EAST MEADOW, N.Y. — Head coach
Brett Riley scheduled aggressively in his third season at the helm of the young LIU men's ice hockey program.
The Sharks open their season at No. 9 Northeastern on Saturday night, then play at No. 7 Quinnipiac the following weekend.
"We won't shy away from anyone," said Riley, who has led the Sharks since the program's inception. "As an independent program, in order to grow and build, we need to play high-level competition. Ultimately that's what the guys who come here want to do. That's a major recruiting sell for us. These are great measuring sticks early in the year."
LIU has six straight road games to open the season — with additional stops at Stonehill, RPI and Michigan State — before the home opener on Oct. 28 against Nebraska-Omaha.
In all, the Sharks will host 20 games at Northwell Health Ice Center, with visitors including Northeastern, UConn, Quinnipiac, Ohio State and Brown.
Billy Jerry, LIU's leading scorer from 2021-22, is now playing professional hockey, and participated in the New Jersey Devils' rookie camp this month.
Still, Riley likes the group of scorers he expects will step up in Jerry's absence, while acknowledging the uncertainty of a roster that has a high percentage of student-athletes entering their first season with the program.
"That's certainly a nerve-wracking part of this, going in the year with two-thirds of your roster entirely new," Riley said. "But it's also an exciting part of it when new guys have an opportunity to step up. That is the unknown. But we have guys who I think can make a big jump from Year 2 to Year 3, or who were with us last year as freshmen, including
Isaiah Fox,
Jack Quinn and
Nolan Welsh — the last two have been with us since Day 1 of this program.
"We've also brought in players with experience.
Santeri Hartikainen is a guy who had 15 points his sophomore year at Robert Morris and had his season cut short last year at AIC.
Anthony Vincent had 20 points his freshman year at Holy Cross. And
Adam Goodsir is a four-year player coming from Michigan State."
The faceoff for the season opener against Northeastern at Matthews Arena is 7:30 p.m. on Saturday. The game will be streamed on ESPN+.
"To play two top-10 programs in our first two weeks of competition will be really exciting for us," Riley said. "We go into Year 3 with a nothing-to-lose mentality — a little bit of house money, if you will. At the same time, going into Year 3, there's no more of the happy-to-be-here mentality.
"We expect to compete. And when we leave the rink — and I think we did that at some points last year — the goal is not only to win, but to gain respect of the college hockey community and make a splash to the best of our ability."
