The Minnesota Golden Gophers men’s hockey team kicks off the 2025-26 season Friday night when they host Michigan tech at 3M Arena at Mariucci. The team that Minnesota will put on the ice will look significantly
different from the one a season ago as eleven players from a season ago are no longer on the roster including the top five scorers from a season ago all who are testing the professional waters. Minnesota returns less than 40% of their scoring from last season, so there will be a lots of opportunities for younger players to step up. Let’s take a look at who is gone, who returns, and who is new in the maroon and gold this season.
Who is Gone?
Well, as we said above, Minnesota misses it’s top five scorers from a season ago, all who left to try out professional hockey. Jimmy Snuggerud and his 51 points saw time last spring with the St. Louis Blues and he will be a mainstay in their lineup this season. Connor Kurth and his 39 points signed with the Tampa Bay Lighting organization and will likely start the season in the AHL. Matthew Wood and his 39 points signed with the Nashville Predators and he has had a good camp and could be a fringe candidate to make the big club out of camp. Oliver Moore and his 33 points and Sam Rinzel and his 32 points both are in Chicago trying to make the Blackhawks main club and avoid the AHL. Those five skaters alone combined for 194 of the team’s 415 points, nearly 47 percent of the season total. All five also had eligibility remaining which hurts. That’s not easy to make up.
The sixth player to leave early for professional hockey is defenseman Ryan Chesley who signed with the Washington Capitals organization and will either play for them or in the AHL to start the season.
Five seniors who used up their eligibility also departed—some for pro hockey and some for the real world. Defenseman Mike Koster leaves after anchoring the Gopher blue line for several seasons. He now is with the Minnesota Wild Organization and will play in the ECHL or AHL. Forwards Mason Nevers signed with the Dallas Stars organization and will play for their ECHL team in Idaho. Aaron Hugelin signed with the Pittsburgh Penguins organization and will try and make their AHL team. Nick Michel is off to join the real world after two seasons of being mainly a practice player for the Gophers. Goalie Liam Souliere had his one season with Minnesota after transferring from Penn State and now will play with the Toledo Walleye of the ECHL.
All in all, losing three of your top six defenseman, four of your top forwards and one of your two main goalies is a lot to overcome. But the Gophers do have a good core of players returning who will look to improve on their performances from a season ago.
Who is Back?
Minnesota returns fifteen players from a season ago. Of those 15, there are three forwards who will need to step up into main scoring roles that they have shown sparks of previously, and three defensemen who are going to need to take the reigns and elevate themselves to be every game leaders.
The forwards include a senior, a junior, and a sophomore—who of whom have shown sparks of amazing play but now need to bring it consistently night in and night out. That group starts with senior Brody Lamb. The Gophers top returning scorer with 26 points and a career high 16 goals took another step this summer into getting his body into the right condition according to Gopher coach Bob Motzko. Lamb needs to be a leader on this team and step into a top line scoring role. He’s one of a trio of Gophers wearing the Captain’s C this season. Likely centering him will be junior Jimmy Clark. Clark has had flashes but this year would be a huge opportunity for a breakout season from the Edina native and Minnesota Wild draft pick. He had a career high 22 points a season ago with 17 of them coming on assists. He will have plenty of opportunities to feed Lamb this year. Rounding out the top returning scorers list is sophomore Brodie Ziemer. He was benefited from playing on the same line as Snuggerud most of last season, but this year will be counted on to produce more offense rather than set it up. All three will likely see plenty of power play time as well.
On the back end, the Go[hers need a trio of defensemen to step up. That’s led by senior Captain Cal Thomas. Thomas has dealt with injuries the past two seasons but when healthy is one of the best defensive D-men in the Big Ten. The opposite end of the defender spectrum is Luke Mittelstadt. He was named the Gophers lone representative to the Preseason All-Big Ten team earning second team honors. He comes in as the most experienced defenseman in the nation tied for the active lead in games played by a blueliner. He trails Lamb by just one game for the most games played by an active Gopher heading into the season. The third member of that experience defenseman group is Leo Gruba. As a freshman a year ago he took some lumps getting used to the college game, but picked up his play late in the season. Minnesota will need him to play like a veteran this season.
Other seniors returning and joining Lamb, Luke Mittelstadt and Thomas include Luke Brother and 4th line forward John Mittelstadt and third goalie Zach Wiese. John likely will be in the lineup nearly every game or his grinding presence.
Joining Clark as juniors returning are goalie Nathan Airey and defenseman/forward Axel Begley. Airey split tie with Souliere a season ago and also came back a more mature ready player over the summer according to Motzko. He will likely start the season splitting time in net with a transfer to be discussed later. Begley has never found an everyday role but has played important time alternating between both defense and forward. Hecwill generally be a healthy scratch for most of the season barring injury, but may play this weekend as a pair of the Gophers freshman appear banged up.
Minnesota’s sophomore class is where the majority of the returners come from, and where they all will need to take a step up after a year of adjustment. Besides Gruba, John Whipple returns on the blue line for his second year in the maroon and gold. He also had an up and down freshman season, but the hopes is a full summer to continue to get faster and stronger will have him ready to play every night for the Gophers this season. Also returning on the blue like after a redshirt season is Max Rud. He sat out the entire 2024-25 season to preserve a year of eligibility and will look to find a spot in the lineup on occasion this year.
joining Ziemer are a trio of forwards that Minnesota hopes can take the next step and make a big jump from year one to year two. Beckett Hendrickson, Erik Pahlson and August Falloon all had moments a season ago, but all three, especially Hendrickson and Pahlson will be counted on to try and be every night offensive threats this season.
Who is New?
Minnesota brings in ten newcomers to the roster this season including seven freshmen and three transfers. Two of the transfers come in with high expectations and will hopefully make immediate impacts.
The first of that group is junior forward Tanner Ludke who comes from Omaha. He had an injury riddled sophomore season a year ago but scored 28 points for the Mavericks as a freshman and should be one of the top scorers for the Gophers this season if everything pans out.
Junior goalie Luca Di Pasquo comes to Minnesota after backing up Trey Augustine for two years at Michigan State. After Augustine returned for his junior year unexpectedly instead of turning pro, Di Pasquo looked for a new opportunity and the Gophers provided it to him. When he has had the chance to see the ice for the Spartans, he has been lights out with a 9-1-1 career record. Last season he went 7-0 with a 1.70 goals-against average and a .933 save percentage in limited action. That did include a 29-save victory over No. 4 and eventual national champion Western Michigan in the Championship Game of the Great Lakes Invitational. He likely will initially split time in goal with Airey and fight to see who may claim the #1 job.
The third transfer is another usual practice player, but someone who may see time if injuries his the Gophers roster. Sophomore Graham Harris comes to Minnesota from Augsburg of the MIAC where he led the Auggies with 22 points in 2024-25.
Minnesota brings in a talented and large freshman class. Size is not lacking in this group. That starts with defenseman Jacob Rombach who is measured at 6’6 without skates on. Besides being the tallest player, he’s also the youngest player on the team, born in April 2007. He played the last two seasons with the Lincoln Stars in the USHL and played over 100 games of junior hockey. A season ago he recorded 18 points behind three goals and 15 assists during the 57-game campaign in 2024-25 and ranked third on the team by owning a plus-29 rating. He was selected by Nashville in the second round of the 2025 NHL Draft.
Joining Rombach in the big boy club is forward Javon Moore from Minnetonka. Moore is listed at 6’4 and played last season with the Sioux Falls Stampede in the USHL. Moore made 56 appearances and recoreded 39 points on 17 goals and 22 assists last season, ranking fourth on the team in scoring. He was selected in the 4th round of the 2025 NHL Draft by the Ottawa Senators.
From the tallest to the shortest, the Gopher freshman who comes in with the most hype is forward LJ Mooney. A cousin of former Gopher star and now Utah Mammoth star Logan Cooley, Mooney had some of the same playmaking ability. He spend the last two years playing with the US Junior Development Team. He made 51 appearances with the U18 team in 2024-25, tallying 10 goals and 41 assists for 51 points. He was selected in the 4th round of the 2025 NHL draft by the Montreal Canadians—and was described similarly to another smaller playmaker who spend time in the Big Ten and is now with Montreal in Cole Caufield.
Mason Moe is an Eden Prairie native and is a member of THAT Moe extended family. His grandfather was former Gopher AD Tom Moe, and is cousins with former Gopher football star Carter Coughlin and QB Cole Kramer. He played last year with the Madison Capitals in the USHL. He played one full season and part of another from 2023-25, totaling 63 appearances and finished fifth in scoring on the Capitols with 43 points on 17 goals and 26 assists in 51 games during the 2024-25 campaign. he was also called up for six games with the US U-18 squad and scored a trio of goals. He was selected in the 3rd round of the 2025 NHL Draft by the New Jersey Devils.
Fellow Eden Prairie native Teddy Townsend joins Moe on the Gophers. He comes off of two full seasons in the USHL playing for the Waterloo Black Hawks and made 118 career appearances. He ranked fourth on the team in scoring behind 12 goals and 28 assists for 40 total points in 2024-25 and helped the Black Hawks reach the Clark Cup Final. His 15 points in 15 playoff games in 2025 were the third-most in the USHL and his nine goals ranked second among all skaters thanks to a pair of postseason hat tricks.
The oldest freshman on the roster is Tate Prichard . The Lakeville native originally committed to Minnesota State, but decided to flip to the Gopher last spring. Born in 2004 Prichard played two full seasons in the USHL with the Sioux City Musketeers, making 111 appearances from 2023-25. He served as an alternate captain during the 2024-25 campaign and posted 53 points (19 goals, 34 assists) in 54 games, ranking third on the team and 18th in the USHL in scoring. He was high school teammates with Tanner Ludke at Lakeville South.
The final Gopher is another recruit flip. Defenseman Finn McLaughlin was originally committed to Denver, but the Pioneers wanted him to play a third season of juniors and he found a spot with the Gophers instead. He was traded twice in his USHL career but ended up winning back to back titles with Fargo in 20204 and Muskegon in 2025. Served as captain of Team USA at the 2024 World Junior A Challenge and scored the gold-medal-clinching goal against Sweden.
The Gophers don’t have the top end firepower that is expected from this program. This will be the first season since 2018-19 that Minnesota doesn’t have a First Round NHL Draft pick on their roster. But they do have plenty of quality players. Minnesota has 13 NHL drafted players on its roster, the fourth-most of any NCAA program. This season the Gophers won’t win by true star power, but will need to play as a complete team. But if you look at teams who have won the NCAA Championship in recent seasons—that’s how they have done it. We will now see if the Gophers can join that group, or if they will sink in the new CHL flooded era of college hockey.
A full look at the schedule, how the CHL may effect college hockey, and the demise of the pairwise for the NPI will come out on Friday.
