The 2023–24 Augustana (South Dakota) Vikings men's ice hockey season was the inaugural season of play for the program and 1st in the CCHA. The Vikings represented Augustana University, played their home games at Midco Arena and were coached by Garrett Raboin in his 1st season.
Season Due to ongoing construction of the Midco Arena, Augustana played its first five home games at the Denny Sanford Premier Center. The Vikings will play a transitional conference schedule in their first two seasons, meeting each CCHA opponent for one weekend series each year (16 games). None of the games against their conference opponents were counted in the league standings. As a result, Augustana is ineligible for the conference tournament until 2026. Despite this, because Augustana was starting its program at the Division I level and not moving up from a lower level, they were eligible for the NCAA tournament in their first season.
Unsurprisingly, Augustana finished with a losing record in their inaugural season but the team was anything but unsuccessful. Early in the season, a tie against one of the top teams in the nation, Denver was followed up by defeating another tournament-hopeful in Colorado College. While the Vikings weren't able to sustain that level of play, the team did demonstrate that they were more than just a collection of spare parts and castaways. The team had many close losses throughout the year, several against well-regarded programs such as Notre Dame. The season's biggest win, however, came against #16 Arizona State, the first victory for the Vikings over a ranked opponent.
Departures None; Augustana did not field a club team prior to their first varsity season.
Recruiting The entire roster was complied of new entries to the program.
Roster As of July 20, 2023.
Standings
Schedule and results
!colspan=12 style=";" | Regular Season
Scoring statistics F 34 8 17 25 0 F 34 12 7 19 23 F 34 8 8 16 27 D 29 5 9 14 30 D 32 4 10 14 10 F 28 5 8 13 14 F 29 3 10 13 2 F 29 5 7 12 12 F 31 6 5 12 18 F 30 5 7 12 15 F 24 3 8 11 6 D 34 3 8 11 16 D 34 3 7 10 10 F 25 4 5 9 6 D 32 2 6 8 14 F 15 4 4 8 23 F 26 4 4 8 2 F 26 0 7 7 4 F 28 2 3 5 20 D 30 2 3 5 4 F 19 0 2 2 8 G 16 0 1 1 0 D 21 0 1 1 6 G 9 0 0 0 0 G 13 0 0 0 0 F 16 0 0 0 8 Total 88 147 236 278
Goaltending statistics 15 863:31 6 6 2 39 463 2 .922 2.71 9 462:27 4 3 0 21 241 0 .920 2.72 13 722:36 2 9 2 40 378 0 .904 3.32 Empty Net - 24:24 - - - 5 - - - - Total 34 2072:58 12 18 4 105 1082 2 .912 3.04
Rankings
PollWeekPre 1 234567891011121314151617181920212223242526 (Final) USCHO.comNRNRNRNRNRNRNRNRNRNRNR–NRNRNRNRNRNRNRNRNRNRNRNRNR–NR USA HockeyNRNRNRNRNRNRNRNRNRNRNRNR–NRNRNRNRNRNRNRNRNRNRNRNRNRNR Note: USCHO did not release a poll in weeks 11 and 25.Note: USA Hockey did not release a poll in week 12.
References