All the talk recently has been centered around Matt Zeman not returning to Fredonia. Sure, that’s a big loss for the Blue Devils, but there are still a lot of very good players on this team. The talk should really be centered around their goaltending, because they have nobody returning from last year. They start out this season with four fresh faces.
“We have four goalies in our program, three are freshmen [Tyler Owens, Tim Schoen, and Pat Street],” Jeff Meredith said. “Kevin Amborski will be eligible in the second semester as a sophomore, so he will be added to the mix. We’ve been fortunate all these years to have excellent goaltenders. Even though our goalies are freshmen, we feel we’ll be okay in that category.”
History shows that may very well be true. However, watching this unfold will be one of the more interesting aspects of the season.
Meanwhile, as for those good players who are coming back, they would include seniors Don Jaeger, Wil Barlow, Joe Muli, Kraig Kuzma, Kyle Bozoian, and Scott Bradley.
“We have a lot of veterans,” Meredith said. “Six in our senior class, and these guys played a ton of hockey since their freshmen years.”
Meredith especially likes his forwards. “We feel we got a lot of good guys coming back up front,” he said. “I think we are going to be okay up front.”
As an example, last year’s fourth line of Adam Haberman, Bryan Goudy, and Rick Boyce came on strong, and expectations are high this year for those three.
Keep an eye on incoming players Matt McKeown (who transferred from Cornell, though he didn’t play a game) and Jeff Aonso, whose stock has risen considerably from his efforts in practice.
Steve Albert, Neal Sheehan, Evan DiValentino, and Jeff Sylvester round out a team that still has plenty of talent even without Zeman.
“Reach our potential,” Meredith said about what they need to do this year.
How the goaltending situation plays out and how the forwards reach their potential will determine whether Fredonia finishes in a bye position or fights for home ice in the playoffs.
