Oregon Ducks head coach Jack Hyman sat down with me to discuss the 2025-2026 season
ATQ
Broadly, Jack, how would you assess this past season?
Jack Hyman
Broadly, I thought it was great. The one caveat being we didn’t finish ranked where I would like us to be ranked and where the team would like us to be ranked. But when you peel back the layers, we still did a lot of things that this program had never done before. We achieved a lot of benchmarks that we set out at the beginning of the year.
We had some
adversity. When the year started, I thought I would have a certain number of guys on the team and then six players quit within the span of two weeks before training camp. So a roster of 27 or 28 guys became a roster of 21 guys. We were shorthanded for a lot of the games and had a very young team.
All the guys that did step aside were seniors. That hit us hard in the beginning. But despite all that, it was the best record the team’s ever had and the most wins the team’s ever had.
I think that sets us up nicely for the future, especially because all my guys are very young.
ATQ
It was an incredibly young team this year. I feel like 60 to 70% of your regular players were freshmen or sophomores. Do I have that about right?
Jack Hyman
Yep. Nine of them were freshmen.
ATQ
An incredibly young team, but like you said, probably the most successful season at this level. The team finished above .500 for the first time at this level.
So even though they may not have finished where you wanted them ranked, it was definitely a step in the right direction.
Jack Hyman
Yeah, it was. The young guys bring a lot to the table, but they’re still young and inexperienced, sometimes immature and emotional. You take the good with the bad when they’re new to the program.
Even the sophomores are still underclassmen. But the positives outweigh the negatives. The commitment is there, the character is there, the skill and talent are there. They’ll only get better.
The recruits I have coming in will only complement what we already have going on here. All in all, it was a great year. The ranking will come.
The silver lining in those seniors leaving was that the young guys got more ice time, and that will pay dividends down the line.
ATQ
Were you at all surprised at how the team responded early on?
Jack Hyman
No, I knew the guys I brought in and what I already had on the team. I knew we were going to have a good team. I was confident in the guys.
That being said, I knew there would be learning curves. I’m careful with the recruits I bring in, and I haven’t regretted any so far.
I had a lot of faith in the guys coming in and the ones already here. It was just a matter of time until they gelled.
They responded with a winning record, the most wins, and a positive goal differential for the first time. In training camp, you could tell from the first couple skates that the intensity and commitment were different, and it carried on for most of the season.
ATQ
While a couple of seniors left before the year started, there were others whose careers are now done. In writing my season recap, I looked at individual point production year over year.
Jackson [Henningsgard] had a good year last year, but this year it exploded. What do you think led to that?
Jack Hyman
Having three years of experience helps. It was his time to shine. As a junior, he was still one of the more talented players, but there were many seniors ahead of him.
Those seniors leaving allowed him to emerge as a leader. He played with two freshmen all season, Ebbott and Inde. Moving him to wing freed him up offensively.
The center has more defensive responsibility, Ebbott being able to take on that role and and really thrive in it. allowed allowed Jackson to to move to wing and free him up a little bit, have him focus a little bit more on offense which is what he likes to do and what we need from him . They clicked early and built chemistry as the season went on.
Despite some injuries, it was a great senior year for him.
ATQ
Early on, I think you had your three big returners together in Jackson, Noah, and Dylan, then decided to go away from that. What led to separating them and pairing them with freshmen?
Jack Hyman
We had four exhibition games against Canadian teams to start the season before playing an ACHA opponent, and it wasn’t clicking the way I thought it might.
There wasn’t a specific moment. I wanted to change things up. Jackson had always been a center, but I talked to him and he was open to playing wing.
He’s very skilled and offensive-minded, so putting him with Ebbott and Inde made sense. It clicked for most of the season.
That also allowed Noah and Chapman to play with other guys. We had strong freshmen throughout the lineup, and those players can play with anyone.
Once the Jackson-Ebbott-Inde line started clicking, the rest of the team followed.
ATQ
At higher levels, it’s not always clear if a young forward will develop into a center or winger. What do you look for in young forwards to determine if they can play center?
Jack Hyman
Center is the hardest job aside from goalie. A lot falls on their shoulders. You’re expected to play a 200-foot game, contribute offensively, and help defensively.
You also need to win faceoffs. If you can win draws and are defensively responsible, you’re a great center.
Some players are better suited than others. It starts with faceoffs. If you lose draws, you start your shift on defense.
Then it’s about defensive responsibility. I thought Jackson Ebbott handled that role well. He took pride in the defensive side same and that can be said for all the other centers that came in, whether it was Orwig or Toby or Anselmo and with the lineup getting shifted around a lot because of injuries and sickness a handful of guys played center throughout the entire course of the season.
Macklin Celebrini for example plays center for the Sharks but then you see him go play for Team Canada and they put him on the wing. At the higher level you go you just got to be adaptable.
A lot of coaches would agree if you if you put the goalie aside having a 200 foot reliable center is is probably one of the most sought after positions on on any team and I think we’re fortunate in the position that we are in going forward with the guys that we’ll have playing center for the next couple of years here which is which is great to have.
ATQ
I wanted to highlight the seniors, especially on defense. Hunter was a key player over the last few years.
I described him as someone who fills the non-stat sheet. What kind of void does he leave?
Jack Hyman
He doesn’t fill the stat sheet with goals and assists, but in hits and blocked shots, it’s hard to find someone with more.
We thought he was done after his senior year, but he returned while pursuing his MBA.
His leadership and experience were invaluable. He was the only senior defenseman and helped guide a very young group.
He would block multiple shots a game and deliver big hits that could shift momentum.
It will be hard to replace that. But he did a great job mentoring younger players, and it will be nice to see how they progress over the next few years here.
Losing him and Jackson creates a big void but we have players ready to step in.
ATQ
One of those players is freshman Austin Klucksdahl. From what I saw, he was very aggressive early, then adjusted and gradually added more offensive flashes.
How would you summarize his season?
Jack Hyman
Overall, it was a great season. As a freshman, he stepped into a big role right away, including power play time, and that wasn’t really something he ever did in in juniors, but we needed it.
His best asset is his skating. He’s a phenomenal skater. Sometimes that can lead to being out of position or too aggressive offensively.
He had to learn what works at the college level. We had conversations throughout the year about about how all his games went. The majority of the games he played really well in, at the same time, you want him to focus on his strengths a little bit more. And as I mentioned, his skating is a huge strength of his, but it’s just a matter of using it at the, at the proper time.
So all in all as a freshman who got thrown into the lineup and played a big role he had a lot on his shoulders that he was expected to carry for this team. And I thought he did, a great job. And a player that I think he’ll only get better as he gets more experienced and gets older.
ATQ
I was only able to watch two of your goalies. Can you talk about the third goalie’s season?
Jack Hyman
Yeah, I thought all goalies played played well. We had two freshman goalies coming in. Thomas was one of them and Finn was the other I thought they played well overall.
There’s still that learning curve for the freshmen that have to come in and Finn in particular maybe he had a tough game here or there, but he practices as hard as anybody. Some of the saves that he would make in practice and then in games would really wow you and that was obviously great to have and a morale boost for the team.
He might’ve struggled a little bit in the third period of some of the games and him and I talked about that at our exit meeting this year. And it’s something that he’s going to focus on going into next season for sure, as far as our freshman coming in and and playing a handful of games for us, I thought he was great.
The guys love him he’s a great guy to have in the locker room, a great guy to have at practice and easy to coach and easy to get along with. As far as Finn and his future of the team, I think it’s very bright and really with all goalies, I think we’re in a good position because we have three good goalies and I feel comfortable playing any one of them.
Goalie is a tough one because only one guy can get the net so it’s a challenge for sure, especially when you have three guys on the roster and but they all get along and and they work well with our goalie coach and the guys love him.
ATQ
In one game against San Diego State, you controlled play but allowed some high-danger chances. Thomas made several key saves.
What areas of the ice do you focus on defending and attacking?
Jack Hyman
We say we want to get inside their house and keep them out of ours. That means the crease and slot area right in front of our goalie we want to defend to the best of our abilities while at the same time causing havoc inside theirs.
We also want to limit odd-man rushes. In those San Diego games, Thomas made key saves on two-on-ones and breakaways.
Staying out of the penalty box is also important.
If you defend the slot and limit odd-man rushes, you’ll be successful more often than not.
When those high danger chances did happen especially in those San Diego games, I thought Tommy was able to, to answer the bell.
When you look back to Tommy’s first game with us, it was an exhibition game against one of the Canadian teams that came down and it went all the way to, to a shootout. We won the shootout one, nothing and Tommy stopped all three of them. Right from there, I think he earned a lot of respect definitely from the coaches and the players and cemented himself as an important part of the team.
ATQ
How would you assess your special teams this season?
Jack Hyman
More often than not, we won the special teams battle, which helped us win games.
The penalty kill was strong overall. Outside of a tough series against NC State who has a very good power-paly, we performed well.
Players stuck to the system and were willing to block shots. Winning draws on the penalty kill was important to get that first clear.
Especially with a lot of young guys playing it and learning the system for the first time we had to get their feet wet a little bit.
In that San Diego State game we were talking about earlier we had two five minute majors in one game and they didn’t score once on either of them.
The power play was also effective. Our power play would score more than the other team’s power play and that sets us up for some wins for sure. Our top unit produced consistently, you look at some of the games, whether it was Alabama, we win 2-1, both goals were on the power play.
Special teams can make or break you and for the majority of the season they were a strength for us this year.
ATQ
There seems to be a budding rivalry with Alabama. Can you confirm if that will continue next year?
Jack Hyman
We’re going to them next year. They came to us this year, and we’ll alternate going forward. Of all teams to sort of have a hockey rivalry with Alabama when everybody would expect Oregon and Alabama to be the football rivalry that everybody wants.
Every game has been close, often one-goal games or overtime. I expect next year to be no different, they came to Bend and beat us that first night, which we definitely weren’t too too happy with, but we were able to get revenge the the second night.
The last handful of years, we’ve been ranked right around where they are. So there’s no reason to think those games wouldn’t go as they did. Looking ahead to next year, I have every belief it will be a one goal game at some point in the game. Hopefully we come out on the right side of it but they’re a good team. They’re coached well, we get along with their coaching staff and when we go out there they’re very hospitable and we try to do the same for them when they come here. So we’re nice off the ice, but definitely aren’t on the ice, we want to make sure we get the win as best we can.
ATQ
On scheduling are there any other teams fans can expect next year?
Jack Hyman
Next year’s schedule is shaping up well. We’ll have more home games than ever, including seven in Eugene and the Bend series.
NC State will come to town for the outdoor series in Bend.
San Diego State will return multiple times. We’ll also host Boulder, Boise State, Oklahoma State, GCU, and a Canadian team so a lot of home games on the docket which is exciting.
It’s our busiest schedule yet with the most home games with no shortage of of opportunities to come watch us play at the at the rink exchange
ATQ
No one is more excited about that than me because that means I can watch more games this coming year this upcoming year than this this past year. So that is that is great news for me to hear today. So I’m glad you could share that with us.
