2023–24 Arizona State Sun Devils men's ice hockey season

The 2023–24 Arizona State Sun Devils men's ice hockey season was the 9th season of play for the program at the Division I level. The Sun Devils represented Arizona State University and were coached by Greg Powers in his 12th season.

Season

Arizona State came into its final season as an independent program looking for one final hurrah before it joined the National Collegiate Hockey Conference. The Sun Devils got off on the right foot by winning their first four games of the season and rising up into the national rankings. The team suffered a bit of a setback when they couldn't overcome Miami and then escaped utter disaster when they needed overtime to defeat Stonehill, the worst team in the nation.

The team recovered with a pair of split series against top-10 teams in November and looked to be well-positioned for a potential NCAA tournament berth. The defense was holding up well enough and the Sun Devils were getting decent goaltending performances from T. J. Semptimphelter. The offense, however, was the star of the show; Lukas Sillinger led the way up front, setting a new program record with 48 points while Matthew Kopperud was lights-out on the power play, scoring 17 of his 23 goals on the man-advantage (the 4th-most in NCAA history).

After a decent stretch in December, Arizona State kicked off the second half of its season by winning a pair of in-season tournaments. First up was the inaugural Adirondack Winter Invitational that finished with a shootout win over #17 Cornell. The following week, at its own Desert Hockey Classic, the Sun Devils took down Omaha in overtime to win the tournament for the first time. The wins lifted ASU up to #11 in the polls but the team was lagging behind in the PairWise. While their record was enviable at 16–3–5, the team's ranking was downgraded for two reasons: strength of schedule and margin of victory. Arizona State had played several ranked teams by the mid-way point of the season, however, those games were off-set by several series against bottom-dwelling clubs. To make matters worse, ASU's narrow wins over Stonehill and the loss to Miami kept the team from rising any higher than 16th in the PairWise.

Due to the way conference schedules typically work out, ASU would have little opportunity in the later portion of the season to climb higher in the rankings and they needed a strong performance against Cornell to stake their claim. Unfortunately, the Sun Devils had one of their worst offensive performances of the season and were limited to just 37 shots over the weekend. The Big Red avenged their Winter Invitational loss with a sweep of Arizona State and pushed the Sun Devils outside the playoff picture. To have any real chance of making the tournament, ASU needed to go undefeated down the stretch. However, the team lost its third consecutive game when Augustana arrived and their dwindling hopes faded even further. The loss also caused a change in ASU's goal crease; Semptimphelter had been playing well for most of the season but he would have poor outing from time to time. The Augustana match saw him surrender 3 goals on 6 shots and, to make matters worse, it took the Vikings more than half the game to reach that total. Gibson Homer was inserted into the cage and, while he was unable to secure a victory, he became the starter for the latter portion of the year.

At the close of the season, Arizona State had set new programs records for wins and winning percentage. They had defeated four teams that finished the year with a national ranking and had one of the top offenses in the country. Unfortunately, their habit of playing down to the opponents level doomed the team's chances at a playoff appearance.

Departures

Recruiting

Roster

As of July 1, 2023.

Standings

Schedule and results

Scoring statistics

Goaltending statistics

Rankings

Note: USCHO did not release a poll in weeks 11 and 25.
Note: USA Today did not release a poll in week 12.

References