2026-27 incoming class report: Overview

When the puck drops this fall, NHL logos will dot Miami’s line charts at the highest clip in more than a decade.

Of the 11 members of the RedHawks’ incoming class, four are draftees, meaning MU will likely dress seven NHL selections in 2026-27.

MU hasn’t had more than four draft picks on its roster since the mid-2010s.

“It’s cool to see those logos on there, obviously, and the (drafted) kids that we’re bringing back – it’s going to be exciting,” Miami general manager David Nies said.

Miami has signed five forwards, five defensemen and a goalie for the upcoming season and retained 16 players from 2025-26, so its current roster lists 27: 15 centers and wings, nine blueliners and three netminders.

Up front, the RedHawks added Austin Baker, Charlie Blanchard, Matous Kucharcik, Layne Loomer and Ryan Seelinger.

Baker and Kucharcik were drafted by Detroit and Buffalo, respectively, and Loomer and Seelinger were among the top five in USHL scoring last season.

On defense, Jack Hamilton, David Helledy, Cal Huston, Tim Runtso and Branko Vukas will make their Miami debuts in 2026-27.

Runtso, selected by Montréal 57th overall in June, will be the highest-drafted defenseman to dress for the RedHawks since 2007 Columbus pick Will Weber.

Hamilton is 6-feet, 5-inches tall and Vukas is 6-4.

And MU signed Calgary draftee Yegor Yegorov, who posted a .918 save percentage in Russia, to complete its goaltending trio.

“Super excited about the class that’s coming in,” Nies said. “I think we’ve got a variance of different things up front and on our back end, and obviously being able to add a goalie like Yegor and some of the transfers that we added, I think that we’ve got a good mix and match. The one constant and consistent thing with all of those kids and every kid that’s coming in is they’re all really good kids and they’re all highly competitive, similar to the class that we brought in last year, and we just try to continue that as we move forward.”

Nine incoming players are freshmen. Baker, who transferred from Michigan State, is a sophomore, and Helledy, a junior, spent the past two seasons at Bentley.

Miami is also getting a size upgrade. Ten of the 11 first-year RedHawks are six feet tall or over, including four players at least 6-3.

“We probably are a little bit bigger, but you’ve got to play big too, and I think a lot of these guys do play big, and they play bigger than they actually are,” Nies said. “Height is one thing, but in hockey it’s how thick you are and how heavy you play, and these guys all play pretty hard.”

While it’s obviously easier to recruit coming off a winning season vs. a year ago when Miami finished 2024-25 with three wins, Nies pointed out that many of the newcomers committed prior to Miami’s rejuvenation.

After having brought in players to help reverse the team’s culture, now in Year 3 of this coaching regime, the staff is able to target more specific roster needs.

“We wanted to start with the room first, and now that we’ve got a solid base we can plug some guys into some things that…we’re missing, whether it’s the quarterback of a power play or it’s a flank or whatever it is, we can be a little more nit-picky when we’re looking for those things,” Nies said.

With such a promising incoming class and resulting positional depth, competition for the 20 starting slots each weekend should be intense. Of the 16 returning players, 15 were lineup regulars last season, and all 11 newbies are expected to compete for ice time immediately.

“That’s what you want to have, you want to have competition at every position and in different roles,” Nies said. “I think that our guys are better coming in and our guys that are returning are selfless, they’re team-first, but they all want to play too, so it’s exciting to see where things fall. You always have a blank line chart and you make it up and it switches in the summer, you don’t really know until practice starts and you put in systems, and who’s applying those things. Things are going to change: The first line chart is going to be different than the last one when we’re in playoffs.”

This is Part I of our three-part series on the 2026-27 incoming class. We’ll post an in-depth look at the forwards in Part II and the defensemen and goalie in Part III later this month.

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