NORTH ANDOVER, MA-- The Merrimack College Warriors will raise their 2026 Hockey East Championship banner in their home opener against the University of New Hampshire on Thursday night. The game can be seen on ESPN Plus and internationally on HockeyEast.TV. Merrimack is coming off an unofficial split to open the weekend, as they took a 3-1 win in their exhibition game against Sacred Heart on Friday before falling to #7 Quinnipiac by a score of 6-3. New Hampshire also played Quinnipiac over the weekend and they were defeated by a final of 10-2.
Junior defenseman
Nathan King picked up two assists against Quinnipiac to enter the evening as the joint point leader. King earned conference accolades the previous postseason as he was named to the Hockey East All-Tournament Team.
Parker Lalonde is the other joint point leader for Merrimack entering the game, Lalonde opened the scoring in Merrimack's loss to Quinnipiac and is in second place of returning Hockey East point getters from last season, only behind Dean LeTourneau. (Boston College)
It was a memorable weekend for the Frasca family as Merrimack newcomer
Jacob Frasca scored twice in Merrimack's 3-1 win over Sacred Heart, before his brother Gabriel scored the eventual game winning goal against Merrimack the next night. The brother's were the first to face off in opposing uniforms for the hockey program since Tristan Crozier and his brother Max (Providence) faced each other in 2023.
Merrimack went unbeaten in their three games against UNH last year with a 6-1 win on Oct. 18 highlighted by a
Parker Lalonde hat trick, before winning 2-1 on January 30th with goals by
Justin Gill and
Caden Cranston and a 3-3 tie the next night. The Warriors are unbeaten in their last six games with the Wildcats going 4-0-2 with one shootout win. In their last ten meetings Merrimack holds a 6-2-2 record.
