The 2024–25 RPI Engineers Men's ice hockey season was the 105th season of play for the program and the 63rd in ECAC Hockey. The Engineers represented Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in the 2024–25 NCAA Division I men's ice hockey season, played their home games at Houston Field House and were coached by Dave Smith in his 7th season.
Season Over the course of the first half of the season, Rensselaer played up and down. Early on, the offense was fairly consistent, scoring more than 3 goals per game for the first two months of the season. Unfortunately, the Engineers' goaltending situation was particularly bad. The duo of Noah Giesbrecht and Jack Watson alternated starts through the first month with each allowing at least 3 goals in each of their games. However, in November, Giesbrecht was able to collect himself and put together a string of four solid performances, albeit against fairly weak opponents. The short stint of solid goaltending ended at the end of the month when they ran into a couple ranked teams and proceeded to lose four in a row. While they were able to finish off the first half of the season with a decent weekend, Rensselaer was no position to see their start as anything but a failure. All six of the team's victories came at the expense of some of the worst teams in college hockey (none would finish higher than 54th in the PairWise rankings) with just one win in six conference matches. Worse, the team's star prospect, Sutter Muzzatti was unable to overcome offseason surgery and ended up having to sit out the rest of the year after December 7.
The team was able to pick up the pace after the new year, posting 3 wins in five games, but after taking down a ranked Clarkson squad in mid-January, their season imploded. Giesbrecht was given the starting role for the entire second half of the season but it wasn't because he had distinguished himself. The Engineers routinely surrendered 4 goals or more in the final two months, losing 10 out of their final 13 games as a result. As if to rub salt in the wound, the offense provided a consistent level of scoring with the team getting contributions from up and down the lineup, but they could not overcome the poor goaltending they received on a nightly basis.
The team's lone playoff game was a microcosm of the season as the Engineers were able to put up two goals but Giesbrecht allowed 5 markers on 20 shots before being pulled. Unsurprisingly, the school was not satisfied with how the team had performed as of late and announced that Dave Smith would not be returning shortly after the end of the season.
Departures Nick Ardanaz Defenseman Transferred to British Columbia Finn Brown Forward Left program (retired) Ryan Brushett Forward Graduation (signed with Trois-Rivières Lions) Brendan Budy Forward Graduation (retired) Carson Cherepak Goaltender Transferred to Lakehead Danny Ciccarello Forward Transferred to Northern Michigan Dylan Davies Defenseman/Forward Graduation (retired) John Evans Forward Transferred to Lindenwood Austin Heidemann Forward Graduation (signed with Worcester Railers) Brett Miller Goaltender Graduate transfer to Miami Altti Nykänen Forward Graduation (retired) C. J. Regula Defenseman Graduation (signed with Worcester Railers) Lauri Sertti Defenseman Graduate transfer to American International
Recruiting Arvils Bergmanis Defenseman 24 Riga, LAT; transfer from Alaska Mathieu Bourgault Forward 21 Saint-Bruno-de-Montarville, QC Félix Caron Forward 19 Terrebonne, QC Carson Dorfman Goaltender 20 Hermitage, TN Noah Giesbrecht Goaltender 25 South Surrey, BC; graduate transfer from Ferris State Will Gilson Defenseman 23 Old Greenwich, CT; transfer from Alaska Anchorage Brody Maguire Defenseman 20 Calgary, AB Elliott McDermott Defenseman 25 Kingston, ON; graduate transfer from Massachusetts Gustavs Ozoliņš Defenseman 21 Riga, LAT Rainers Rullers Forward 19 Riga, LAT Jagger Tapper Forward 20 Calgary, AB Jordan Tonelli Forward 24 Armonk, NY; graduate transfer from Brown
Roster As of September 14, 2024.
Standings
Schedule and results
!colspan=12 ! style=""; | Exhibition
!colspan=12 ! style=""; | Regular Season
!colspan=12 style=";" |
Scoring statistics F 35 8 16 24 26 F 35 6 16 22 47 F 35 6 15 21 62 C 35 13 7 20 26 C 32 10 10 20 18 C 34 6 13 19 0 D 35 3 15 18 4 F 35 6 11 17 10 RW 33 8 7 15 12 D 35 5 10 15 6 D 34 5 8 13 25 F 35 4 4 8 22 C 33 3 3 6 6 F 35 2 3 5 2 D 35 2 3 5 20 D 21 2 2 4 0 F 10 2 1 3 8 D 21 1 2 3 4 F 31 1 2 3 2 D 6 0 1 1 2 G 8 0 1 1 0 F 13 0 1 1 8 G 30 0 1 1 0 LW 1 0 0 0 0 D 19 0 0 0 0 Bench – – – – – 4 Total 101 164 265 330
Goaltending statistics 2 9:02 0 0 0 0 6 0 1.000 0.00 30 1727:36 11 19 0 101 878 0 .897 3.51 8 358:01 1 2 2 23 200 0 .897 3.85 Empty Net - 26:37 - - - 6 - - - - Total 35 2121:16 12 21 2 131 1084 0 .892 3.71
Rankings
PollWeekPre 1 23456789101112131415161718192021222324252627 (Final) USCHO.comNRNRNRNRNRNRNRNRNRNRNRNR–NRNRNRNRNRNRNRNRNRNRNRNRNR–NR USA HockeyNRNRNRNRNRNRNRNRNRNRNRNR–NRNRNRNRNRNRNRNRNRNRNRNRNRNRNR Note: USCHO did not release a poll in week 12 or 26.Note: USA Hockey did not release a poll in week 12.
References