The 2024–25 New Hampshire Wildcats Men's ice hockey season was the 99th season of play for the program and the 41st in Hockey East. The Wildcats represented the University of New Hampshire in the 2024–25 NCAA Division I men's ice hockey season, played their home games at the Whittemore Center and were coached by Mike Souza in his 7th season.
Season New Hampshire entered the season with some uncertainty about its goaltending situation. Having lost both of the netminders who appeared the previous season, the Wildcats went with the combination of two transfers in Rico DiMatteo and Jared Whale. Whale won the starting job out of training camp and remained in goal despite some up and down play early in the year. During the first few weeks of the season, the team mirrored their goaltender's performance, alternating between good and bad nights before finally settling down in mid-November. UNH began to show some of the promise the club had only hinted at over the previous few seasons, scoring at a solid clip while the defense insulated Whale. Ryan Conmy led the way during their winning stretch, scoring in every game from November 9 to January 4. The Wildcat's 8–1–2 record during that time also earned the club a return to the national polls and they even made it into the top-16 of the PairWise, giving them a shot for an at-large bid.
The team was riding high going into their series with Connecticut in mid-January. The offense faltered a bit in the two games, resulting in losses, and presaged a disastrous run of games that destroyed any chance of UNH returning to the national tournament. Over a nearly two month span, New Hampshire's scoring virtually disappeared. In 15 games, the Wildcats were only able to score more than 2 goals in 4 matches. That problem was then compounded by the sudden struggles of Whale, who saw his goals against average balloon by more than a goal per game in the second half of the season. The result was a 1–11–3 run that dropped the Wildcats towards the bottom of the standings and knocked them outside the bubble.
At the end of February, Whale was felled by an injury when he was landed on by a teammate. DiMatteo finished off the game and was then called upon to start for the remainder of the season. The first thing he did was stave off #2 Boston College, losing 1–1 in a shootout, and then backstop the Wildcats to two wins over Massachusetts Lowell, the team's only conference sweep of the season.
The sudden shift in the team's fortunes brought a bit of hope back for the program, particularly since they were set to play Lowell in the first round of the conference tournament. While UNH would still have to make some noise in the Hockey East playoffs, the fact that the conference had the best ranking in the nation was born out in New Hampshire's #18 position despite possessing a losing record. Their first round match started off well with UNH finishing the first period with a 2–1 lead. However, the offense was only able to fire 13 shots over the next two periods. Lowell, on the other hand, assailed the Wildcat net bombarding DiMatteo with 29 attempts. He did well to stop most of the shots, including several on two power plays, but did end up surrendering the tying goal. UNH was able to limp into overtime but the momentum remained firmly with the River Hawks. Lowell scored the winning goal on their 42nd shot of the night, ending a dismal season for the Wildcats.
Departures Harrison Blaisdell Forward Graduation (signed with Fort Wayne Komets) Nicholas Cafarelli Forward Graduate transfer to RIT Jeremy Forman Goaltender Graduate transfer to UNLV Cameron Gendron Forward Graduate transfer to Providence Jakob Hellsten Goaltender Signed professional contract (Leksands IF) Tyler Muszelik Goaltender Transferred to Connecticut Stiven Sardaryan Forward Transferred to Michigan Tech
Recruiting Rico DiMatteo Goaltender 23 Brasher Falls, NY; graduate transfer from Long Island Connor MacPherson Forward 19 Windsor, ON Ryan MacPherson Forward 19 Windsor, ON; selected 172nd overall in 2023 Josh Player Defenseman 19 Thorofare, NJ Jared Whale Goaltender 21 Calgary, AB; transfer from Alaska Anchorage
Roster As of August 24, 2024.
Standings
Schedule and results
!colspan=12 style=";" | Exhibition
!colspan=12 style=";" | Regular Season
!colspan=12 style=";" |
Scoring statistics RW 34 15 18 33 6 F 35 17 11 28 20 F 33 8 20 28 12 F 35 9 14 23 40 F 35 9 11 20 4 C 35 8 9 17 34 D 35 4 13 17 46 F 26 2 12 14 8 C 35 5 8 13 22 D 35 1 11 12 10 F 32 3 8 11 4 D 35 0 10 10 22 F 35 2 6 8 8 F 35 5 1 6 10 C 32 3 3 6 4 D 28 2 4 6 33 D/F 28 0 6 6 4 D 33 1 2 3 24 C 18 1 1 2 2 D 20 1 0 1 6 D 2 0 0 0 0 RW 5 0 0 0 0 D 13 0 0 0 2 F 15 0 0 0 15 G 8 0 0 0 0 G 31 0 0 0 0 Bench – – – – – 4 Total 99 183 282 383
Goaltending statistics 8 355:25 2 1 1 15 153 0 .911 2.53 31 1770:39 11 15 5 79 624 2 .888 2.68 Empty Net - 15:20 - - - 6 - - - - Total 35 2141:24 13 16 6 100 777 2 .886 2.80
Rankings
PollWeekPre 1 23456789101112131415161718192021222324252627 (Final) USCHO.comRVNRNRNRNRNRNRNRNRNRNRRV-RV17191818RVRVRVRVRVRVNRNR-NR USA HockeyRVNRNRNRNRNRNRNRNRNRNRRV-201618181619RVRVRVRVRVNRNRNRNR Note: USCHO did not release a poll in week 12 or 26.Note: USA Hockey did not release a poll in week 12.
Awards and honors Alex Gagne All-Hockey East Third Team
References