Miami’s NCHC road opener began well enough, with the RedHawks striking first and holding a one-goal lead at the first intermission.
Unfortunately for the RedHawks, No. 9 Western Michigan scored the next five goals en route to a 5-2 win over Miami at Lawson Arena on Friday.
Ilia Morozov scored both MU goals.
Miami has won just one of its last 19 meetings vs. WMU and is winless in its last 31 NCHC road games.
The teams wrap up their weekend series at 6 p.m. on Saturday.
RECAP: Miami (7-2) opened the scoring with 8:43 left in the first period when Morozov drove the net with a defender draped on him, backhanded a shot on goal and poked home the rebound as he drove the net.
WMU’s Bobby Cowan was assessed a cross-checking major penalty two minutes into the second period, but Miami managed just one shot on goal during that power play, and the momentum shifted hard in the Broncos’ direction.
Western Michigan (6-5) tied it two minutes after the major expired, as Liam Valente cupped a cross-ice pass and whipped a wrister past RedHawks goalie Matteo Drobac from the right faceoff circle on the power play.
Just 82 seconds later, Theo Wallberg gave the Broncos the lead when he snuck a shot through from the just inside the top of the left faceoff circle that appeared to ricochet off a Miami skater.
Seventy-eight seconds after that, WMU’s Zach Nehring tapped in a rebound off a wide-open point-blank shot by Grant Slukynsky to make it 3-1.
The Broncos scored again on the power play on a blue line wrister by Zach Bookman 5:37 into the third period, extending their lead to three.
Just over two minutes later, WMU’s Sam Huck batted a loose puck out of the air and past Drobac from the slot, giving his team a 5-1 lead.
Morozov capped off the scoring when he ripped a bouncing rebound past goalie Hampton Slukynsky from the right faceoff circle with 10:25 left in regulation.
STATS: Morozov scored both Miami goals, moving into a tie for the team lead with Ryan Smith and Max Helgeson with six apiece. He was the only RedHawks skater with multiple points.
— Kocha Delic picked up an assist, giving him points in his first nine games as a RedHawk. No Miami skater has scored in nine straight contests to open a season since Carter Camper in 2010-11.
— Also earning helpers were forward Doug Grimes and defensemen Vladislav Lukashevich and Ryder Thompson.
Grimes, who had four points in two previous seasons at Boston University, notched his ninth point of the season, and his sixth assist.
Lukashevich picked up his team-leading eighth helper, and he leads all blueliners with nine points.
Thompson has four assists, including two in the last four games.
— Miami was 1 of 6 on the power play despite a five-minute man-advantage and just 4-for-6 on the penalty kill. The RedHawks’ PK is a meager 16 of 24 (66.7 percent) in their last five games.
— Five goals against was a season high for MU. Miami failed to score three goals for just the second time in 2025-26 and lost both games.
— Miami extended its league road winless streak to 31 games (0-29-2), with its last NCHC victory away from Oxford coming at Feb. 25, 2023, possibly while Barbie was in theaters.
ANALYSIS: The turning point of the game was undoubtedly the major power play, with the cross-checking major assessed to Western Michigan’s Cowan.
Miami’s two units were impotent on the five-minute major, landing just one shot on goal.
Less than five minutes after Cowan’s penalty expired, the Broncos had put the puck in the net three times and were in complete control after falling behind early.
WMU outshot Miami, 21-7 that period.
— Western Michigan dominated the first few minutes of the game, as Miami barely possessed the puck, much less attempted a shot prior to the first media timeout.
But after the Broncos fired the first five shots of goal, the RedHawks ended the period trailing 10-7 and — more importantly — held a 1-0 lead.
It may have been nerves for Miami early, as three-quarters of the roster was playing its first NCHC road game in one of the most hostile environments in college hockey.
Then, for the first time this young season, the RedHawks got away from their newly-molded identity. They started chasing and watching the puck like it was 2023 and Barbie was playing on the videotron.
A 1-0 lead became a 3-1 deficit. A timeout might have helped there, but from that point, Miami was chasing the game.
To their credit, the RedHawks were back to form in the third period, and shots were 9-8 WMU. Miami had a couple of A-plus chances to trim the lead to one, but ultimately the Broncos took advantage of aggressive play on their fourth goal, and the fifth was probably one of the rare ones Drobac would have liked back this season.
It wasn’t a completely poor performance, it was just more inconsistent than we’ve become accustomed to seeing this season.
Of course, Miami’s opponent was the defending national champion, playing on its home ice. Teams can’t lapse if they want to beat teams of Western Michigan’s caliber.
And WMU was on top of its game for 60 minutes.
–Morozov, holy smokes.
He scores a drive-to-the-net-power-move goal as a 17-year-old (third-round NHL pick Sean Kuraly didn’t get good at that until his junior year at Miami, when he was 21, and he’s in his 10th NHL season) then hammers a bouncing loose puck in from the right wing.
— Lukashevich and Thompson switched power play units. Lukashevich played on the top line and Thompson shifted to the second unit.
— Bradley Walker was back in the lineup after missing the last six games due to injury, and he was back to hitting everything in sight.
Walker scored on opening night and dished out a couple crushing hits. In limited action, he has definitely impressed with his physicality and energy.
— Lukashevich moved up from the second power play unit to the first, and Thompson was shifted down. Michael Quinn also quarterbacked the power play during the major and impressed in a small sample size.
The second unit hasn’t had a ton of success but exudes potential.
— Grimes blocked a shot that had him in discomfort, and he also hit the crossbar while crashing the net, but he remained in the game.
LINEUP CHANGES: Just one: The aforementioned Walker replaced Blake Mesenburg. Walker was injured in the second game of the season and had not played since.
STANDINGS: Miami dropped into last place in the NCHC, falling to 1-2 in league play with just three points.
After Friday’s games, Miami is ranked No. 19 in the NPI, which replaced the PairWise.
FINAL THOUGHTS: “More guys need to step up”.
That’s how coach Anthony Noreen ended his brief postgame presser on Friday.
Overall, he was extremely complimentary of Western Michigan — rightly so, this Broncos team is outstanding — and he didn’t fall back on ‘we need to be better’ or ‘we can’t take periods off’ language we were accustomed to hearing in 2024-25.
But there was too much icing, too many faceoffs lost (and when you ice the puck a lot and can’t win faceoffs, it’s a problem), too many minor penalties and too many passes to no one in particular.
Again, all the credit to WMU for forcing icings…sometimes…fighting harder on draws, drawing penalties and intercepting errant passes.
Sixty minutes of sustained energy (plus overtime at Lindenwood) got Miami to 7-1. The RedHawks will need to clean up a few areas if it hopes to salvage a split on Saturday.
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