2024–25 Sacred Heart Pioneers men's ice hockey season

The 2024–25 Sacred Heart Pioneers men's ice hockey season was the 32nd season of play for the program, the 27th at the Division I level and the 1st in Atlantic Hockey America. The Pioneers represented Sacred Heart University in the 2024–25 NCAA Division I men's ice hockey season, played their home games at the Martire Family Arena and were coached by C. J. Marottolo in his 16th season.

Sacred Heart kicked off the season the rather well, all things considered. The Pioneers were able to grab a win over ranked Massachusetts and though they were unable to beat Colgate in the opening series, both games went into overtime. However, when they got into conference play at the end of the month, their decent start went to pot. After splitting a series with Holy Cross, the team was lit up by Bentley the following week. Cullen DeYoung, who had played well in goal to that point, allowed 6 goals on 33 shots over four periods before being yanked in favor of freshman Ajeet Gundarah, a move that would prove fortuitous for the Pioneers.

After finishing the weekend, Gundarah got the start against Mercyhurst and swiftly settled into the role. After winning his first five career starts, the BC-native had a bit of a hiccup in the team rematch with Holy Cross but he got back into his stride afterwards and backstopped the team to a fantastic finish for the first half of the season. With the offense producing more often than not, Sacred Heart put themselves in a good position by the time the winter break rolled around. While the addition of Maine transfers Félix Trudeau and Reid Pabich paid dividends for the club, it was Gundarah who stole the show for the Pioneers.

The team made a splash after they resumed play by downing tournament-hopeful Cornell and rising up into the top half of the PairWise rankings. The Connecticut Ice tournament gave them one final chance to prove their mettle against non-conference opponents and they started with a big win over Yale. With DeYoung back in goal, the Pioneers throttled the Bulldogs 8–2 before taking on their toughest opponent of the season, Connecticut. In front of a packed home crowd, the team did everything they could to defeat the tournament-bound Huskies. One goal leaked through DeYoung in the first period but he was able to turn aside all other attempts as the defense insulated him to the tune of just 17 shots against. Unfortunately, the offense had trouble penetrating the UConn zone and could only get 23 chances themselves, none of which were able to find the back of the net.^[1]

While the loss to Connecticut dropped Sacred Heart 10 spots in the rankings, it was unlikely that the team would have been able to get into an at-large position had they won due to how poorly the rest of the conference had performed in their non-conference play. With Gundarah back between the pipes the following week, the team polished off the rest of its schedule and finished just behind Holy Cross for second place in Atlantic Hockey America. Their position assured them a bye into the quarterfinal round and home games through at least the semifinal round.

After a week off, Sacred Heart began its postseason against notoriously difficult Air Force. Opening with a solid 4–1 win, the Pioneers found themselves in a dogfight with the Falcons and the rematch went late into the evening. Gundarah found himself under siege by the relentless Air Force attack that launched 58 shots on the SHU goal. Just before the end of the second overtime period, the Falcons got a luck break when a point shot was deflect and it arced over everyone and into the goal.^[2] In the deciding game, Gundarah received much more help from the offense and defense and was able to keep Air Force off of the score sheet until just 70 seconds remained on the clock. By that time, SHU had scored 4 goals and were able to advance to the conference semifinals for the first time in 15 years.

Riding high by that point, Sacred Heart began the series with Bentley by scoring the first two goals of the game. Taking their lead well into the second period, the Pioneers then got into penalty trouble when Hunter Sansbury was called for a 5-minute major. The Falcons scored twice on the man-advantage to tie the match and then carried the momentum into the third where they netted three more to run away with the game. With their backs against the wall, Sacred Heart was again forced to kill off a major penalty, this time to Cole Galata, but Gundarah came up big and stopped 33 of 34 shots that he faced in the game. However, Bentley's goalkeeper was able to blank SHU to preserve a 1–0 lead until late into the game. After the Pioneers were forced to pull Gundarah for an extra attacker, Bentley collected two empty-net goal to seal the game and end Sacred Heart's season.

During the year, the Pioneers had tied the program record with 21 wins but it was Ajeet Gundarah who proved to be the stand-out for the year. The goaltender was one of the few players of Indian-descent to ever play college hockey. More than that, however, he joined a select list of ethnic minorities who became stars for the college game such as George Chin, Paul Kariya and Anson Carter.

As of September 15, 2024.^[3]

Source:^[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.