EXETER, N.H. — Spending the weekend at Phillips Exeter meant getting to see some of the top teams in New England boys prep hockey.
Kimball Union, Dexter Southfield, Kent and Brunswick are all top-10 teams. Frederick Gunn and Phillips Exeter were in my Next 15 rankings to start the season. Rivers was in the Elite 8 semifinal last season, and New Hampton is always a tough out.
The Phillips Exeter Invitational also upended my top 10 rankings for this week. The team that entered the tournament at No. 1 fell to No. 4 after playing two games in Exeter.
One of their games also featured a nice little brawl at the end. Don't worry, I'll include the video.
This story will cover takeaways. A second story is coming on standouts who weren't mentioned in this story. For example, Kent forward Will Schlechtweg was vital this weekend and is mentioned quite a bit in here. So, he won't be in the standouts. But his teammate, Richard Shin, is briefly mentioned in this, so he's one of the standouts I'll be highlighting in the other story. Got it? Good.
I was at all four games on Saturday, so this story will lean more on those games than the ones on Sunday.
Here are the scores from all 16 games this weekend.
Saturday
- Kimball Union 2, Rivers 1
- Kent 3, Dexter 2
- Brunswick 5, Phillips Exeter 1
- Frederick Gunn 7, New Hampton 2
Sunday
- Kimball Union 3, Brunswick 2
- Kent 3, New Hampton 2
- Rivers 3, Phillips Exeter 1
- Frederick Gunn 4, Dexter 4
Now, let's dive in.
1. Kent's top line of Jack Broderick, Lucas Husted-Edwards and Schlechtweg was a complete force, and one of the main reasons why the Lions took down Dexter on Saturday.
Husted-Edwards provided speed and physicality down the middle. He drove play, and when he chipped pucks in deep, he pressured Dexter's defensemen hard, which caused turnovers. The '07 from Trumbull, Conn., is worth watching for college and junior teams.
Broderick was a freaking dawg. The Cornell commit's compete was sky-high, as he always seemed to win his puck battles along the walls. He showed strong hockey sense in his anticipation of Dexter's outlet passes, as he got above pucks and made the right reads. And he didn't just intercept plays — he converted those sequences into offense, too. Broderick had also been struggling to score, so he responded by scoring the game-tying and game-winning goals against Dexter with under two minutes to play. He added two more in the win over New Hampton on Sunday.
Schlechtweg provided the lethal shot. He scored the game's first goal late in the second period when he absolutely wired a snipe past Dexter goalie Drew Karlovits (Cohasset, Mass.) from out high. He has one of the hardest, most accurate shots I've seen in prep. It's not a shock that he has interest from Hockey East schools. He assisted on Broderick's first goal against Dexter by intercepting a failed clear by Dexter. He tallied another goal and three points against New Hampton.
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2. Don't sleep on Kent's forward depth. The second line of Ethan Wang, Richard Shin (more on him in a bit) and Colgate commit Maddox Boyle created chances and did a fantastic job of getting above plays and reloading in the neutral zone.
3. Josh Phillips is definitely Kimball Union's best player. The '07 forward dominates with size and skill. But the Wildcats don't fully revolve around him — they're just genuinely a deep, old team, which is why they're No. 1 this week.
With forwards like junior Conal Mulkerrin (Hingham, Mass.) and senior Jackson Kimelman playing with Phillips, a second line of postgrad Jack Ross, junior Charlie MacLeod and senior Carter Cowan, and a third line of sophomore Dawson Wood (Barrington, R.I.), senior Aiden Bean (Plainfield, N.H.) and senior Ried Gueldenzoph (Meriden, N.H.), the Wildcats are simply old and talented. They come in waves. And that's even without senior forward Xander Boutilier, who is out six to eight weeks with a lower-body injury.
On defense, senior Lucas Hannay and junior Nasean Faria showed themselves as strong puck-movers this weekend. Hannay already has six assists and seven points in six games, while Faria has two goals and seven points. Thomas Ojard and Anthony Leech moved pucks well, too. All four are responsible in their own end.
Senior goalie Luca Campo is out for the season with an injury, but senior Cam Ingram stepped up this weekend with 26 saves to beat Rivers and 29 to take down Brunswick.
Stop me if you've heard this one before: Kimball Union is really good again.
4. Dexter dropped from No. 1 to No. 4 in my rankings this week after going 0-1-1 this weekend. There are certainly questions surrounding Dexter now. Just how good are they up front? Are they defensively sound? Is the goaltending good enough? That's what not winning does.
That said, Dexter should want this to happen now rather than later in the season. Overcoming adversity early is typically good for a team with Elite 8 aspirations. You don't want these games happening in late February.
Prediction: Dexter is about to go on a huge winning streak.
5. Brunswick's top line of Ben Lombardi (Cos Cob, Conn.), Keegan Kazan (Wilton, Conn.) and Dartmouth commit Mason St. Louis (Old Greenwich, Conn.) still had more to give offensively this weekend, but the Bruins got great play from their second line of senior Owen Gibbons (Southport, Conn.), junior James Jackson (Darien, Conn.) and senior Ben Taylor (Greenwich, Conn.).
Gibbons tallied two goals against Exeter, one of them a one-time snipe early off a nice feed from Taylor, who also notched a goal against Kimball Union on Sunday. Jackson had three assists on the weekend.
The Bruins have depth with their forward lines. Once Lombardi, Kazan and St. Louis begin producing as they can, Brunswick should rise higher in the top 10.
READ MORE: 5 takeaways from Belmont Hill’s win over Nobles
6. Brunswick senior defenseman Hampus Vandenberg, a Princeton commit, played like a No. 1 defenseman. Against Exeter, he put out fires and made smart puck plays in his own zone. He was involved in the offense quite a bit, too, getting scoring chances and tallying an assist. He scored against Kimball Union on Sunday.
7. Frederick Gunn showed signs of a team that, dare I say, could be an Elite 8 sleeper. At the very least, they should be a top team in the Small School tournament. I know, I know — it's still extremely early.
Head coach Craig Badger's team is deep up front. The first line was senior Tucker Mears, postgrad Whit Denzin and junior Will Wright, while the middle six featured junior Patrick Cerullo, senior Nathan Desanto and senior Ryan Tartaglione, as well as junior Lukas Reisen, junior Alex Taylor and junior Troy Hamelin (Southwick, Mass.).
Those first two lines mentioned play heavy, reliable games, while the Reisen-Taylor-Hamelin line features an abundance of skill and upside.
Against New Hampton, Ethan Lazdowky (Norton, Mass.), a '10, got the nod in net and was fantastic, making 31 saves on 33 shots.
8. Rivers should be a lot better than people thought. The Red Wings faced the tough task of taking on then-No. 2 Kimball Union on Saturday. But Rivers played a structured, disciplined, hard-nosed brand of hockey that almost got them a win against a way more talented Wildcats team — thanks to head coach Freddy Meyer and assistant coaches Dan Panciocco and Brian Collins for an intelligent game plan.
Up front, senior Jonathan Rivard (Newton, Mass.) played a reliable game down the middle, notching an assist on senior Luke Morin's goal. Senior forward Stephen Rousell (Roslindale, Mass.) has also been a revelation, tallying a goal and two assists in the win over Exeter on Sunday.
9. New Hampton may have lost 7-2 to Frederick Gunn on Sunday, but it didn't play like a 7-2 game. The Huskies controlled play at times and outshot the Highlanders, 33-27. The line of senior Johnny Niemela, senior Matthew Homer (Norton, Mass.) and junior Oliver Quong (Williston, Vt.) caused fits low in Frederick Gunn's zone. The trio played a physical, relentless brand of hockey. On defense, junior Preston Abbott (Middleton, Mass.) has a lot of promise, playing a responsible, two-way game. He still has quite a bit of untapped potential. In net, senior Sam Zygulski (Coventry, Conn.) recovered after giving up seven to Frederick Gunn by making 25 saves on 28 shots against Kent on Sunday.
New Hampton is notorious for playing good teams really well. Be prepared for head coach Connor Gorman's team to surprise some people this year.
RANKINGS: Kent upended the top 5 in our first in-season top 10
10. It was a tough weekend for Phillips Exeter, losing both games by a combined score of 8-2. There is, however, some promise throughout the roster. Junior forward Noah Poinsett-Yoshida was the team's most skilled forward this past weekend. He has great hands and always seems to find open ice when he has the puck. He's an intriguing '07.
It's well-documented that I'm not a goalie expert, but Brendan Petraco is extremely athletic — but almost a little too athletic. Against Brunswick, there were times when he was a bit too aggressive on shots, which took him out of position. If he curbed the aggressiveness just a bit, I think fewer goals would've ended up in the back of the net. Still, he made some outstanding saves against Brunswick, using his 6-foot-3 size and athleticism to extend to the weak side and rob Brunswick forwards.
Wild finish to No. 1 Dexter vs No. 5 Kent with a brawl.
Kent takes down Dexter, 3-2. pic.twitter.com/aiIjxH3VZM
— Evan Marinofsky (@EvanMarinofsky) December 6, 2025
11. The Kent-Dexter game was one of the most up-tempo prep matchups I've ever seen. Those teams flew up and down the ice, trading chances. And, of course, there was the brawl at the end, with Northeastern commit Owen McHale (Charlestown, Mass.) and senior defenseman Matt Hines (Hingham, Mass.) in the thick of it for Dexter, while Husted-Edwards and Kent defenders Dylan Mallgrave and Chase Jelenic got involved the most on the other side.
