2024–25 Providence Friars men's ice hockey season

The 2024–25 Providence Friars Men's ice hockey season was the 74th season of play for the program and 41st in Hockey East. The Friars represented Providence College in the 2024–25 NCAA Division I men's ice hockey season, played their home games at Schneider Arena and were coached by Nate Leaman in his 14th season.

While Providence entered the season with its top five scorers returning, the Friars offense wasn't particularly strong to begin with. More importantly, however, was that starting goaltender Philip Svedebäck was back and he would now be backed up by Zachary Borgiel, who had previously been the starter for Merrimack. With the defense returning three of its top four blueliners, Providence appeared to have a solid foundation for the year and they demonstrated as much with a very strong start. While the offensive production was modest, it was consistent and allowed the team to take advantage of the strong goaltending tandem. After dropping the season opener, the Friars didn't lose another game for over a month and were able to climb into the top-10 by mid-November.

After a small hiccup just before Thanksgiving, Svedebäck started receiving the lion's share of minutes. Providence went on an 8-game winning streak in the middle of their season which included two in-season tournaments. When the team played their annual rivalry game against cross-town rival Brown, Providence had risen up to #5 and was well positioned for a tournament appearance. At that point in the season, the Friars had a tremendous opportunity when they faced off against #2 Boston College. The games against the Eagles began a five-week stretch of games against ranked opponents that could make or break their season. The Friars' offense did not fare well against the strong competition. Contrary to the first half of the year, the scoring was wildly inconsistent and Providence was shutout four times during the stretch. Even when the team was able to score, the goaltending wasn't up to the same level as earlier in the year and the Friars could only post 2 wins over the 10 games.

While the month-long troubles didn't help Providence, the team was buoyed by their strength of schedule. The Friars remained in the top 10 in both the polls and the PairWise rankings despite the rough stretch. After recovering a bit at the end of the year, Providence still found itself with a guaranteed at-large berth as well as a bye into the conference quarterfinals. Providence headed west to face Connecticut, another tournament-bound team, and got off to a good start. Guillaume Richard opened the scoring less than 4 minutes into the game with a shot-handed goal. Svedebäck stood tall in goal despite not having played in a couple of weeks and stopped every shot that came his way for over half the match. Unfortunately, Providence was unable to capitalize on the stellar goaltending they were receiving and failed to build on their lead. The Huskies finally managed to tie the game near the end of the second period and then jumped into the lead just 20 seconds into the third. Despite the Friar's tremendous record in close games throughout the season, the offense did not rise to the occasion. UConn retained their narrow lead until late in the game when Svedebäck was pulled and an empty-net goal ended the team's hoped for a conference championship.^[1]

Two weeks later, the team was making its first NCAA appearance since before the COVID-19 pandemic and did so against the defending national champions, Denver. Providence fell behind early but limited the damage to a single goal in the first. The second saw both team get into penalty trouble by taking three minors apiece. Unfortunately, it was Denver who converted, scoring twice in the middle frame to build a considerable advantage. After a fourth goal from the Pioneers at the start of the third, it looked like Providence's season was nearing its end. Past the midway point of the period, Denver was handed a major penalty for elbowing and opened the door for the Friars. It took just 4 seconds for Austen May to get his team on the board with his first goal of the season. Unfortunately for the Friars, their lack of offensive punch came back to haunt them and the team failed to score any further goals. In desperation, Svedebäck was pulled towards the end of the man-advantage and Denver was able to salt away the match with a fifth goal into the vacated net. As time ticked away, the game got a bit chippy and both sides were assessed matching game-misconduct penalties but that did not alter the final outcome.^[2]

As of September 8, 2024.^[3]

^[5]

Note: USCHO did not release a poll in week 12 or 26.^[6]
Note: USA Hockey did not release a poll in week 12.

† incoming freshman ^[7]