The 2022–23 Canisius Golden Griffins men's ice hockey season was the 43rd season of play for the program, the 25th at the Division I level, and the 20th in the Atlantic Hockey conference. The Golden Griffins represented Canisius College and were coached by Trevor Large, in his 6th season.
Canisius got off to a slow start, only winning two of their first 10 games. Neither the team's primary starter, Jacob Barczewski, nor the backup, John Hawthorne played particularly well but the weren't receiving much help from the defense. Early in the season, Canisius was routinely getting outshot in their games by allowing the opposition to assail their cage. To make matters worse, the offense failed to capitalize in several games where the goaltenders turned in decent performances. The Griffins didn't seem to shake out of their funk until November when they swept a series from defending league champion American International.
In early December, the team got a surprise victory by taking down league-leading RIT in overtime. Unfortunately, the rematch showed that the team still had a ways to go as Canisius was swamped 4–10 by the Tigers. Due to the closure of the Buffalo airport, caused by heavy snowfall, the series with Air Force on December 30-31 was postponed.[1] It was later rescheduled for February 13 and 14 and, as a result, the series with Sacred Heart was pushed back a day to February 18-19.[2]
The Griffins kept plugging away and got stronger on both offense and defense as the season went along. The team pulled itself up into the top half of league standings with a strong finish. After another split with RIT, Canisius went 6–2 over the final four weeks to reach 4th in the Atlantic Hockey standings, earning themselves a home site for the quarterfinals.
Against Army, the Griffins continued the trend of allowing a bevy of chances. The Black Knights fired 37 chances on goal to 27 for Canisius, however, Barczewski was strong in net and only allowed two to get past him. A 5-goal output from the offense was more than enough to give the Golden Griffins a leg up in the series, however, the scoring flagged in the rematch. Canisius was badly outshot and wasted a masterful performance in goal when Barczewski stopped the first 34 chances that came his way. Army scored on their 35th attempt, unfortunately, it came in overtime and tied the series at 1-all. With their season on the line, Canisius fought back in the rubber match and finished with the shot advantage. Barczewski again allowed nothing past him in regulation and, since he got some goal support this time, helped finish off Army with his second shutout of the season.
Canisius faced a scrappy Niagara club that punched above its record in the semifinals. The Griffs offense was a bit sluggish and could only manage a single goal, leading to a 1–2 defeat. Ordinarily that would have been the end of Canisius' season, however, Atlantic Hockey had changed the playoff format for this season and turned the semifinal round into a best-of-three series.[3] With Barczewski remaining a rock in goal, the offense returned for the rest of the series and the trio of Keaton Mastrodonato, Ryan Miotto and David Melaragni combined for 10 points to lead Canisius to their second title game in three seasons.
Only Holy Cross stood in the way of the Griffins second trip to the NCAA tournament and the team could not have asked for a better performance by the defense. Canisius allowed just 24 shots from the Crusaders and Barczewski stopped them all. A second period goal from Nick Bowman was all the offense the team needed and two empty-net marker sealed the game, sending the Golden Griffins to the tournament.
As the team with the lowest-ranking, Canisius was given the 16th and final seed for the tournament. As a result, they were set to play the nation's top team, Minnesota. Knowing that they needed to play a near-perfect game if they had a chance at upsetting the vaunted Gophers, Canisius played well at the start of the game. While they took a penalty in the first 5 minutes and allowed a Minnesota power play goal, The Griffins tied the game just 3 minutes later to make sure that they kept contact with the Gophers. Early in the second period, Nick Bowman gave the Griffins the lead on a highlight-reel goal. Canisius continued to play well but couldn't stop the Minnesota offense from scoring twice before the end of the period. As they entered the third Canisius was just a shot away from tying the game. While they had also been outshout, it was a relatively small gap of just 15–19. The Griffins were well positioned for a potential upset but they would have to continue to play the Gophers tough over the final 20 minutes. Unfortunately, freshman Stefano Bottini got a bit too reckless and, when he went to hit Jackson LaCombe in the corner, left his feet and hit the Gopher defenseman in the head. Bottini received a match penalty and handed the Gophers a 5-minute power play. It took less than a minute for Minnesota to make Canisius pay and they ended up scoring twice on the man-advantage. With the game now getting away from them, Canisius had to abandon any real defensive system they had and try to score three goals in the final 15 minutes. However, all that did was allowed the highly-talented Gophers to pour on an avalanche of goals and bury the Griffins. Minnesota scored a further 4 goals, ending the game with 8 unanswered markers to walk away with a win.[4]
| Austin Alger | Forward | Graduation (signed with Idaho Steelheads) | ||
| Alex Ambrosio | Forward | Graduation (signed with Corsaires de Nantes) | ||
| Derek Hamelin | Defenseman | Graduate transfer to Alaska Anchorage | ||
| Matt Ladd | Goaltender | Graduate transfer to Lindenwood | ||
| Lee Lapid | Forward | Graduation (signed with Cincinnati Cyclones) | ||
| Mitchell Martan | Forward | Graduate transfer to Bemidji State | ||
| Joey Matthews | Defenseman | Graduation (signed with Greenville Swamp Rabbits) | ||
| Nick Parody | Defenseman | Left program (retired) | ||
| Niclas Puikkonen | Forward | Left program (retired) | ||
| Cory Thomas | Defenseman | Graduation (signed with Idaho Steelheads) | ||
| Jake Witkowski | Forward | Graduation (retired) | ||
| Connor Zilisch | Forward | Left program (retired) |
| Hunter Andrew | Forward | 19 | Virden, MB | ||
| Markus Boguslavsky | Forward | 23 | Calgary, AB
| ||
| Stefano Bottini | Forward | 20 | Lugano, SUI | ||
| Nick Bowman | Forward | 24 | Shelby Township, MI
| ||
| Tyrell Buckley | Defenseman | 25 | Penticton, BC
| ||
| Brenden Datema | Defenseman | 23 | Sterling Heights, MI
| ||
| Grant Loven | Forward | 24 | East Grand Forks, MN
| ||
| Christian MacDougall | Forward | 21 | Toronto, ON | ||
| Cody Schiavon | Forward | 22 | West Kelowna, BC
| ||
| Oliver Tarr | Forward | 20 | Uxbridge, ON | ||
| Erik Urbank | Forward | 23 | Orchard Park, NY
|
As of 1 August 2022.[5]
|-!colspan=12 style=";" | Regular Season|-!colspan=12 style=";" | |-!colspan=12 style=";" |
| 42 | 16 | 20 | 36 | 30 | |||
| 42 | 17 | 18 | 35 | 29 | |||
| 41 | 4 | 21 | 25 | 24 | |||
| 40 | 8 | 13 | 21 | 6 | |||
| 35 | 11 | 9 | 20 | 27 | |||
| 41 | 3 | 17 | 20 | 14 | |||
| 42 | 6 | 12 | 18 | 25 | |||
| 27 | 12 | 4 | 16 | 27 | |||
| 34 | 6 | 9 | 15 | 20 | |||
| 31 | 5 | 8 | 13 | 9 | |||
| 32 | 3 | 9 | 12 | 18 | |||
| 27 | 7 | 4 | 11 | 10 | |||
| 32 | 4 | 7 | 11 | 64 | |||
| 37 | 4 | 7 | 11 | 41 | |||
| 30 | 1 | 9 | 10 | 35 | |||
| 32 | 4 | 4 | 8 | 55 | |||
| 35 | 2 | 6 | 8 | 13 | |||
| 26 | 1 | 6 | 7 | 14 | |||
| 38 | 1 | 5 | 6 | 10 | |||
| 41 | 1 | 4 | 5 | 36 | |||
| 15 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 10 | |||
| 22 | 0 | 3 | 3 | 4 | |||
| 13 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 4 | |||
| 4 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 4 | |||
| 12 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 4 | |||
| 20 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 2 | |||
| 32 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | |||
| 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |||
| 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 4 | |||
| 13 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |||
| Total | 118 | 204 | 322 | 539 |
|---|
| 1 | 0:06 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | - | 0.00 | ||
| 32 | 1882:42 | 16 | 15 | 1 | 83 | 934 | 3 | .918 | 2.65 | ||
| 13 | 655:10 | 4 | 4 | 2 | 29 | 300 | 1 | .912 | 2.65 | ||
| Empty Net | - | 18:16 | - | - | - | 7 | - | - | - | - | |
| Total | 42 | 2556:14 | 20 | 19 | 3 | 119 | 1234 | 4 | .912 | 2.79 |
|---|
See main article: 2022–23 NCAA Division I men's ice hockey rankings.
| Poll | Week | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pre | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 (Final) | ||||
| USCHO.com | NR | bgcolor=FFFFFF | - | NR | NR | NR | NR | NR | NR | NR | NR | NR | NR | NR | bgcolor=FFFFFF | - | NR | NR | NR | NR | NR | NR | NR | NR | NR | NR | NR | NR | bgcolor=FFFFFF | - | NR |
| USA Today | NR | NR | NR | NR | NR | NR | NR | NR | NR | NR | NR | NR | NR | NR | NR | NR | NR | NR | NR | NR | NR | NR | NR | NR | NR | NR | NR | NR | |||
| Jacob Barczewski | Atlantic Hockey Most Valuable Player in Tournament | [8] |
| Jacob Barczewski | Atlantic Hockey Third Team | [9] |
| Keaton Mastrodonato | ||
| Jacob Barczewski | Atlantic Hockey All-Tournament Team | [10] |
| Jackson Decker | ||
| Keaton Mastrodonato | ||
| Nick Bowman | ||