What the NCAA allowing CHLers means for players
Starting on Aug. 1, 2025, CHL players will become eligible to join NCAA Division I schools in time for the 2025-26 NCAA season. Players will be able to play for one of the three CHL member leagues without losing NCAA eligibility.
College Hockey Inc. has a great breakdown of everything players and teams need to know. There’s still a lot of questions to be answered – including the signing windows for NHL teams after drafting CHLers (two years) and college-bound players (four years). But right now, this is a win for prospects across the two pathways.
What could be interesting is what happens to some of the top prospects. Could Landon DuPont – the early favorite to go No. 1 in the 2027 NHL Draft – elect to go to the NCAA in his draft season? By then, he’d have two full years of WHL hockey under his belt as a full-time player because of his exceptional status designation. Would a year in the NCAA against older, stronger competition be of benefit there? Or would the allure of a 60-plus game schedule in Everett still be the go-to move?
For a long time, the USHL has been seen as one of the best routes to getting drafted to the NHL, and it was the primary source for promotion to college hockey. For the most part, it’s a stopgap for players before going to the NCAA. And don’t get it twisted – the hockey is fantastic, and there’s a reason so many high-end prospects end up there at one point or another. Macklin Celebrini, the top prospect taken in the 2024 NHL Draft, spent the 2022-23 season with the Chicago Steel, but he could have instead have helped the WHL’s Seattle Thunderbirds win the title after taking him first in the U.S. Prospects Draft. He ultimately wanted the challenge of the college ranks while playing against older competition at Boston University, but he could still have made the move while having a Memorial Cup appearance under his belt.
Will the USHL struggle to get that talent now? Many in the game believe so, because the CHL’s three member leagues are still an extremely attractive option for so many players.
Similar questions can be asked about leagues such as the BCHL, AJHL and OJHL in Canada. Once viewed as the top leagues for NCAA-bound players to remain in Canada and keep their eligibility, will they start to suffer out of this? The USHL already recruited many of the top players from those leagues in recent years, so it’s definitely possible.
Will we see an influx of players leaving the USHL and BCHL and heading back to the major junior teams that drafted them? Three of the top available prospects for the 2024 OHL Draft – Adam Valentini, Zach Nyman and Caleb Malholtra – didn’t sign with their clubs in order to keep their NCAA eligibility alive. We’ll see if any of them elect to head to the OHL for the next year and a half.
As of now, Regina Pats forward Braxton Whitehead is the only player who has publicly announced an NCAA commitment while still being an active CHLer. However, sources say that there are around 12-15 players with deals in place, with more expected over the next few months.
Another potential loser out of the whole deal is USPORTS. The Canadian university hockey ranks has never been a hotbed for developing NHL talent, but plenty of players turn pro and build up solid careers elsewhere around the world. Now, players coming off overage deals in the CHL could just chase after NCAA Division I deal instead.
It’s unclear which schools would benefit most from the news. Would smaller schools with very few—if any—NHL-drafted talent scoop up all the players with the promise of more ice time, or will typical leaders like Boston College and the University of Michigan continue to attract the best of the best? Depending on whom you talk to, the answer differs. If it’s the former, we could see a better balance of power across the league. If it’s the former, watch out, independent schools.
What we won’t see are players on NHL entry-level contracts becoming eligible. For example, Toronto Maple Leafs prospect Easton Cowan wouldn’t be off to the University of Minnesota or anything. Basically, don’t expect the elite of the elite prospects switch over when they’re 19 – it’s still either the NHL or CHL for them, assuming that’s where they came from.
Once a player has started at an NCAA school, they can participate in NHL development camps and other practice sessions but can not play in a game of any form – even in a rookie tournament. Players who haven’t enrolled in the school yet will be eligible to do so, however.
One key:
1) Players who have already signed NHL entry-level deals are not eligible, per this legislation. Players cannot sign contracts above necessary expenses. Players can't sign contracts that are post-dated or promise future payment. So, ELC players are ineligible/pros. https://t.co/5Y2UaxbWXn
The players that’ll likely benefit the most are the 20- and 21-year-olds who don’t have a clear path to the NHL, but could still turn pro in a few years. Having a route where they can extend their development path in front of as many eyeballs as possible is a win for everyone.
Some American sources believe this could hurt players from the United States, with schools instead looking to target older kids playing in Canada. Some wonder if future NCAA expansion could help with that—and we have seen more Division I teams appear over the past decade.
On paper, it seems like more 16-year-old talent will stick around instead of leaving to play in a different country or a completely different side of the country. But some in the CHL wonder if that comes at the cost of losing the 19- and 20-year-olds early. Others players might still value staying closer to home instead of hoping to find a better opportunity somewhere abroad.
What isn’t clear is what’ll happen to the player signing window. Right now, NHL teams have two years to sign a player drafted out of the CHL, while it’s four years for NCAA players. It’s unclear how that’ll proceed moving forward.
Having players make career-altering decisions while finishing up as sophomores in high school is asking a lot of them to make the right choices, even if they have good people surrounding them to help them make the decisions. They’re still growing, both physically and mentally — so much can change in a short time, and so much of it can be out of a player’s control.
In a business world of open markets, consumers are better off when companies compete for their services and try to make the best product possible. Whether it be phones, laptops, TVs, chocolate bars, or anything else, competition is a good thing when it benefits the end-user. In hockey, this will force leagues and individual organizations to work harder to provide better conditions for players.
And when the players have better opportunities, they’ll become better NHLers, too.
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