With injuries ravaging portions of the Oswego State roster at the end of last season, the Lakers lacked the roster size and depth to replace key players like Kristoffer Brun and Cameron Berry. One recruiting class later, and it appears as if head coach Ed Gosek has resolved this problem by bringing in nine freshmen. Of the nine, two are defensemen, one is a goaltender, and the remaining six are forwards. The class is a diverse group of grinders, speedsters and players with great stickhandling. While they have had only three weeks of practice and two exhibition games at the collegiate level, this crew excelled in their respective junior hockey leagues. Despite success prior to college, Div. III hockey is a different type of game with different players, and with that, Gosek has one thing on his mind: consistency.

“[Consistency] is a big indicator.,” Gosek said. “We don’t want to see just one good day. We want to see the consistency of all our players stringing together day in day out, and…that is probably what you are going to get and see in games. Some guys have shown us that and others are still working to find that consistency.”

One player that seems to have found consistency early on is Travis Broughman, a hulking power forward out of the CCHL. In the exhibition games, Broughman played alongside Tanner Spink and Anthony Passero on a dynamic second line. Broughman scored three points with a goal and an assist coming against his former team, the Carleton Place Canadians. Broughman, specifically, was very noticeable given his style of play. He is a physical player who gets to the slot and other high traffic areas.

“He hangs onto the puck and drives the net hard,” Gosek said. “He stops at the net, finishes his checks. He’s not a perimeter guy. I am not saying he can’t make plays and be a playmaker, but he’s a guy that is involved in the action.”

Not only is Broughman a good puck handler with a good shot in tight, but he also has a relentlessness to his game that coincides with Oswego State’s high-pressure style.

“He’s in on the forecheck,” Gosek said. “He plays a physical style, competes hard [and] has tight gap in the defensive zone.”

With Broughman leading the charge amongst the freshmen forwards, other recruits like Colton Fletcher made their presence felt beyond the stat sheet. The players of this class are not small finesse players, but rather big net front guys, something team captain Devin Campbell was looking for.

“Up front, all those guys are pretty fast, big guys like Broughman,” Campbell said. “[They] go to the net and stuff like that. So, we tried to recruit to get a little more size, more guys that are net front guys because we were lacking that last year…[but] it’s not necessarily something we don’t have. It’s something you can never have enough of.”

On the back end, the Lakers brought in Ryan Bunka and Tyler Antonucci, two offensive defensemen who are looking to provide the team with more scoring from the defense. The duo took risks in junior hockey by jumping up into the play, something they still plan to do in their collegiate careers.

“I feel pretty comfortable taking risks. Whether it is a 50-50 puck, I want to be certain that I’m not [turning the puck over,]” Bunka said. “I want to make sure nothing offensively is bad defensively. I want to take care of my own zone first.”

Scoring was not common amongst the Lakers’ defense, as they only scored three goals as a unit last season. While the unit wants to add more production, their main focus is keeping pucks away from their goalie.

“We have a saying: ‘You have to crawl before you can walk.’  You have got to learn to play defense first,” Campbell said. “For [Bunka and Antonucci], we’ve seen the offense from them, but they’re going to have to play defense as well.”

While Antonucci was an electric player for the New Jersey Titans, he is still a solid player in his own end as the play-by-play announcer for the Titans, Anthony Di Paolo, said.

“With any offensive defenseman, they’re poised to make some mistakes, but Tyler positionally never put himself in a bad position,” Di Paolo said. “For what he might have lacked in speed, he made up for [in his] intelligence and being positionally sound.”

Although Antonucci did not play much in his first season as a Titan, he ended his career there as captain. There, he broke out as one of the brightest stars on the roster, so bright that some thought he should be on a Div. I team.

“[He could have gone Div. I,] If Ryan Wheeler, [another defenseman from the Titans,] was able to go to UConn, I’m surprised he couldn’t go to a Div. I school like Sacred Heart,” Di Paolo said

Regardless of talent level, the Lakers’ lineup will be hard to crack. Oswego State brings back seven defensemen and 15 forwards. Fortunately for Gosek and his players, the NCAA instituted a new rule in which a team can dress an extra forward or defenseman. With this in mind, Gosek can take an extra look at the freshmen or other faces if necessary.

“As we learn more about some of the freshmen, it could be an opportunity to get a look at one of them, whether its a defenseman or a forward,” Gosek said. “[That may] depend on special teams scenarios… [a specialty player] winning faceoffs or an extra defenseman…depending on who we are playing.”

Whether it is using a freshman like Bunka or Antonucci as a power play specialist or a veteran for the penalty kill, the freshmen on this roster have greater goals than ice time.

“I just want to do what is best for the team this year,” Bunka said. “Whatever gets us wins and whatever gets us to the national championship.”

Photo by Greg Tavani | The Oswegonian