The ice is down at Historic Matthews Arena which means hockey season is right around the corner. As always we look ahead to the hockey season through our New to Northeastern series, where we look at each of the three position groups and look at each of the new players on Huntington Avenue for the Men’s Hockey program. With fourteen new players, there’s plenty to learn- let’s dive in to the most important position on the ice, the men between the pipes, the goaltenders.
#35 Matthew DellaRusso– The lone freshman in the goalie room this year, DellaRusso is an ’04 birth year who turns 21 just before October. He hails from Darien, CT, and comes to Northeastern after playing the majority of last season with the Maine Nordiques in the North American Hockey League. In 20 games with Maine, he had a .918 save percentage, 2.23 goals-against-average, and two shutouts. He previously played in the BCHL for West Kelowna, and is an alum of St. George’s School, a prep school in Rhode Island.
DellaRusso brings good size to the room, standing 6-foot-3. He is expected to fill the role played by Harrison Chesney the last three seasons as the third string goalie. Nick Skerlick, his head coach in Maine, describes the goaltender after his commitment: “Matthew is a special team member for us…With the resiliency shown, and dealing with a fierce competitor, our staff knows he will push himself playing Hockey East surrounded by some of the best college hockey players each day. Congrats Matthew, and the DellaRusso family.”
#47 Lawton Zacher– Committing to Northeastern out of the transfer portal after two seasons at Brown University of the ECAC, Zacher was one of the most in-demand goaltenders in the portal this past offseason. Zacher played 52 games for Brown, totaled over 3000 minutes in net and made over 1400 saves, backstopping Brown to 20 wins. He saw his save percentage growing from .909 to .919 freshman to sophomore year, and his GAA dropped from 2.98 to 2.48. He also had his first two collegiate shutouts last year against Clarkson and Long Island. Zacher was one of the hottest goalies to start the season in 2024, saving the puck at nearly a .930 clip for the first four months of the season. Advanced analytics further endorse growth from Zacher year over year, going from a .919 even strength save percentage as a freshman to an excellent .933 mark as a sophomore. He was one of the ten finalists for the 2025 Mike Richter Award, was named to the All-ECAC second team and was First Team All-Ivy League. He attended development camp with the Nashville predators this summer.
A 6-foot-2 goaltender, Zacher is expected to assume the starting goaltender role vacated by Cameron Whitehead signing with the Vegas Golden Knights. Beyond the traditional statistics, Zacher compares favorably to the former Northeastern goalie. Per College Hockey Insider’s Mike McMahon, “Lawton Zacher and Cameron Whitehead had very similar numbers last season. Both were 0.3 GSAx/60. That was a hole for the Huskies and they plugged it with one of the top-rated goalies in the portal.“
With Quentin Sigurdson returning for his sophomore year, Northeastern has a full trio of goalies heading into 2025. We expect Sigurdson to be the primary backup to Zacher, though Coach Keefe shared in the Summer Fan and Media Availability that he expects Sigurdson to see games this season as well. Zacher will get a chance to face his old Brown team in late November when the Bears travel to Matthews Arena.
Our next New to Northeastern article will go over the defensemen, where we have four new additions to the blue line.
As always, go Huskies!