Can UMass Lowell Overcome Departures And Compete in Hockey East? Season Preview
Across the past three seasons, UMass Lowell has won just 37 of its 107 games. It’s been a decade since the glory days of 2017, when the River Hawks won Hockey East in both tournament and regular season fashion.
A quick peek at the 2026-27 outlook suggests that will likely remain the case. While teams across the ultra-competitive Hockey East got better this offseason, Lowell struggled to bring in any impact players to a roster already missing its top point-scorer from last season.
Dillan Bentley contributed 14 goals (team-most) and 11 assists during his senior season before departing for the AHL’s Laval Rocket. Jay Ahearn, who tallied the second-most goals with 13, joined Indy Fuel in the ECHL after the season concluded. That leaves the River Hawks with exactly zero returning players who scored double-digit goals.
The exit of the team’s Best Defensive Player Award winner, TJ Schweighardt, is the cherry on top. The alternate captain dished out 13 assists alongside four goals, then signed on with the ECHL’s Iowa Heartlanders. It’s nothing out of the ordinary for a team’s best players to go pro, but the problems arise when those players aren’t effectively replaced.
Three transfers landed in Lowell throughout the portal process, including a likely new starting goaltender. Cole Moore is a 6-foot-6 senior arriving on the back of three solid seasons at Bowling Green with a .913 save percentage. Forward Tobias Pitka came in from Northern Michigan and defenseman Anthony Dowd brings three years of playing experience at Arizona State.
Pitka hails from Slovakia and bagged five goals with seven assists in his first 25 collegiate games across his debut season. Dowd appeared in 99 games for the Sun Devils, blocking 66 shots and assisting 25 goals in the process.
The incoming class consists of six players, none of whom immediately command the headlines. Forward Kolin Sisson from Lincoln, R.I. is likely the most intriguing of the bunch after flipping his commitment from Providence to UML in April.
UMass Lowell recruited almost exclusively forwards, meaning there’s likely some room for freshmen in the lineup if any of them impress head coach Norm Bazin in the weeks leading up to October.
Sisson played a few productive seasons in the USHL, first for the Chicago Steel, then for the Fargo Force in the latter half of 2025-26 following a blockbuster trade. He was very much the centerpiece of the deal, as he was moved for two players and two draft picks. He lit the lamp 21 times and added 36 assists across both of his teams last season.
Nicholas Wellenreiter (23 goals, 33 assists last season) played for the North Bay Battalion in the OHL and Joey McGraw (13 goals, 20 assists) served as co-captain for the USHL champion Sioux Falls Stampede. McGraw shared captain duties with fellow Hockey East commit, JJ Monteiro, who is headed to Providence.
Two other freshmen forwards looking to break into the rotation are Kuzma Voronin and Misha Volotovskii. Voronin, from Russia, posted an impressive 25 goals and 35 assists for the Moncton Wildcats of the QMJHL last season. Volotovskii enjoyed a productive start to his WHL season, but a midseason trade to Vancouver slowed his momentum.
The River Hawks scored 91 goals last season, the third-worst mark in the conference, but that’s besides the point. A total of 53 of those were scored by departing players. That left just under 42 percent of the scoring still on the roster and all sorts of uncertainty as to who can pick up that slack.
Much of the responsibility will fall on the trio of Jak Vaarwerk, Chris Delaney and Dalyn Wakely. The three combined for 17 goals and 42 assists, and represent the only three returners across the leading six point-scorers. They’ll need to compensate for the missing top-end production of Bentley and Ahearn.
If the struggles of the 2025-26 UML team were not yet apparent, it also conceded 114 goals, which was just one less than the Hockey East cellar dweller of Vermont. A 13-22-0 record with a 9-15-0 showing in the conference left much to be desired, especially following up a .500 campaign the season prior.
Maybe the River Hawks will be the surprise team in Hockey East, but they undoubtedly have their work cut out for them in order to turn the tides of recent times.
FILE LOCATED: 2026-27_SCHEDULE.VHS 📼
— UMass Lowell Hockey (@RiverHawkHockey) June 25, 2026
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The School
Location: Lowell, Mass.
Founded: 1894
Enrollment: 12,122
Nickname: River Hawks
Colors: Blue and White
Arena: Tsongas Center (6,500)
The Team
Coach: Norm Bazin, 16th season (291-207-47)
2025-26 record: 13-22-0 (9-15-0)
Last NCAA Tournament appearance: 2017
Last Frozen Four: 2013
Last conference titles: 2017 regular season; 2017 tournament
Key departures: F Dillan Bentley, F Jay Ahearn, D TJ Schweighardt
Key returning players: F Jak Vaarwerk, F Chris Delaney, F Dalyn Wakely
Top newcomers: G Cole Moore, F Tobias Pitka, F Kolin Sisson
This is the fifth story in a series of season and conference previews for the upcoming 2026-27 season. Check out the previous story on Maine.
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Cameron Pellegrino is pursuing a major in sports journalism and minoring in sociology at UMass Amherst. He worked as a sports correspondent and co-op for The Boston Globe and writes for the UMass Journalism Department's website. He has contributed to UMass' student-run paper, the Massachusetts Daily Collegian, covering football and both men's and women's basketball, among other sports. Cam is originally from Rhode Island, where he has also covered high school basketball for the New England Basketball Journal.
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