Returning USU players face off against new UVU recruits

The Utah State Aggies hockey team, mostly comprised of returning players, will face off against the Utah Valley University Wolverines on Saturday.

While both the USU and UVU teams were looking to add depth to their lineup this year, only four of the players on the Wolverines are returners from last year, with the others all being new to the team. 

“I haven’t seen any of the new recruits,” said Aggies head coach CJ Westlake. “It can be hard with a lot of new guys, because they don’t know the league as well. We have a lot of returners, but we’re not taking their team lightly.”

This will be the second season the Wolverines have played since UVU restarted its hockey program, but only the first year with Darin Peck as head coach. Peck said that recruiting new players has been the team's top priority going into this season.

“It’s basically a whole new system,” Peck said. “Everything is new. We’ve done a whole lot of recruiting, trying to pick up the talent level. Some of the new guys have played at a higher level where last year's were young recruits, mostly out of high school.” 

Peck is giving the Wolverines a few games to “see how our lines are doing and what kind of hockey the boys want to play,” where Westlake has already worked out what strategies the Aggies will focus on for the game.

“We’ve been running drill systems in the neutral zone,” Westlake said, “and we’re working on good puck movement and communication.”

The Weber versus UVU game today will give the Aggies the advantage of being able to scout how UVU plays before the Aggies and Wolverines meet on Saturday.

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