(Originally published at https://sbstatesman.com/129077/sports/new-era-stony-brook-hockey-hopes-to-spark-program-turnaround-in-2024-25/)
