For the first time in five years, the Oswego State men’s ice hockey team failed to reach the Frozen Four last season. With a 5-4 loss at Adrian College in Michigan last March, the Lakers were sent home early and disappointed.

After losing six seniors, Bobby Gertsakis, Mike Wills, Mike Montagna, Chris Carr, Nick Rivait and Eli Kim-Swallow the Lakers return for the 2015-2016 season behind a deep class of 2017.

“For the first two years, they’ve gotten a lot of experience,” assistant coach Mark Digby said. “A lot of times in college hockey, your first year, second year, you may gain a little experience, but not a lot. This group, however, has seen a lot as they were our go-to guys starting in their freshman year.”

One of those players, Chris Raguseo, will be a captain this year and is seen as the leader moving forward.

“We’re all pretty excited,” Raguseo said. “I think you come in motivated from the summer, being off that long. Having gone through what we’ve gone through as a team, we’re all pretty fired up to go.”

Senior captain Brandon Adams is pleased with how the team has responded with the change of leadership.

“Every single guy has stepped up and been a leader in their own right,” Adams said. “It’s made it easy for myself, Mac Scott and Chris [Raguseo] to be leaders on this team.”

Not only did the Lakers end the season with a loss to Adrian College in the NCAA quarterfinals, but struggled down the stretch overall.

On senior night, the Lakers lost to SUNY Potsdam 4-2 in shocking fashion as they started the game up 2-0. With the loss, the Lakers lost home-ice advantage throughout the SUNYAC playoffs. Then in the SUNYAC championship game, Oswego State lost to SUNY Plattsburgh, 2-1. The loss cost the Lakers an NCAA Tournament automatic bid.

“I think the Plattsburgh game in the SUNYAC final was really disappointing,” Digby said. “I think they are going to play with a little bit of an attitude this season because of it.”

While the team was not pleased with the outcome, they are not worrying about the past and are keeping their eyes on the future.

“Those types of things aren’t in our focus, but you don’t forget how it felt,” Adams said.

“We’re not dwelling on the past,” Raguseo said. “We’ve addressed the problems that we had with the team. We can move forward and we know what we need to focus on a little more to make that next step.”

Head coach Ed Gosek shares the same sentiments as his players on the philosophy of the team moving forward.

“We don’t dwell on the past and what they did or [did] not do,” Gosek said. “It’s ‘What are you bringing for us right now.’ We want to learn from the past and focus on the future.”

Gosek said that it’s about having the team experience all-around progress this year and noticing that change needs to happen from year-to-year.

“We cannot change what happened,” he said. “If we don’t get better than we were last year in all areas, physically, mentally and execution-wise, then we can sit here and tell you want [we] to win this and that. Nothing is going to change unless they change.”

Gosek also said that he may have to try and put players at new positions and give them new roles on the team and they can’t just pick up where they left off last season.

“We’re very open-minded to putting guys in different roles and different scenarios,” he said.

He and his team will have a chance to do that this weekend with their exhibition game against the Central Canadian All-Graduate Team on Saturday.

Gosek said he plans to use this weekend as a test to determine and evaluate where the team is at this point.

“That’s the advantage of having an exhibition game,” Gosek said. “You can try some different things to prepare us for the next part, which is Geneseo. Between this week and next [week], we hope to sort out who should be in the lineup.”

Gosek said that he has to figure out who will be healthy enough to have certain positions in the lineup, along with what combinations of players will work on certain lines.

After losing senior defensemen like Gertsakis, Carr, and Wills from last year, the defense has to see some players step up and take over the open spots. Captains Raguseo and Scott should step in on the first line, but the depth of this team will be tested this year.

A focal point the whole team has had mentioned the entire offseason is maintaining focus and motivation throughout the entire season. Despite long winning streaks and overall success throughout the regular season, the team’s overall play dwindled. This could have been the reason for losses that should have been wins, like the SUNY Potsdam game on Senior Night.

The coaching staff believes that a complacent mentality can be the downfall for this team.

“What that attitude does is it gives you a false sense of security,” Gosek said.

It is one of the big reasons they brought in the national organization The Program to train the players a week before their exhibition match, to motivate them and teach them how to maintain a winning approach to every single game.

“With us, every weekend is like a playoff game,” Gosek continued. “To have any hopes of an at-large [playoff bid] if you don’t win your league, you have to have a good regular season. You have to approach every game like it’s a playoff game.”

Gosek is preparing to have his team motivated more than ever and make sure they do not get careless when they are winning, but he has also  assured that he will not push too hard when the team is losing.

“At the same time, when things maybe aren’t going well, you back off a little bit, as long as they are giving you what they got,” he said.

All in all, the Lakers are set for another very successful season. They averaged over four goals per game last season, and converted on over thirty-two percent of their power play opportunities, both of which were near the top in Div. III.

While there may be some new faces on defense stepping into a larger role, the 1-2 punch of Matt Zawadski and Justin Gilbert between the pipes will still give opposing offenses trouble.

On Oct. 14, the SUNYAC men’s ice hockey preseason poll was released with Oswego State finishing second behind SUNY Plattsburgh. Although they were not at the top, the Lakers finished only three points behind the Cardinals.

The Lakers regular season gets underway Oct. 30 at SUNY Geneseo and then the following night is their regular season home opener against the College at Brockport.

The Lakers have lost to SUNY Geneseo each of the past two seasons and have also struggled against the College at Brockport. Their opening schedule will be tough with Whiteout Weekend against SUNY Plattsburgh early in November. They will play three tough opponents within the first few weeks.

However, this team is battle tested and will be looking for both a return to the Frozen Four, and to bring home the program’s first national championship since 2007.