The USCHO Coach of the Year does not necessarily go to the coach of the season’s title-winning team. There’s something to be said for being the person who put together a roster of top-tier talent, getting them to meld and guiding them to the finish line, but we also like to recognize coaches who have done excellent work in spite of coming up short of the ultimate goal. While each of the coaches in this season’s Frozen Four is a previous winner of the award, this season it felt right to name St. Lawrence’s Chris Wells our Coach of the Year.
It was a spectacular year for the Saints, who just last season finished below .500 and were sixth in the ECAC, exiting the conference tournament in the first round.
As senior captain Julia Gosling put it, her team barely qualified for the ECAC Tournament her freshman season (when only eight teams advanced to the postseason).
In arguably the country’s toughest conference, where the same teams have dominated the top half of the standings and moving up has proven notoriously difficult, St. Lawrence broke through. Their 28 wins this season were the most of any team in Wells’ 16 year tenure at St. Lawrence and their third-place finish was the highest of any team since his first year in the role (Covid-shortened season not withstanding).
Importantly, the Saints got better as the season progressed. They finished on a six-game win streak, including upsets of No. 6 Cornell and No. 3 Colgate. After losing a pair of games to those same teams to open up the second-half, the Saints were on a tear and lost just one game of 13 as the regular season wound down.
Peaking at the right time during a six-month season isn’t easy, but Wells had not just his team, but individual players performing at their best when it mattered most. Abby Hustler had 12 goals and 23 points through her first 19 games, but Wells knew she was capable of more and needed to be pushed to believe in herself.
She was named Hockey Commissioners Association Women’s Player of the Month in January where she led the nation with six goals and 19 points in nine games during the month. Not only did she start producing offensively, but her two-way game became stronger. She registered just three of her sixteen blocks before the winter break. For her efforts, she was named a Patty Kazmaier Award top-ten finalist, the program’s first since 2017.
St. Lawrence lost to Clarkson in the conference semifinals, but finished seventh in the Pairwise and received an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament, their first since 2017. Their opening round win over Penn State was the first of Wells’ career and the program’s first since 2007. The season was so monumental for this program that the university president and one of the women that played on St. Lawrence’s very first women’s hockey team in 1979 made the trek to Madison to cheer the team on.
Wells is a passionate coach who gets animated on the bench, can be heard across the arena and keeps a laminated paper in his pocket that informs the officials he would like to challenge a play. A St. Lawrence alum himself, he is keyed in to the greater campus and Canton, NY community and his love for the Saints program and his players is clear in how he talks about them – he was moved to tears more than once after their two NCAA games.
In a season where the two teams that finished above them in the conference standings advanced to the final weekend, Wells and the Saints stood out. They were resilient and adaptable. They bounced back from loses, eked out close wins and when facing their toughest opponent with their season on the line, they played what Wells called a perfect game. They executed their plan, weren’t intimidated and played their best game.
In recognition of all the Saints accomplished this season, Chris Well is USCHO’s Coach of the Year.
