2016–17 American International Yellow Jackets men's ice hockey season

The 2016–17 American International Yellow Jackets men's ice hockey season was the 69th season of play for the program, the 21st at the Division I level, and the 14th in the Atlantic Hockey conference. The Yellow Jackets represented American International College and were coached by Eric Lang, in his 1st season.
==Season==
AIC began the season with a new coach for the first time in 32 years. Eric Lang, an alumnus, replaced Gary Wright behind the bench. The chance in leadership presaged a tone for the program and led to nice players leaving the team early. While all the roster spots were filled, the sizable roster turnover did no favors for the Yellow Jackets in terms of wins. In the first half of the season, American International won just 3 out of 18 games and were stuck in a familiar position; the bottom of the Atlantic Hockey standings.
While the team failed to win many games, they did fight hard and pushed several opponents into overtime. By the end of November the Yellow Jackets had more ties than losses and a great deal of credit could be attributed to the surprising defensive effort from the squad. The goaltending tandem of Alex Murray and Zackarias Skog combined to keep AIC in many games where they were otherwise outplayed and gave some hope that the team might be able to climb out of the conference cellar.
In the second half of the year the Yellow Jackets saw a moderate increase to their win total but the defense slipped. Murray struggled mightily as the season wore on and won just 1 of his 7 decisions. Since the revamped offense was little help, the bulk of the team's victories came on the shoulders of Skog, who posted a winning record after new year's. AIC finished 10th in the conference and, though their first round opponent was hardly formidable, the Yellow Jackets were unable to overcome Mercyhurst and were swept out of the postseason.
A disappointing finish was hardly a new state of affairs for the program, however, AIC had seen some signs of life during the season. Importantly, many of the new additions had played significant rolls in the team's limitded success. Not only had Skog established himself as the starting goaltender, but the top four scorers on the team were all freshmen.
==Departures==
Lucas Bombardier	Forward 		Transferred to Trine
Giovanni Bombini	Forward 		Left program (retired)
Jacob Caffrey 	Goaltender 		Transferred to Stevenson
Trevor Cope 	Forward 		Transferred to Michigan–Flint
Travis Douglas 	Forward 		Transferred to Carleton
David Gandara 	Forward 		Graduation (signed with Louisiana IceGators)
Derek Henderson 	Defenseman 		Graduation (signed with Macon Mayhem)
Hunter Leisner 	Goaltender 		Left program (retired)
Brandon Lubin 	Defenseman 		Graduation (signed with Pensacola Ice Flyers)
Bailey More 	Forward 		Left program (retired)
Mitchell Mueller	Forward/Defenseman		Signed professional contract (Peoria Rivermen)
Chris Porter 	Forward 		Graduation (signed with Fayetteville FireAntz)
Luke Rodgers 	Forward 		Transferred to Endicott
Wade Schools 	Defenseman 		Left program (retired)
==Recruiting==
Blake Christensen	Forward 		21	Coral Springs, FL
Patrik Demel 	Defenseman		20	Ostrava, CZE
Dominik Florián 	Forward 		21	Vlasim, CZE
Jānis Jaks 	Defenseman		21	Riga, LAT
Justin Ketola 	Goaltender		21	Esko, MN
Nicolas Luka 	Defenseman		21	Bartlett, IL
Martin Mellberg 	Forward 		21	Stockholm, SWE
Jared Pike 	Forward 		20	Sandy, UT
Hugo Reinhardt 	Forward 		20	Kungsbacka, SWE
Zackarias Skog 	Goaltender		21	Göteborg, SWE
Kyle Stephan 	Forward 		21	Barrie, ON
Billy Vizzo 	Forward 		20	Shelton, CT
==Roster==
|}
==Standings==
==Schedule and results==
|-
!colspan=12 style=";" | Regular Season
|-
!colspan=12 style=";" | 
|- align="center" bgcolor="#e0e0e0"
|- align="center" bgcolor="#e0e0e0"
|colspan=12|American International Lost Series 0–2
==Scoring statistics==
 	LW 	33	8 	13 	21 	37
 	F 	35	10	10 	20 	32
 	RW 	35	7 	12 	19 	32
 	C 	35	6 	13 	19 	18
 	LW 	36	9 	5 	14 	24
 	D 	35	4 	10 	14 	32
 	C/D 	35	4 	10 	14 	6
 	D 	34	1 	13 	14 	22
 	D 	27	5 	6 	11 	10
 	LW 	25	2 	8 	10 	8
 	D 	14	4 	5 	9 	2
 	D 	34	3 	6 	9 	24
 	RW 	24	3 	5 	8 	26
 	C/RW	33	3 	5 	8 	20
 	F 	36	5 	2 	7 	30
 	F 	35	1 	5 	6 	24
 	C/LW	28	3 	2 	5 	10
 	D 	31	2 	3 	5 	6
 	D 	31	1 	4 	5 	10
 	F 	8 	1 	0 	1 	2
 	D 	14	0 	1 	1 	6
 	G 	24	0 	1 	1 	6
 	D 	25	0 	0 	0 	6
 	F 	3 	0 	0 	0 	0
 	G 	4 	0 	0 	0 	0
 	G 	15	0 	0 	0 	0
Bench	- 	- 	- 	- 	- 	6
Total	 	 	82	140	222	399
==Goaltending statistics==
 	24	1356	5	12	6	69 	652 	1	.904	3.05
 	15	753 	3	8 	2	45 	340 	1	.883	3.58
 	4 	64 	0	0 	0	6 	24 	0	.800	5.60
Empty Net	- 	26 	-	- 	-	2 	- 	-	- 	-
Total 	36	2201	8	20	8	122	1016	2	.893	3.32
==Rankings==
Poll 	Week	Week	Week	Week	Week	Week	Week	Week	Week	Week	Week	Week	Week	Week	Week	Week	Week	Week	Week	Week	Week	Week	Week	Week	Week	Week 	Week	Week	Week	Week
Poll 	Pre 	1 	2 	3 	4 	5 	6 	7 	8 	9 	10 	11 	12 	13 	14 	15 	16 	17 	18 	19 	20 	21 	22 	23 	24 	25 (Final)	 	 	 	
USCHO.com	NR 	NR 	NR 	NR 	NR 	NR 	NR 	NR 	NR 	NR 	NR 	NR 	NR 	NR 	NR 	NR 	NR 	NR 	NR 	NR 	NR 	NR 	NR 	NR 	- 	NR 	 	 	 	
USA Today	NR 	NR 	NR 	NR 	NR 	NR 	NR 	NR 	NR 	NR 	NR 	NR 	NR 	NR 	NR 	NR 	NR 	NR 	NR 	NR 	NR 	NR 	NR 	NR 	NR 	NR 	 	 	 	
USCHO did not release a poll in Week 24.
==References==
2016-17
Category:2016–17 Atlantic Hockey season
Category:2016–17 NCAA Division I men's ice hockey by team