The 2023–24 Princeton Tigers Men's ice hockey season was the 121st season of play for the program and the 62nd in ECAC Hockey. The Tigers represented Princeton University, played their home games at the Hobey Baker Memorial Rink and were coached by Ron Fogarty in his 9th season.
Princeton had a decent start to its season, seeing consistent scoring in the first three weeks. With a winning record as they approached Thanksgiving, which included a win over a ranked Cornell squad, the Tigers looked better than they had in years. The only apparent issue at this time was in goal as the team had already started three separate netminders with none of them playing particularly well. By December, Arthur Smith assumed the lead role but that was as much a function of how poorly Ethan Pearson had played as anything else.
When the Tigers began the second half of their season, they had a winning record but had played mostly subpar teams. Their record was set to be tested as they would play five consecutive games against ranked opponents. Unfortunately for Princeton, they did not fare well. The offense struggled to score, averaging less than two goals per in that stretch, while the defense collapsed. The Tigers' goal crease came under siege, seeing at least 35 shots in four of those matches and the inadequate goaltending was fully exposed. Even after the team passed through the gauntlet, the goals against continued to mount; Princeton allowed at least 3 goals in every game for a month and a half. Though the offense recovered slightly once they started playing weaker opponents once more, the Tigers still went 2–9 in that stretch and tumbled down the conference standings. By the end of February the team had not only abandoned any hope of earning a bye into the quarterfinal round but they were barely clinging onto a home game in the first round. Ending the year with two losses knocked them down to 9th and forced them to travel to Boston for their playoff opener.
Princeton largely outplayed Harvard in the match, outshooting the Crimson by 21 while taking only a single penalty. Unfortunately, the Tigers picked the worst time to stop scoring and the single goal allowed by Smith was all that Harvard needed to end the Tigers' season.
After getting knocked out of the postseason, Princeton's athletic director, John Mack, announced that Ron Fogarty would not be returning as head coach.[1]
| Benjamin Crewe | Goaltender | Returned to club team | ||
| Liam Gorman | Forward | Graduate transfer to Massachusetts | ||
| Matthew Hayami | Forward | Graduation (retired) | ||
| Spencer Kersten | Forward | Graduate transfer to Bowling Green | ||
| Aidan Porter | Goaltender | Graduation (retired) | ||
| Pito Walton | Defenseman | Graduation (retired) |
| Carson Buydens | Forward | 19 | Gladstone, MB | ||
| Conor Callaghan | Goaltender | 20 | Upper Saddle River, NJ | ||
| Kai Daniells | Forward | 20 | Whistler, BC | ||
| Ian Devlin | Defenseman | 21 | Memphis, TN | ||
| Josh Karnish | Forward | 20 | Marlton, NJ | ||
| Arthur Smith | Goaltender | 19 | Farmington, CT | ||
| Michael Young | Forward | 21 | Kings Park, NY |
As of August 2, 2023.[2]
|-!colspan=12 style=";" | Exhibition|-!colspan=12 style=";" | Regular Season|-!colspan=12 style=";" |
| 30 | 11 | 18 | 29 | 8 | |||
| 29 | 7 | 17 | 24 | 19 | |||
| 30 | 7 | 17 | 24 | 18 | |||
| 25 | 11 | 12 | 23 | 10 | |||
| 30 | 5 | 18 | 23 | 14 | |||
| 26 | 11 | 8 | 19 | 8 | |||
| 30 | 8 | 11 | 19 | 14 | |||
| 29 | 3 | 15 | 18 | 6 | |||
| 27 | 5 | 12 | 17 | 26 | |||
| 30 | 4 | 9 | 13 | 22 | |||
| 15 | 4 | 3 | 7 | 4 | |||
| 30 | 2 | 3 | 5 | 47 | |||
| 27 | 3 | 1 | 4 | 28 | |||
| 30 | 2 | 2 | 4 | 6 | |||
| 30 | 0 | 4 | 4 | 19 | |||
| 22 | 2 | 1 | 3 | 12 | |||
| 22 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 6 | |||
| 7 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 2 | |||
| 17 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 4 | |||
| 12 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 8 | |||
| 14 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 2 | |||
| 15 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | |||
| 25 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 8 | |||
| 27 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | |||
| 20 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |||
| 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |||
| Total | 89 | 156 | 245 | 293 |
|---|
| 21 | 971:21 | 7 | 7 | 2 | 48 | 426 | 1 | .899 | 2.96 | ||
| 15 | 726:35 | 2 | 8 | 2 | 49 | 288 | 0 | .855 | 4.05 | ||
| 7 | 119:37 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 10 | 58 | 0 | .853 | 5.02 | ||
| Empty Net | - | 23:07 | - | - | - | 7 | - | - | - | - | |
| Total | 30 | 1840:40 | 10 | 16 | 4 | 114 | 772 | 1 | .870 | 3.72 |
|---|
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 | 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 | |
| USA Hockey | 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 | |