The 2023–24 Minnesota Duluth Bulldogs men's ice hockey season was the 80th season of play for the program and 11th in the NCHC. The Bulldogs represented the University of Minnesota Duluth in the 2023–24 NCAA Division I men's ice hockey season, played their home games at AMSOIL Arena and were coached by Scott Sandelin in his 24th season.
In August, junior defenseman Will Francis announced that his cancer had relapsed.[1] Due to treatment, he would miss at least the first half of the season but was hoping to return to the lineup by January. Unfortunately, he ended up sitting out the entire season. Unfortunately, they wasn't the only bad bit of news for the Bulldogs this year. Just 3 games into the season, Dominic James dislocated his shoulder and tore cartilage in the process. The injury required surgery to fix and he would miss the remainder of the year.[2] And then, in December, the NCAA ruled Cole Spicer academically ineligible for the remainder of the season.[3]
The loss of those three players, all NHL draft picks, hamstrung the Bulldogs from the start of the season. Duluth was able to get off to a decent start, going undefeated in their first 5 games, but everything changed when they travelled to play Cornell. The Big Red were one of the top defensive teams and demonstrated as much by holding UMD to a single goal over the weekend. That began a string of five weeks against ranked teams and the Bulldogs were only able to win one game. Though the goaltending tandem of Zach Stejskal and Matthew Thiessen wasn't quite up to par, the bigger problem for Duluth was the lack of scoring. The offense was run through Ben Steeves, who led the team in scoring for the second straight year, but beyond him the team didn't have much in the way of goal scoring.
After the terrible stretch in the first half, Duluth looked much better in January and was able to get two wins over ranked teams when its offense finally woke up, albeit on an inconsistent basis. At the start of February the team was nearly at .500 and still had a slim chance at an NCAA tournament berth but they were staring down a gauntlet of lethal opponents. The final 10 games for UMD were all against ranked teams and the Bulldogs went winless in the first eight matches. Both the offense and defense weren't up to the challenge and despite Minnesota Duluth sweeping St. Cloud State to end the regular season, the team was dropped to 7th in the conference and had no chance at securing an at-large berth.
Duluth's opponent for the first round of the conference tournament was Denver and the #3 Pioneers took no pity on the Bulldogs. After getting shutout in the first game, Denver had a 3-goal lead in the rematch and looked to be sailing to the semifinals. Goals from Luke Loheit and Kyle Bettens pulled Duluth within one with just over 2 minutes to play. Duluth pulled Thiessen for an extra attacker for their second marker but they were unable to get a third. Instead, Denver scored two empty-net goals and ended Duluth's season.
| Derek Daschke | Forward | Graduation (signed with Toledo Walleye) | ||
| Forward | Transferred to Michigan State | |||
| Jesse Jacques | Forward | Graduation (signed with Iowa Heartlanders) | ||
| Defenseman | Signed professional contract (Chicago Blackhawks) | |||
| Tanner Laderoute | Forward | Graduation (signed with Wheeling Nailers) | ||
| Luke Mylymok | Forward | Transferred to Niagara |
| Luke Bast | Defenseman | 22 | Red Deer, AB
| ||
| Braden Fischer | Forward | 20 | Winnipeg, MB | ||
| Connor McMenamin | Forward | 24 | Collegeville, PA
| ||
| Anthony Menghini | Forward | 20 | Brainerd, MN | ||
| Matthew Perkins | Forward | 19 | Balgonie, SK
| ||
| Aaron Pionk | Defenseman | 20 | Hermantown, MN
|
As of July 10, 2023.[4]
|-!colspan=12 style=";" | Regular Season|-!colspan=12 style=";" | |-!colspan=12 style=";" |
| 37 | 24 | 10 | 34 | 30 | |||
| 37 | 7 | 23 | 30 | 24 | |||
| 35 | 6 | 15 | 21 | 10 | |||
| 37 | 4 | 17 | 21 | 10 | |||
| 36 | 10 | 10 | 20 | 53 | |||
| 37 | 3 | 17 | 20 | 22 | |||
| 34 | 8 | 11 | 19 | 29 | |||
| 36 | 6 | 12 | 18 | 14 | |||
| 35 | 6 | 9 | 15 | 12 | |||
| 37 | 3 | 12 | 15 | 20 | |||
| 34 | 3 | 9 | 12 | 12 | |||
| 37 | 8 | 2 | 10 | 43 | |||
| 17 | 5 | 4 | 9 | 8 | |||
| 37 | 2 | 7 | 9 | 39 | |||
| 37 | 0 | 6 | 6 | 37 | |||
| 33 | 3 | 2 | 5 | 31 | |||
| 22 | 1 | 4 | 5 | 2 | |||
| 35 | 0 | 5 | 5 | 12 | |||
| 30 | 2 | 2 | 4 | 6 | |||
| 25 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 13 | |||
| 26 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 12 | |||
| 2 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | |||
| 18 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | |||
| 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |||
| 20 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |||
| Total | 103 | 183 | 286 | 451 |
|---|
| 18 | 1014:03 | 3 | 11 | 2 | 53 | 500 | 0 | .904 | 3.14 | ||
| 20 | 1161:56 | 8 | 9 | 3 | 58 | 513 | 1 | .898 | 3.00 | ||
| 1 | 64:53 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 33 | 0 | .868 | 4.62 | ||
| Empty Net | - | 22:02 | - | - | - | 9 | - | - | - | - | |
| Total | 37 | 2262:54 | 12 | 20 | 5 | 125 | 1048 | 1 | .893 | 3.31 |
|---|
See main article: 2023–24 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 (Final) | ||
| USCHO.com | 17 | 17 | 14 | 11 | 14 | 18 | NR | NR | NR | NR | NR | – | NR | NR | NR | NR | NR | NR | NR | NR | NR | NR | NR | NR | NR | – | NR | |
| USA Today | 17 | 18 | 14 | 12 | 14 | 18 | NR | NR | NR | NR | NR | NR | – | NR | NR | NR | NR | NR | NR | NR | NR | NR | NR | NR | NR | NR | NR | |
| Darian Gotz | NCHC Sportsmanship Award | [7] |
| Ben Steeves | NCHC Second Team | [8] |
See main article: 2024 NHL Entry Draft.
| 2 | 42 | † | Buffalo Sabres | |
| 2 | 47 | † | Detroit Red Wings |