New look Adrian College men's hockey keeps rolling

ADRIAN — Friday was nearly a bittersweet night for the Adrian College men's hockey team.

The top-ranked Bulldogs opened the season by celebrating last season one last time, raising their 2021-22 NCAA Division III national championship banner.

Then the 2022-23 season began.

The Bulldogs hosted No. 3 Utica and found themselves trailing 3-1 deep into the second period.

"There was a little bit of pressure," said senior forward Matus Spodniak. "A lot of people were probably expecting us to be perfect right away. It was just the first game."

Adrian battled back to force overtime and won, 4-3.

The next day looked more like the 21-22 Bulldogs as they beat Utica 8-3, including a 1-minute stretch in the third period where they scored three times.

Head coach Adam Krug wasn't overly thrilled with what he'd seen leading into Friday's season-opener, but he's hopeful the team began to form an identity of its own late in Friday's game and into Saturday's blowout.

"It's very different (from last year)," Krug said. "We're going to rely on quite a few freshmen. Last year we had two in Matt Couto and Matt Pitoscia. We weren't relying on a lot of them, but this year we need to. We had a pretty big senior class last year and lost guys who played every night."

Captain Matt Eller, goalie Cameron Gray, Zach Goberis, Andrew McCann, Rex Moe and Trevor Coykendall aren't coming out of the locker room this season.

With Gray gone, the Bulldogs have two goalies who have experience in net with Nic Tallarico and Dershaun Stewart.

Both got a start with Tallarico getting the opener and making 21 saves while Stewart got Game 2 and made 31 stops in his win.

"If a guy goes out there and really plays well and we want to go back to them we will," Krug said. "We've discussed that with the goalies that it's going to be a little bit of trial by fire at first. If we do go all year interchanging the two and go out and win another national championship that way, we're fine with that. It's a team game."

While there is a lot of change among the skaters in front of the goalies, there is plenty of firepower still on the ice.

Sam Ruffin returned for another year of eligibility and is the team captain, points leader Alessio Luciani is back, although he was out last weekend with an injury.

In fact, all four of Adrian's top point getters in Ruffin, Luciani, Spodniak and Ty Enns. Eight of the Bulldogs' top 10 are back with Pitoscia, Hunter Wendt, Jaden Shields and Zachary Heintz also back on the ice.

Spodniak in particular got off to a great start to the new season with five goals on the weekend, including a hat trick Saturday, and added an assist to give him six points already on the year.

"The guy is a machine," Krug said. "He plays at such an elite pace and plays so hard. He can fire it, he can shoot it, there are times he can drive up the ice with the puck in his hands and he can put everything in the net including bodies if he has to. He's a goal scorer through and through. We might see some record type numbers out of him."

Making Spodniak's performance this past weekend more special was how he did it while playing with some new linemates.

Spodniak had been preparing to play alongside Luciani. But against Utica, Luciani was out and freshman Brad Sommers made a position change to center to join Spodniak.

Somers assisted Spodniak twice and scored himself once as he's quickly becoming one of those freshman Krug and company will need to play a big role.

"I'm proud of him," Spodniak said. "We played really good this weekend. He was nervous (Friday), but (Saturday) he was much better. It was a great weekend for the whole team."

With the wins, the Bulldogs upped their winning streak from last season to 33 games. Adrian is two wins from the program record of 35 set from Nov. 2, 2008 to Dec. 5, 2009. The all-time NCAA record, regardless of division, is 38 held by Division III UMass Dartmouth from Jan. 16, 1985 to March 2, 1986.

The Bulldogs will be back on the ice at 7 p.m. Thursday when they get their first road test at No. 4 Augsburg. They will then travel for a 7 p.m. Friday puck drop at Wisconsin-Superior.

This article originally appeared on The Daily Telegram: New look Adrian College men's hockey looks to keep winning