NORTH ANDOVER, Mass. (October 5, 2024) – For a team with so many new faces, Friday afternoon's exhibition opener at Merrimack was going to be productive, regardless of the outcome. With 13 new skaters in the lineup who were not with the team a year ago, the Sacred Heart University men's ice hockey team was just happy to be on the ice together and facing outside competition. At times they looked fine, and at times they looked like a team playing its first competitive game with each other.
 
John Jaworski (Grinnell, Iowa) and Reid Pabich (Verona, Wis.) both found the net, as the Pios erased one-goal deficits in both the first and second periods. The penalty kill conceded twice though, the latter of which stood as the winner, provided by Nick Pierre, in a 3-2 Merrimack victory.
 
The two teams traded goals in each the first and second period. In the first, Merrimack opened the scoring at 11:07, when seemingly everybody on the ice lost track of the puck in the SHU end. Ty Daneault knew where it was though, pounced on it at the bottom of the right circle and fired it home before anybody else could react. Sacred Heart answered at 15:45, when Jaworski found some space to throw one on net from the top of the right circle. Max Lundgren got a pretty big piece of it in the Merrimack crease, but not enough to keep it out, and the puck trickled over the line at the left post.
 
In the second frame, it was again Merrimack which struck first, as Antonio Venuto made a strong move through the left circle and cashed in on the power play at 13:59. SHU evened it up right at the buzzer, when Pabich finished things off at the left post amid a goalmouth scramble with just half-a-second remaining.
 
The pattern would break in the third, when Merrimack was the only team to score. Pierre had the winner with a power-play marker at 5:46, as he wired a shot to the top corner while on the rush down the left wing.
 
Cullen DeYoung (Canton, Mich.) finished with 25 saves against 28 shots in the SHU crease. Lundgren and Ryan Keyes split time in the Merrimack net, with the former stopping nine of 11 and the latter turning aside all six shots he faced.
 
SHU will host Simon Fraser in an exhibition on Sunday at 4 p.m. at Martire Family Arena.