Mike Cavanaugh named Hockey East Coach of the Year

In 2023-24, UConn men’s hockey went through its most disappointing season since joining Hockey East, underperforming with a talent-laden roster en route to an eighth-place finish in the league.

One year later, Mike Cavanaugh was named 2025 Hockey East Coach of the Year. Now in his 12th season, he’s engineered an incredible turnaround that has the Huskies in the semifinals at TD Garden and set to make their first NCAA Tournament appearance in program history.

Over the offseason, UConn experienced an exodus of talent as three NHL Draft picks — Matthew Wood (first), Samu Salminen (third) and Arsenii Sergeev (seventh) — all left via the transfer portal while other key contributors, headlined by Chase Bradley, graduated and/or turned pro.

In all, the Huskies lost 56.7 percent of its goal scoring, half its defensive corps and both starting goaltenders from a team that went 15-19-2 overall and 9-14-1 in Hockey East. A rebuild seemed to be inevitable.

Instead, those departures seemingly unburdened the team. Hudson Schandor and John Spetz returned as fifth-years to provide much-needed veteran leadership for a roster without a true senior while UConn added a strong freshman class and a few plug-and-play transfers.

With so many new faces, the Huskies hoped a stronger, more tight-knit locker room would make up for the loss of talent.

The gamble worked. Despite being picked eighth in the Hockey East preseason poll, UConn finished in fourth place with a 12-8-4 record in league play while compiling a 21-10-4 mark overall — one win short of tying a program-high.

The Huskies ended up having plenty of talent as Joey Muldowney, Jake Richard and Ryan Tattle all took major leaps forward. Muldowney became the first 20-goal scorer in UConn’s Hockey East Era while his 42 points are also tops in that same span. Richard has 15 goals, 23 assists and 38 points while Tattle racked up 17 goals and 13 assists for a 30-point campaign.

Meanwhile, Schandor is in the midst of his best season, setting the program’s Division I Era record with 30 assists to go along with 40 points. In goal, both Tyler Muszelik (2.20 GAA, .917 save percentage) and Callum Tung (2.06, .934) have been spectacular.

The Huskies’ special teams have also been elite. The penalty kill is tied for the national lead with nine shorthanded goals while the power play ranks 13th in the country at 24.1 percent but has been white-hot in the second half, scoring in 17 of 20 games.

All that’s led to what is comfortably the best season in the program’s 5+ decades of existence. UConn has clinched a spot in the NCAA Tournament but will try to capture its first Hockey East crown this week after making the semifinals at TD Garden for just the second time in program history.

The Huskies will take on 3-seed Boston University on Thursday at 4 p.m. ET on NESN and ESPN+.