2025–26 Mercyhurst Lakers men's ice hockey season

The 2025–26 Mercyhurst Lakers men's ice hockey season was the 39th season of play for the program, the 27th at the Division I level, and the 2nd in Atlantic Hockey America. The Lakers represented Mercyhurst University in the 2025–26 NCAA Division I men's ice hockey season, played their home games at the Mercyhurst Ice Center and were coached by Rick Gotkin in his 38th and final season.

At the end of the previous season, Rick Gotkin announced that this would be his final year as head coach for Mercyhurst.^[1] A little over a month later, assistant coach Tom Peffall was selected as his replacement.^[2]

Mercyhurst kicked its season off with a visit to Michigan. While the Wolverines were heavily favored, the results turned about worse that the Lakers could have hoped. Mercyhurst was throttled in the series, being outscored 1–18. To make matters worse, the embarrassing losses presaged how the first half of the season would proceed. The Lakers lost their first fourteen games of the season with both the offense and defense playing poorly. Charles-Edward Gravel, who had assumed control of the Mercyhurst net after Michael Chambre returned to the junior level, did not give the Lakers too many chances to win during the first two months of the year. However, even when he did play a decent game, the team was unable to take advantage. When the Lakers paused for the winter break, they were well on their way to posting one of the worst seasons in the history of college hockey, averaging 1.38 goals per game while allowing 4.63 goals against.

After going winless in the first half of the season, Mercyhurst opened the second have against #4 North Dakota. The Hawks skated rings around the Lakers, outshooting them 46–8 in the first game. However, unlike their earlier series with Michigan, the team was kept in the match with a spectacular performance in goal. Gravel, who was playing his first season in college, had grown accustomed to a heavy workload over the trying first half and stopped 44 shots in the game. Gravel's improved play continued over the succeeding weeks with him backstopping the team to a pair of shutout victories. The second half also saw Salvatore Evola make his first starts of the season with the senior transfer taking some of the pressure off his younger counterpart. Evola provided the Lakers with three more wins in the second half, surpassing their total from '25. While the victories were a welcome change, they were too few in number to stop the Lakers from finishing the season last in both the conference standings and the national rankings.

The Lakers began the postseason by heading to Buffalo to take on Canisius. In a familiar circumstance, Mercyhurst was outshot by a wide margin, 49–13. However, Gravel's effort in goal stopped all but two chances and gave the Lakers a chance to win. Mercyhurst made the most of their few opportunities and scored three times in the first 40 minutes to take a 2-goal lead into the third. After the Griffins closed the gap midway through the final frame, Gravel shut the door in the final 9 minutes and forced Canisius to pull their goaltender. Two empty-netters later, Mercyhurst skated away with a victory. Continuing the same plan in the Quarterfinal round, Mercyhurst was able to score three goals on just 19 shots while Gravel turned in another herculean performance. The game went into overtime and Gravel remained besieged by Bentley, who finished the match with a shot advantage of 69–26. Unfortunagely, Gravel could not hold out forever and he surrendered the winning goal seven minutes into the third overtime.^[3] Gravel, tired from standing on his head for two games, was given the night off for the rematch. Evola was unable to live up to the high level of play and surrendered 6 goals in the season's final game.

As of September 3, 2025.^[4]

Source:^[6]

Note: USCHO did not release a poll in week 12.^[7]
Note: USA Hockey did not release a poll in week 12.