The men's hockey team returned to the ice this past week, hoping to ignore last year's 2-14-2 conference record. Despite improving in all facets of the game and boasting a much deeper lineup, Tufts dropped its first two contests of the year to Wesleyan and Trinity, once again putting the team in an uphill battle in the NESCAC.
Still, the Jumbos are optimistic that its 2013-14 season will be different than the previous one. Tufts lost its team leader in points from the 2012-13 season, Dylan Plimmer (LA '13), but the Jumbos returned all but three players and maintained the backbone of a team that struggled late in games. Co-captains senior Cody Armstrong and junior Blake Edwards step in as the team's leaders, and if the preseason was any indication, they have taken aim at some fundamental problems.
Most of the change this preseason has been a culture change on top of the hard work," sophomore forward James Randaccio said. "We built in some new preseason and summer workouts and revamped our preseason workouts to make sure everything was up to gear this year."
At the forward position, the Jumbos are deep, mixing in freshmen with a solid core of veterans. Freshmen Matt Pugh and Conal Lynch play center for the first and second lines, respectively, a move that coach Brian Murphy hopes will spark some goal-scoring opportunities for a team that finished seventh in the NESCAC in scoring offense last year. Pugh is joined by sophomore Stewart Bell and junior Andrew White, the team's second and fourth top scorers from last year's campaign, respectively, while Lynch is surrounded by a pair of veterans in junior Tyler Voigt and senior Kyle Gallegos.
Through the first two games, however, the third line has been the strongest unit. Sophomores Luke Griffin and Keith Campbell have quickly developed chemistry with junior George Pantazopoulos, who is the team's leading goal-scorer after netting a goal in each of the first two games.
The fourth line has also proven to be a perfect grind-it-out unit that combines hard-nosed play with a cohesive offensive approach. Randaccio and senior forward Tim Mitropoulous complement each other in size and style, while a rotating duo of freshmen Mike Leary and Patrick Lackey, two physical young forwards, will take turns on the wing.
"We have three great forward lines and a fourth line that really shows our depth," senior defenseman Brandon Fruchter said of his teammates. "That is what makes us a really strong team this year."
Fruchter is one of the Jumbos' six defensemen who are looking to turn around last year's unit, which allowed the most goals in the NESCAC. He is paired with sophomore Aidan Hartigan, and together they are perhaps the two most traditional defensemen on the team.
The duo of junior Shawn Power and freshman Sean Kavanagh, two of the team's biggest skaters, gives the team much-needed size and physicality. The most impressive defensive pairing so far, however, has been junior Blake Edwards and sophomore Brian Ouellette, who have shown the chemistry and puck-handling prowess to be two of the best offensive defensemen in the NESCAC.
While all six defensemen are as skilled as their counterparts throughout the conference, the success of the defense will depend on more than just individual players.
"Our top six has done really well in practice," Randaccio said. "We have the tools
