Aerin Frankel Wins the 2021 Patty Kazmaier Award

Yesterday afternoon saw Northeastern’s Aerin Frankel take home the third Patty Kazmaier Memorial award in Northeastern’s history. She is also only the fourth goaltender to win the trophy.

“I am so happy for Aerin, she has worked extremely hard to get to this point.” said head coach Dave Flint. “She put up numbers this season that may never be touched and she was a huge part of our run this season to the national championship game. Myself and the entire Northeastern community are so proud of her.”

This was an award that was hard earned by Frankel as she rewrote record books and filled trophies cases. In addition to all the team banners she helped modify and create, this will be one more banner in the rafters with just her name on it.

Northeastern was lead to their fourth consecutive HEA tournament title and third consecutive HEA regular season title. The Huskies made their first Frozen Four and championship game appearances. The championship game appearance was the first for any team in Northeastern history.

Her honors include multiple weekly and monthly awards for player and defensive player in Hockey East and nationally. Hockey East awarded her with the player and goaltender of the year for the conference. Frankel was also the inaugural winner of the national goalie of the year award, which she won unanimously.

She was the national leader in all goalie stats. Frankel put up a 0.81 Goals Against Average, a 0.966 Save Percentage, 20 wins and nine shutouts. The save percentage set a new NCAA record. Currently the Northeastern career records for games played, GAA, save percentage, shutouts, and wins are all held by Frankel. There was also a stretch of five consecutive shutouts that set a program record this season.

“Our class is really a special one, we came in my freshman year and put up that first banner which was the Hockey East Championship. We realized how much potential our team had, and I think there was a lot of change to our team culture over the past four years. It has been incredible to watch the program grow. Obviously it’s awesome that we had our first Frozen Four appearance this year.” Frankel said, “This program is just going to keep building off of that and the sky is the limit.”

The ceremony like last year was in a virtual setting due to the pandemic. Last year it was handled via Facebook Live but this year the production value was dramatically increased and the ceremony was aired live on the NHL Network. Each players family was able to surprise them coming on after they were introduced. USA Hockey also had video of Frankel’s family from the announcement of her win.

“My parents are my greatest support system they have been along for the whole ride. They never miss a Northeastern game. They are so supportive and have made endless sacrifices for my hockey career to be possible,” said Frankel on her parents. “They’re willing to contribute anything to my success so it was really awesome, I didn’t know that they were going to be included in the ceremony but it made it even more special that they were.”