Warriors clinch home ice and one of the best seasons as a D-I program with win over Lowell

Merrimack 5, UMass Lowell 3

Thursday night’s 5–3 win over UMass Lowell clinched quite a bit for Merrimack.

First and foremost, it secured a home playoff game for the Warriors next Wednesday in the opening round of the Hockey East playoffs. Merrimack moved into seventh place in the standings — two points ahead of Northeastern — and will remain there as long as the Huskies do not defeat Boston College in regulation on Saturday night.

Historically, the win also locked in some impressive milestones for the program.

Merrimack has been a member of Hockey East since 1989 — a span of 37 seasons. Thursday’s victory over the River Hawks guaranteed the Warriors a winning record for just the fifth time in those 37 years.

Scott Borek now accounts for three of those winning seasons, all coming within the last five years. That five-year stretch now includes 85 wins, the most victories in any five-year period during Merrimack’s Hockey East era.

“I give a lot of credit to our staff. Dan Jewell and I have been together for a while now,” Borek said. “We go at it almost daily, but it’s positive. We can do that because of our friendship. We can challenge each other, and I think that makes us better. We brought in Ryan Durocher this year and he fit like a glove. We brought David Woodford back and everybody loves Woody. It’s not only a great locker room we have right now, it’s a great coaches’ room. We’re fortunate that we all love coming to work and seeing each other in the morning.”

What makes this season particularly notable isn’t just that Merrimack will finish above .500. It’s how the Warriors are doing it.

Borek’s 2022–23 team went 23-14-1 and leaned heavily on veteran leadership. Six of the top seven scorers on that roster were juniors or older, including five seniors or graduate students.

The 2021–22 team followed a similar blueprint. Seniors Max Newton and Steven Jandric led the club in scoring, while the top five scorers overall were juniors.

Before Borek’s tenure, Mark Dennehy produced two winning seasons in 2010-11 and 2011-12. The 2012 team featured four seniors among its top six scorers, while four of the top five scorers on the 2011 squad were upperclassmen (juniors or older).

Now consider the 2025–26 Warriors.

That’s where the story becomes even more intriguing. Merrimack’s top six scorers this season are all UNDERclassmen.

This group of Warriors is already, arguably, the fifth-best team in the program’s nearly 40-year Hockey East history — and most of its key contributors are just entering their collegiate primes.

Of course, college sports have changed. Rosters turn over more frequently than ever before. But if the Warriors can keep this core together, the ceiling for this group could be remarkably high.

Dare I say … could this become the best team Merrimack has ever had?

Nothing is guaranteed, but there’s enough evidence to at least entertain the possibility.

For now, though, Borek isn’t interested in looking that far ahead. His focus remains squarely on the immediate task — the postseason that begins next week.

“It’s always better to win your way into the playoffs than back into it,” he said. “It gives us a little momentum heading into the playoffs.

“I’m really impressed with our group this year. We had a tough start. We won three games early but we had ups and downs in the first half. We had to grow. We put ourselves in a bit of a bad place but our team stayed with it. The room stayed together. These guys really care about each other.”

MERRIMACK'S WINNINGEST HOCKEY EAST TEAMS

Year      Coach           W     L     T
2010-11   Mark Dennehy    25    10    4
2022-23   Scott Borek     23    14    1
2021-22   Scott Borek     19    15    1
2011-12   Mark Dennehy    18    12    7
2025-26   Scott Borek     17    15    2

Daneault returns and finds the net

Ty Daneault returned to the Merrimack lineup Thursday night after missing nearly two months with an injury, and it didn’t take long for him to make an impact. Daneault scored in the first period to pull the Warriors even, marking a welcome return for one of the team’s key forwards.

“It felt amazing,” he said. “Going through (the injury) you’re just trying to stay involved as much as you can. I wanted to be at the rink.”

Daneault had not appeared in a game since Jan. 17 against UMass. The injury absence followed another earlier setback that sidelined him from November through December.

“I probably had surgery four weeks ago,” he said. “They originally told me six to eight weeks, but rehab went great and it healed faster than we thought. I’m glad to be back, and to be back before playoffs.”

Defenseman Hunter Mayo also returned for the first time since December.

Effort pays off for OC

Ryan O’Connell has built his game on effort and persistence, and on Thursday night that work was reflected on the scoresheet.

O’Connell recorded a goal in the second period and added an assist on Ty Daneault’s first-period tally, slipping a backhand pass into the slot that Daneault finished to tie the game.

The performance marked O’Connell’s third multi-point game of the season.

“Hard work and effort is what we’ve preached all year,” he said. “I want to try to change the game when I’m on the ice, even if it’s not with a goal. Our line is built on energy and I think we can shift momentum. We want to hunt.”