For Notre Dame hockey, the first year under Brock Sheahan was never going to be an easy one. An alumnus of the program, Sheahan took over for 20-year head coach Jeff Jackson at the end of the 2024-25 season after a year in waiting. That 2024-25 team was 4-19-1 in Big Ten play, the season bolstered at the end by a conference tournament upset against Minnesota.
Since his introductory press conference, Sheahan has spoken at length about bringing a new style to the Irish. The team would play at a greater pace and entertainment level, and the year-round focus would remain on the process of improvement, not on-ice results.
As expected, it took a while for 2025-26 Notre Dame to find its identity and achieve it consistently during gameplay. After a 3-2-1 start in October nonconference play, the Irish lost their first 13 Big Ten games. In November, they couldn’t sync high-level offense with quality defensive play. In December and January, they shot themselves in the foot with endless penalties, taking misconducts and suspensions they could not afford.
However, beginning with a Jan. 23-24 series against Ohio State, something clicked. After coming from behind and nearly winning the Friday game, Notre Dame blasted the Buckeyes for a 6-1 victory on Saturday night. The Irish played even-paced hockey from there on out, staying right in the thick of every game until the final horn. They even ended the regular season with three consecutive overtime wins, marking a first in program history.
Even though the year ended bitterly with a blowout loss at Michigan in the single-game Big Ten quarterfinal, Sheahan liked what he saw from the stretch run.
“We did make progress in our game,” Sheahan said. “On ice, I think you could see the style of play that we want as a staff, how aggressive we are and our guys [were] starting to figure it out.”
Heading into 2026-27, the Irish return the bulk of their personnel. Cole Knuble, the team’s leading point-scorer in 2024-25, signed with the Philadelphia Flyers to depart after his junior season. Among the five exiting seniors and graduate students, just two or three played key minutes on any given night. And the three losses to the transfer portal combined to dress in only 24 games this past season.
Most importantly, the young, new coaching staff of Sheahan, Mike Garman, Tristan Musser and Andrew Oglevie now knows what a year of coaching this style of Notre Dame hockey entails.
Rising seniors lead returning class
Although Knuble’s NHL signing is an impressive feat, his loss will undoubtedly be felt on the scoring drive for the Irish. Notre Dame returns two extremely valuable playmakers in junior center Danny Nelson and junior defenseman Paul Fischer. Both NHL draft picks, the two were captains and ranked among Notre Dame’s top five point leaders in 2025-26.
“Those two are going to be extremely important for us,” Sheahan said.
Another critical rising senior is speedy winger Evan Werner. At 5-foot-8-inches, the former Michigan Wolverine skates with an engine few players in the Big Ten can match. No player in the Irish blue and gold could offensively heat up quite like Werner last year, and he now has three consecutive 20-point seasons in college hockey after posting a team-best 17-17--34 scoring line in 2025-26.
“I expect [Werner] to hit the ground running and be one of the best players in our conference next year,” Sheahan said.
On Werner’s line, the Irish could potentially bring back another high-impact transfer from Sheahan’s first offseason as head coach. Graduate center Sutter Muzzatti led Notre Dame in assists as an elite playmaker last season, totaling 32 points. With one year remaining in eligibility and no set plans as of yet, he could don the Irish uniform for another year.
Three more double-digit point-getters will be back in the persons of freshmen Cole Brown and Pano Fimis, who got better as the team did late last season, and consistent junior Brennan Ali.
On the back end, the Irish have lost important senior defensemen Axel Kumlin and Michael Mastrodomenico, but expect junior Henry Nelson and sophomore Jaedon Kerr to succeed in larger roles next season. The man behind them, sophomore goaltender Nicholas Kempf, is in a great spot to take a leap forward. After sitting in a timeshare with the more experienced Owen Say as a freshman, Kempf started every game he was available for the last season. Kempf’s .893 save percentage and 3.55 goals against average weren’t what he expected, but that’s likely more a product of his team’s situation than his play, and the value of the experience he gained as the full-time starter cannot be overstated.
“It was awesome,” Sheahan said of Kempf’s sophomore season. “I know it‘s a tough year result-wise, and we leaned on him and stressed him out a little bit, but I think that all of what he went through this year is gonna set him up to be one of — I still think he‘s one of the best goalies in the game, in college.”
Now, in spite of the strong finish, 2025-26 was still one of Notre Dame hockey’s worst seasons in modern team history. The Irish finished with a single-digit total for the first time since 2004-05, the final year before Jackson took over and massively elevated the program.
Part of that 2004-05 squad was a freshman by the name of Brock Sheahan, who now sees parallels to his current team and his team from two decades ago. Just like the 2025-26 squad, the first-year Jeff Jackson team of 2005-06 found their game in the second half of the season. They’d go on to win a preposterous 33 games in 2006-07 and reach the national championship game in 2008.
Repeating that level of improvement would be a big ask of the current group, but they’ve got the future in their hands.
“It changed in my time here,” Sheahan recalled. “Enough was enough at some point, and those guys in the locker room coming back — they‘re gonna drive that.”
Incoming freshmen and portal grabs
Based on confirmed portal activity and Sheahan’s updates from the end of March, we know of eight Irish newcomers who will join the lineup in 2026-27. For now, the four freshmen are forwards Sammy Nelson and Beckham Edwards, defenseman Danny Klaers and goalie Patrick Quinlan.
If you’re wondering, yes, there will be three Nelson brothers wearing the Notre Dame sweater next year. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for Danny, Henry and Sammy, and it’s a big reason why Danny elected to return to South Bend. Sammy played against his brothers with the United States National Team Development Program in October and ended up posting 19 points in 21 games with the U18s in 2025-26.
Edwards will be the fourth Canadian Hockey League player to join the Irish since the NCAA began allowing CHL prospects last season. He comes off back-to-back 45-point seasons with the Ontario Hockey League’s Sarnia Sting. The third incoming freshman skater, Klaers, spent the last three campaigns with the Muskegon Lumberjacks United States Hockey League, winning regular-season and postseason championships in 2025.
Quinlan is another USNTDP product who spent last season with Edwards in Sarnia. Like Kempf, he struggled by the stat book in 2025-26, but Sheahan attributes that more to his situation. Quinlan and Kempf both suited up for the NTDP in 2023-24, Kempf for the U18s and Quinlan for the U17s.
Sheahan enjoyed massive success with his two transfer skaters (Muzzatti and Werner) last season, and he’s got four coming in for next season. Sophomore forward Hagen Burrows has been to two consecutive national title games with Denver, where he won it all in Vegas a month ago. Freshman forward David Klee (North Dakota) and sophomore defenseman Michael Quinn (Miami) also come from NCHC programs and are hoping to create something meaningful in the Irish uniform.
Notre Dame’s fourth portal addition is an in-league transfer from Minnesota, sophomore defenseman Leo Gruba. After playing a combined 77 games in his first two seasons in the Twin Cities, Gruba saw Golden Gopher head coach Bob Motzko fired at the conclusion of 2025-26. He heads to South Bend with the big-game pedigree to make a major impact on the blue line under Sheahan’s guidance.
Overall, Sheahan draws excitement in the group he has assembled for 2026-27, but he knows that a return to the national picture won’t come easily in the always-loaded Big Ten.
“I believe we have the guys in here that want to do it, and the guys that we'll be bringing in are going to help with that,” Sheahan said. “But it does take time … It's gonna be day to day, game to game as how we're playing consistently. That’s going to be the change.”
Notre Dame hockey will open its second season under Sheahan in early October. Expect the nonconference and Big Ten schedules to be disseminated between June and August as Notre Dame prepares for another highly anticipated season.
