As college hockey prepares for a new season, the NCAA is seeing an influx of players who would not have been eligible to play at the collegiate level at this time last year. And Arizona State anticipates taking advantage of the welcome change to the sport.
The NCAA announced before the 2024-25 season that players from the Canadian Hockey League would be eligible to play collegiate hockey in the United States.
Athletes who seek to play in the NHL have often used the CHL and the NCAA as spring boards to gain recognition and increase their skills. But until last year, those two routes were mutually exclusive.
Composed of many developmental hockey teams, the CHL has three major junior leagues – the Western Hockey League, the Ontario Hockey League and the Quebec Maritimes Junior Hockey League.
While the NCAA has produced some top current talent in the NHL like Cale Makar and Quinn Hughes, a majority of professional North American star power comes from the CHL system. Players like Connor McDavid, Sidney Crosby and Nathan MacKinnon were drafted out of the CHL.
Five of the top six point scorers in the 2024-25 season came from the CHL, including Tampa Bay Lightning forward Nikita Kucherov, who finished the season with the most points.
Not only did some of the top professional talent develop in the CHL, but more than half of all players who competed in the 2025 NHL playoffs were drafted out of the amateur league.
While players cannot play in the NCAA until they reach college age, at about 17 or 18, players are eligible for the CHL when they turn 16.
This means that players would be able to play a season or two in the CHL before being eligible to play college hockey.
In the past, CHL players were not allowed to move to the NCAA once they played in the CHL. The NCAA had a ban in place for CHL players because they receive a monthly stipend of $250 in Canada, leading to the NCAA classifying them as professionals instead of amateurs.
However, that changed last November when the NCAA decided to drop the ruling that prohibited CHL players from playing NCAA hockey, opening a new path and set of choices for young hockey players hoping to make the NHL.
The ruling already has an impact on the college hockey world.
Gavin McKenna, the projected first overall pick in the 2026 NHL Draft, committed to play college hockey at Penn State. This decision comes after Keaton Verhoeff, another projected top pick in 2026, committed to North Dakota earlier in the summer. Both players are making the jump from the CHL.
The ruling not only impacts players at the top of the board, but all around the country as well.
While ASU’s roster usually consists of high school recruits and college transfers, the upcoming season will feature six CHL players joining the Sun Devils.
In fact, the first domino that fell in the CHL-to-NCAA pipeline was in Tempe.
While the lawsuit that reversed the ruling was still ongoing, Braxton Whitehead of the Regina Pats – the WHL team that produced Connor Bedard, the No. 1 pick in 2023 – committed to play hockey at Arizona State.
“[ASU’s] slogan is ‘Be the Tradition’ and I think they love the idea of me being a trailblazer throughout all this and paving the way with NCAA and CHL relations,” said Whitehead, who scored 115 points in four seasons in the WHL. “I’m very hopeful that [the rules] will turn over before the 2025-26 season.”
The rules were reversed two months after his commitment to Arizona State.
From the player perspective, the experience of competing against older and bigger college athletes has a positive impact on their goal to make it to the NHL. ASU forwards Cullen Potter and Ben Kevan share similar philosophies about the benefits of college hockey.
“(I) put on some more muscle to get stronger,” said Potter, who was selected in the first round of the 2025 NHL Draft by the Calgary Flames. “I want to play in the NHL someday. So being able to go against those guys that are 6-3, 6-4, and super strong, I got to get stronger.”
While Potter is entering his sophomore season with ASU, Kevan looks ahead to experiencing his first year of college hockey when the Sun Devils open the season Oct. 1 against Penn State at Mullett Arena.
“I’d say the biggest one for me is just getting stronger,” said Kevan, who was selected in the second round of the 2025 NHL Draft by the New Jersey Devils. “I think being an 18-year-old kid, I want to make the NHL and I think I just need to be bigger, stronger and just be able to play against men.”
When McKenna announced his commitment to Penn State on ESPN, he had a similar explanation regarding the benefits of playing in the NCAA.
“I think it honestly it just makes the jump easier, going against older, heavier, stronger guys. It really prepares you,” said McKenna, who scored 129 points in the 2024-25 WHL season, placing him third among U-18 WHL skaters in the past 30 years. “Even in the locker room, hanging around older guys and being around more mature guys, I think that will help me a lot.”
While there has been a steady increase in recent years of NCAA players selected in the NHL Draft, the top of the board has marked a very quick rise in college talent.
Prior to 2020, three No. 1 picks came from the NCAA. If McKenna is taken first overall, he would become the third since 2020, joining Macklin Celibrini and Owen Power as NCAA players selected with the top pick.
As the hockey world anticipates changes to the sport from the ruling, hockey higher-ups like OHL commissioner Bryan Crawford are hopeful for the positive impact of the changes.
“Having players who maybe weren’t ready for the NHL have a chance to prolong their development window in the NCAA, that’s going to raise the quality,” Crawford said. “That ultimately is going to raise the quality of the NHL. To me, it’s better for the families and the players. It’s better for hockey as a whole.”