2024-2025 Season Preview
Upcoming Season
The Oakland University Golden Grizzlies will begin their 20th regular season this coming month at Buffalo Wild Wings Arena in Troy. As the program looks to make its 9th National Tournament in 11 seasons, the Golden Grizzlies once again loaded up with 13 signings in the off-season. Coming off a season that saw the team compete with a record of 20-7-3-3, the Grizzlies will be looking for revenge as the 15th nationally ranked Grizzlies missed out on the National Tournament for conference autobids in the first out position. The Golden Grizzlies will be led this year by senior captain Thomas Monte who leads the Golden Grizzlies for his second year in a row. Returning with Monte are assistant captains Ryan Kotchi and Jack Abbo.
As the team continues to grow, the group returns roughly 20 players from the 2023-2024 campaign. These along with the 13 signings from the off-season, will complete the Oakland University DIII roster for the 2024-2025 season. Head coach Matt Stirling (74-66-8-8) commented on the recruiting class for the upcoming year as he enters his 7th season as head coach, “We took time this past off-season to evaluate every position and looked to find the guys that would help this team move forward. After last season’s ending, the goal was to look for guys with experience as transfers and to help build a supporting cast of incoming freshman players who could make an impact on day 1. As a staff, we feel like we did just that.” Rounding out the staff this season will be assistant coaches Tyler Lampman (4th Year), Sam Palmeter (2nd season), Logan Rey (1st season), and goalie coach Clayton Brown (4th Year).
The Grizzlies, who came off their best season since the 2017-2018 campaign, look to a mix of returners and new players to help them compete in every area of the ice. See below for the breakdown of each position and the newcomers to the roster in the 2024-2025 season.
Forwards:
Leading the way last season were returning forwards Jack Abbo, Brendan Danou and Jake McCatty. The Grizzlies return five of their top seven scorers from last season while returning a total of 11 forwards to the 2024-2025 season. Key returners Tommy Davis, Dylan McMullen, and Alex Sharpe are just a few to note in the returning group as the team looks to improve on their 127 goals scored last season (3.84 per game).
Returning forward Tommy Davis had this to say about last year’s team and his expectations going into this coming season, “After last season getting snubbed from going to the National tournament, we learned that we must be more disciplined on the ice and working as a team. There’s not a team that can touch us when we’re at our best. We struggled in a couple of games last season thinking they would be easy. This year we must make every game a make-or-break situation for us.” New signings on the forward side of the puck come from many different areas and are listed below:
- Nicolas Elizarov (Bloomfield Hills, High School)
- Logan Eland (M-1 Griffins, High School)
- Patrick Axworthy (Rochester Stoney Creek, High School)
- Grant Dickinson (Trine University, ACHA D2)
- Dominic Alter (Rochester United, High School)
- Ben Johnson (Grand Blanc, High School)
We had a chance to talk to returning forward Jack Abbo about the lessons learned from last season and his thoughts about the upcoming season as well, “I’m excited to see what there is in store with this group, after facing a lot of adversity in years past we know we’re battle ready and there’s no ceiling for expectations. We’re hungry and eager to return to being a top team in the country which is the standard and where we know we belong.”
Defense:
On defense, the team looks to the veteran group for experience as the Grizzlies return four defensemen from last season. Four returning defensemen Monte, Kotchi, Duncan McLeod, and Reiss Williams will be joined by a younger group who looks to learn from defensive coach Tyler Lampman while gaining valuable playing experience early. The team saw their best defensive year since the 2016-2017 season and looks to continue this downward trend going into the upcoming season. The team allowed only 93 goals last season, which was good for a 2.81 per game average. New players on the defensive side of the puck are listed below:
- Damien Lanesky (Bloomfield Hills, High School)
- Nick Wiers (Romeo, High School)
- Cole Paquette (Romeo, High School)
- Nick Goldie (Concordia Ann Arbor, ACHA D1)
- Griffin Nikolic (Rochester United, High School)
Grant Stocker (Bishop Foley, High School) and Nathan Rumptz (Bloomfield Hills, High School) will join the team in the first semester as they await the USA Hockey minimum age deadline.
Goalies:
The goaltending position is arguably the strongest and most competitive group returning for the Golden Grizzlies. The Grizzlies see all four goalies return from the previous season and look to provide a spark when needed from the crease this season. Returning senior goalie Tate Potteiger led the way with 17 games last season posting a 12-3-1-1 record in those games. Potteiger is joined by senior goalie Caleb Godlewski who had 10 games (4-3-1-1) last season, Sophomore goalie Evan Hays (GP: 4, 3-0-1-0), and Junior goalie Brandon Sartor (GP: 2, 1-0-0-1). The group saw a combined save percentage of 91.7% and contributed to that 2.81 average for the team above.
As the team continues with practice in the upcoming weeks before their home opener against Miami University on September 27th, please look to our website for more information regarding team notes and roster movement at https://oaklandhockeyd3.acha.hockeytech.com