In an Instagram video post on Monday, four University of Maine men’s hockey players have announced their intentions to return to the team for the 2024-25 season.
Defenseman David Breazeale, along with forwards Harrison Scott, Lynden Breen, and Josh Nadeau are all coming back in hopes to build off the 2023-24 season, where Maine went 23-12-2 and 14-9-1 in Hockey East. For the first time in 12 years, the Black Bears had a home conference quarterfinal, appeared in the Hockey East semifinals in Boston at TD Garden, and made the NCAA Tournament. The season came to an end in the Springfield, Massachusetts regional in a 3-1 loss to Cornell on March 28.
Breazeale enjoyed a solid junior season, as one of the steady defenseman along the Maine blue line while also scoring two goals and dishing out seven assists. The junior Scott, who transferred from Bentley University, put in 15 goals and had 12 assists and was also one of the top five faceoff men in all of Division I college hockey. Breen will return for his extra year of eligibility, coming off a 2023-24 season that saw him put up 30 points (9 goals, 21 assists). Josh Nadeau, who had success playing alongside his brother Bradly, had 18 goals and 27 assists in his freshman campaign good for second on the team (one point behind Bradly). Bradly Nadeau has left the school after one season and recently signed a three-year entry level contract with the team that drafted him, the Carolina Hurricanes. The Black Bears will return seven of their top 10 scorers (Josh Nadeau, Breen, Scott, Brandon Chabrier, Thomas Freel, Brandon Holt, and Sully Scholle), after also losing Donovan Villeneuve-Houle and Ben Poisson to graduation. The return of these players, the incoming freshman class, and also the transfer portal should get Maine fans very excited for the upcoming season. The Black Bears have already gained a couple of players in that transfer portal, including defenseman Cale Makar from the University of Massachusetts and the leading scorer from Colgate University in center Ross Mitton.
Written by Chris Lessner
