College hockey’s 2024-25 season recently came to an end and now it’s time to turn attention toward the playoffs — where the Kings will have seven different prospects to pay attention to.
For those not totally familiar with how the NCAA post-season works, we’ll share a super quick and simplistic overview to get started. There are essentially two layers to this. In total, 16 teams will make the actual NCAA field, with a chance at the Frozen Four and eventually the national championship game in early April. Like college basketball, hockey is grouped by conference. There are seven conferences in hockey and the first real layer of post-season action comes in the form of conference tournaments. Those conference champions will claim seven of the 16 NCAA playoff spots available, leaving 11 open spots. There is a selection committee, just like with basketball, and they basically use math and other data to fill those 11 spots with the ‘best’ teams in the country who didn’t win their tournament.
For example, Boston College, Boston University, and Maine are three of the best teams in the country this season. They all play in the same conference. Even if one of those three teams win their conference tournament, the other two will still get in via the 11 ‘at large’ slots.
As for Kings prospects, they technically began the week with seven guys competing for a spot in the field of 16. Realistically, it’s more like five at this point –as explained further below.
ECAC
We’re starting here because it’s probably the easiest. Defenseman Jack Sparkes (sixth round 2022) is the lone Kings prospect in the ECAC. At 6-foot-8 and 243 pounds, he’s hard to miss when on the ice. Playing for Clarkson, their situation is rather straight forward. They need to win the tournament to be one of the 16 playoff teams. Anything less will end their season. This weekend, they’re facing Harvard in a best-of-three slate to begin the ECAC tournament. Should they get past the Crimson, they’ll then need a win in the semis and final game to advance. Games will air on ESPN+, beginning tonight at 4pm Pacific.
NCHC
Two of the best teams in the entire country play in the NCHC and they feature three future Kings hopefuls. Top goaltending prospect Hampton Slukynsky is at Western Michigan (currently ranked No. 3 in the polls), while a pair of forward prospects — James Reeder and Jared Wright — are at Denver.
Regardless of what happens in the NCHC conference tournament, look for both schools to be part of the 16-team dance in a couple weeks.
Slukynsky (fourth round 2023) was just named to the NCHC All-Rookie Team earlier this week. As a true freshman, he’s scheduled to backstop top-seed WMU in a best-of-three vs. St. Cloud this weekend, with a chance to advance to the NCHC semis next weekend.
Wright and Reeder, late round selections at the 2022 and 2024 NHL Drafts, will line up as middle six forwards when Denver takes on Colorado College in their own best-of-three set. Because of the way the seeding and bracket is laid out, the Kings prospects here can only meet up in the NCHC final should both schools advance that far. Again, regardless of how it all plays out. The trio of Kings prospects in the NCHC will eventually end up in the NCAA field of 16 no matter what.
All NCHC action next weekend can be seen live on CBS Sports Network (DirecTV 221). This weekend’s games will only be streamed on NCHC.TV.
More on Slukynsky and is place among the Kings three high-end goalie prospects can be found here.
HOCKEY EAST
With three different Kings prospects in Hockey East this year on three different teams — Kenny Connors (UMass), Jack Hughes (Boston), and Ryan Conmy (UNH) — there’s a lot of keep up with Hockey East at the moment.
Their conference began on Wednesday and it’s a ‘one and done’ (or ‘lose and you’re out’) format. Unfortunately, Conmy and UNH lost 2-1 in overtime, so their season is likely over. Despite being ranked in the lower half of the Top-20 national polls most of the season, they’ll most likely be on the outside looking in once the final 16 teams are announced in about 10 days.
Connors is big name to keep an eye on at the moment. As Mayor’s Manor reported several months ago, he is expected to turn pro and sign an NHL contract next month. In the meantime, UMass has really heated up of late and they’re looking to bulldoze their way into the conversation among Hockey East’s top tier teams. After winning their opening game, the Minutemen will next face Boston on Saturday night. That game can be seen on NESN-1 (DirecTV 628-1) beginning at 4:30pm Pacific.
Hughes, a senior at BU, and he is not expected to be offered a contract when his season is over (more on that in a subsequent article).
This week’s Kings Prospect Report features an in-depth look at Conmy (as well as OHL forward Liam Greentree and WHL forward Koehn Ziemmer).
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