By Sean Moylan, Sports Writer
Last year the Robbinsville High varsity ice hockey team won just four games. The Ravens, however, usually didn’t lose ice hockey games because of a lack of talent or because of their limited playing experience. Most of their losses came because the team simply had way too many injuries to key players during the course of the season.
This year, the club is so deep that Robbinsville will hopefully not have to experience that problem again.
“As we enter our second season, I’m cautiously optimistic that we can take a small step forward. With a full complement of seniors at the school, at least we will be on equal footing in terms of age and physical maturity,” said Robbinsville head varsity ice hockey coach Dan Bergan, who did a very good job of holding his club together and putting makeshift lines on the ice last year.
Robbinsville has several good hockey players and two great ones, Mike Piet and Richie Flocco, back form last year’s club.
“On offense, junior Mike Piet should be a top forward in the CVC and make noise in the statewide picture. I believe he has a solid chance to play college hockey and will jump up on the radar screens this season. He has size, speed and can really dish the puck,” said Bergan.
“On the backline, soph Richie Flocco has D-1 potential and is an absolute bulldog with or without the puck. (He has the) best stick in the business and will gap up with any forward.”
Last year, Robbinsville struggled at times to put a healthy, experienced goalie in front of the cage. This year they have some depth at the position with juniors Ryan McFarlane and Louie Owens battling it out with newcomer Ryan DeAngelis (a sophomore) for the starting goalie spot.
“We bring back experience from our first season with forwards Robbie Zingaro (sophomore forward), Chris Michaels (senior defender) and Casey Bowen (senior forward) returning to provide some scoring. Second-year players Will Weiser (junior forward), Blaine Zaffos (sophomore forward), Matt Alexander (senior forward) and Kevin Koss (sophomore forward) seem ready to make a contribution along with newcomer Dan Greb (senior forward). I expect second-year defenseman Michael Arak (senior) to take on a lot more responsibility this season and D-man Mike Cvrlje (sophomore) to make the transition to (defense).”
With his unique blend of passing skills, superior vision and overall polish, Anthony Rosetta is one of several freshmen Bergan expects to make an impact this season.
Bergan has three solid freshmen defenders in Tyler Glassman, Ryan Boyne and Joe Normandin. And 10th grader Chris Alexander will also play some defense for the Ravens.
With the addition of freshmen wingers Connor Given and Rich Salava, Robbinsville may even use three lines this season. That will take a lot of the pressure off of Piet, Flocco, Zingaro and Bowen, who, when healthy, skated a lot of minutes last season.
With no senior class last year, Robbinsville didn’t lose a single one of its good players to graduation.
“The bulk of our depth is still second-year players with a mix of freshmen and a blend of two excellent players (Piet and Flocco) to go with two or three more experienced players. All of our goaltenders have less than one full year of skating experience, but we have two former goalie as coaches to help accelerate their development. If we stay even in goal, we can stay competitive in a majority of our games,” said Bergan, who expects his squad to compete for a Patriot Division title and make the playoffs if it can stay healthy.
Bergan sees Hopewell Valley as the best club in the CVC and he expects Hamilton West to be the surprise team of the league.
Robbinsville is scheduled to open up its regular season with a road game versus Hamilton West at Mercer County Park on December 5.

