The 2025 Stanley Cup Final is here, and the defending champion Florida Panthers will again face the Edmonton Oilers in a rematch of 2024. This year features some new faces on both sides, including some former NCAA DI ice hockey players. Let’s take a look at the collegiate careers of the former college hockey players appearing in the 2025 Stanley Cup Final:

Florida Panthers

Evan Rodrigues (Boston University: 2011-2015)

Evan Rodrigues played at Boston University for four seasons, tallying 121 points in 146 games as a forward. He was named a Hockey East Second-Team All-Star twice in college, and he finished second in the nation with 61 points his senior year behind teammate and Hobey Baker winner Jack Eichel. Rodrigues and the Terriers lost to Providence in the 2015 Frozen Four championship. Rodrigues later signed with the Buffalo Sabres in 2015 and debuted in 2016. Since then, he has spent time with the Pittsburgh Penguins and Colorado Avalanche before joining the Panthers and winning a Stanley Cup in 2023-24.

Nate Schmidt (Minnesota: 2010-2013)

Nate Schmidt played three seasons with the Minnesota Golden Gophers, recording 74 points in 96 career games as a defenseman. He was named to the All-WCHA Second Team in 2011-12, and the All-WCHA First Team in 2012-13 as a junior. That year, he finished third among all NCAA defensemen with 31 points (8G, 23A) and was a +16 on the season. Schmidt signed with the Washington Capitals in 2013-14 as an undrafted player. The Vegas Golden Knights later selected him in the 2017 NHL Expansion Draft and was part of the first NHL expansion team to advance to the Stanley Cup Final in its first season. Schmidt joined the Panthers for the 2024-25 season after spending the last four seasons with the Vancouver Canucks and the Winnipeg Jets.

Here’s the list of every former NCAA hockey player on the Florida Panthers’ roster for the 2025 Stanley Cup Final:

Edmonton Oilers

Jake Walman (Providence: 2014-2017)

Jake Walman played three seasons at Providence College, tallying 69 points in 107 games as a defenseman. As a sophomore and a junior, Walman was named to the Hockey East First All-Star team and was a Hobey Baker nominee in 2016-17. In 2015, Walman helped Providence win its first NCAA title in program history, beating Evan Rodrigues and Boston University in the 2015 Frozen Four championship game. Walman joined the St. Louis Blues at the end of his junior season, and has spent time with St. Louis, Detroit and San Jose before being traded to the Edmonton Oilers before the 2025 NHL trade deadline.

Trent Frederic (Wisconsin: 2016-2018)

Trent Frederic played two seasons at Wisconsin, scoring 65 points in 66 games as a forward. In 2017, he took home Big Ten Freshman of the Year, All-Big Ten Freshman Team and All-Big Ten Second Team honors. He also won the Spike Carlson — Chris Chelios Award as the Badgers’ MVP that season. As a sophomore, he was an All-Big Ten honorable mention. Frederic joined the Boston Bruins after his sophomore season and spent 10 seasons in the Bruins organization before being traded to the Edmonton Oilers before the 2025 NHL trade deadline.

Here’s the list of every former NCAA hockey player on the Edmonton Oilers’ roster for the 2025 Stanley Cup Final:

*Zach Hyman suffered a season-ending injury in Game 4 of the Western Conference finals and will miss the Stanley Cup Final.

WALTHAM, Mass. – The reigning Atlantic Hockey champion Bentley Falcons have released their 2025-26 schedule and it gets underway with an exhibition game at home against Simon Fraser on Oct. 4.

2025-26 Schedule

The Falcons then head to Colorado for the first of two trips to the Rocky Mountain State on the season.

They face Colorado College on Oct. 10 and the University of Denver one night later, a team that was in the NCAA Manchester regional with Bentley and advanced to the Frozen Four.

Bentley visits UMass Amherst at the Mullins Center for the first time since the 2011-12 season on Oct. 18.

That is followed by the home opening weekend at Bentley Arena, and the first Atlantic Hockey games of the season, on Oct. 24-25 against Canisius.

November is a mix of conference and non-conference games. A home-and-home series with Army West Point on Nov. 7 and 9 is followed a home series against Alaska-Anchorage on Nov. 14-15. A home game against RIT on Nov. 21 is followed by a single-game at Army on Nov. 25 and a home game against New Hampshire on Nov. 29.

The first half of the season concludes at home against Niagara on Dec. 5-6.

The second half of the season begins with a home-and-home series against Holy Cross on Jan. 2-3.

Two straight series on the road against Air Force and Sacred Heart precede a home, non-conference set against Princeton on Jan. 23-24.

From there it’s 10 straight AHA games until the playoffs begin. In that stretch the Falcons will host Holy Cross (Feb. 7), Army (Feb. 10), Sacred Heart (Feb. 13-14) and Air Force on the final weekend of the regular season (Feb. 27-28).

As the Falcons look to defend the AHA championship, the dates for the postseason are the first round on March 3, the quarterfinals starting on March 6, the semifinals starting on March 13 and the championship game on March 21.

 

PALM SPRINGS, Calif. – Top NCAA Division I men’s hockey teams are set to clash at the 2026 Cactus Cup, featuring Minnesota State Mavericks, UMass Lowell River Hawks, Yale University Bulldogs, and St. Cloud State Huskies.

Tickets On Sale Friday, June 6 at 10 AM Local Time at Ticketmaster.com

Acrisure Arena is proud to announce the return of the Second Annual Cactus Cup presented by Sonoma County Winegrowers, showcasing exciting NCAA Division-I Men’s Hockey action.

The two-day event will showcase four games taking place on Friday, January 2 and Saturday, January 3, 2026.  Friday’s first matchup begins at 3:30 p.m. PT featuring UMASS Lowell vs. Minnesota State with game two starting at 7:00 p.m. PT with St. Cloud State vs. Yale. The action continues Saturday with the consolation game beginning at 3:30 p.m. PT followed by the championship game at 7:00 p.m. PT

“Sonoma County Winegrowers is proud to return as the presenting sponsor of the Cactus Cup for a second year,” said Karissa Kruse, President and CEO of Sonoma County Winegrowers. “We’re continually inspired by the passion, talent, and sportsmanship these collegiate athletes bring to the ice. It’s a true pleasure to share the wines and stories of Sonoma County — not only with the Coachella Valley community, but with the families and fans who travel from across the country for this unforgettable weekend of hockey, wine, food, and celebration.”

PRESALE: The presale will take place on Wednesday, June 4, starting at 10 a.m. PT and will run through Thursday, June 5 at 10 p.m. PT.

TICKETS

Tickets go on sale to the general public starting Friday, June 6, at 10:00 a.m. PT on Ticketmaster, the official ticketing provider of Acrisure Arena. Tickets for the 2026 Cactus Cup provide access to both games scheduled for each day, allowing fans to enjoy two full days of exciting NCAA Men’s College Hockey action. Purchase tickets for Friday, January 2, HERE and Saturday, January 3, HERE. Two-day passes can be purchased HERE.

GROUP TICKETS

Groups of 10 or more save when booking through the Acrisure Arena Group Sales team. Groups receive reduced ticket prices and processing fees, opportunity to reserve seats and pay later, and group seating options. Learn more HERE.

David Carle has a saying that he likes to use as the University of Denver Richard and Kitzia Goodman Hockey head coach: it’s not easy to break records at DU.
 
With the men’s ice hockey program owning an NCAA-record 10 national championships and some of the team records well out of reach due to the current era of the sport, it’s not surprising the difficulty for any individual to accomplish the feat of holding the top mark as a Pioneer.
 
Denver has had a lot of top-end players come through its doors through 75-plus years of history, but no one has played in more games in crimson and gold than graduate student forward Connor Caponi.
 
Caponi broke the school record for games played by suiting up in his 169th contest on Feb. 8 at Arizona State, surpassing the previous mark that was set by former teammate Ryan Barrow in the 2022 NCAA National Championship Game. Like Barrow, Caponi was the benefactor of being allowed a fifth season of eligibility due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and he went on to smash the Pioneers old mark with 185 total games in the arch Denver sweater—tied for the second-most in NCAA history.
 
“A lot of great players have come through here. It’s just an honor to play as many games as I have for the program,” said Caponi postgame after setting the DU new high mark at Mullett Arena in Tempe, Arizona.
 
The Milwaukee, Wisconsin, native was the perfect person to set Denver’s games-played record.
 
Caponi spent most of his five years as a key cog on DU’s bottom-six forward lines and spent 2024-25 centering and mentoring a pair of freshmen in Hagen Burrows and Jake Fisher. While not usually a high-minutes player, he made sure his presence was known when he was on the ice.
 
He registered 179 penalty minutes, 100 blocked shots and a career plus-14 rating to go along with 18 goals and 19 assists in his time on the Denver hilltop. In his final season, Caponi tied his career best with five goals and set new personal highs with 65 penalty minutes, 25 blocked shots and a plus-8 rating and etched his name in the record book
 
“Connor put a lot of time, effort and energy into our program and it’s really cool for him to be honored in this way,” Carle said of Caponi’s record. “You know the humble kid that he is, it makes him a little bit uncomfortable, but I do think he’s earned all of this and really happy for him,”
 
The forward joined Denver as a freshman during the COVID-shortened 2020-21 campaign after two seasons with the USHL Waterloo Black Hawks and following his stint of high school hockey with Culver Military Academy in Indiana. Coming to Denver, he understood his assignment of doing whatever he could to help the squad win and setting records were never at the forefront of his attention.
 
“It was never something that was on my mind. It is just always kind of thinking about what I can do to help the team and try to help them win national championships,” Caponi said. “As the season kind of started here, it was brought up, but still wasn’t on my mind, was just thinking of what I can do to help the team. Eventually got to that milestone, so it’s pretty cool.”
 
A heart-and-soul type of player, Caponi had worn a letter in the last two seasons, and the Pioneers went all-out in honoring their alternate captain for the special occasion with a couple of surprises.
 
Equipment manager Nick Meldrum had t-shirts made featuring Caponi’s iconic image of him standing on the boards of Xcel Energy Center celebrating with the Pioneer faithful after winning the 2024 NCAA title in St. Paul, Minnesota, and his teammate wore them pregame on the day of his record-breaking event. Sports-equipment company Warrior also joined in by crafting a custom gold-wrapped stick that featured the signatures of Caponi’s teammates and was presented to him a few days after his achievement.
 
“He gives it all, every night, every week, so really proud of him,” Carle said. “It’s not easy to break any records at Denver, so it was fun to be able to present him with T-shirts that Nick Meldrum made him and the present back in Denver.”
 
Caponi appeared in 185 of a possible 193 contests across the five seasons, including 62 straight outings that dated back to 2022-23 before missing his only two games this past year on Dec. 6-7 at Western Michigan with a lower-body injury.
 
Being out of the lineup for those two contests in Kalamazoo hurt, but it was the four that he missed at the end of 2021-22 that stung the most. After playing in 36 games that season, he got hurt just before the national tournament and was unable to play in any of the NCAA contests as the Pioneers went on to defeat Minnesota State to win their then ninth championship.
 
He never took being in the lineup for granted and went on to be part of the winningest class in program history. What started with him playing in a “bubble” of the NCHC Pod in Omaha and empty arenas throughout his freshman campaign transformed to him winning five Gold Pans—never relinquishing the trophy to rival Colorado College—two Penrose Cups as NCHC regular-season champions, the 2024 NCHC Frozen Faceoff Championship, three NCAA Frozen Four appearances and national championships in 2022 and 2024.
 
Caponi was a leader with the group despite not being a headline player on the team. He did the little things that could change the course of the game, and his actions on and off the ice epitomized what it is to be a Denver Pioneer.
 
“It’s an honor to have played for this program for as long as I have,” Caponi reflected in February. “I mean there’s so many amazing players that have come through and have left their mark on the program. It’s just an honor that I’m able to leave my mark on the program as well.”
 
 

EASTON, Mass. (June 4, 2025) – Stonehill College men’s ice hockey alumnus Dan Muse ’05 has been named the 23rd head coach of the National Hockey League’s Pittsburgh Penguins, as announced Wednesday. Muse, a four-year member of the Skyhawks from 2001 to 2005, succeeds Mike Sullivan, who was recently appointed head coach of the New York Rangers on May 2.

A native of Canton, Massachusetts, Muse appeared in 61 games over his collegiate career, tallying 11 points on five goals and six assists during his time in Easton.

Now 42, Muse brings two decades of coaching experience to the Penguins, including five seasons as an NHL assistant coach with the New York Rangers (2023–25) and the Nashville Predators (2017–20). He was part of coaching staffs that secured three division titles—two with Nashville (2017-18, 2018-19) and one with New York (2023-24)—as well as two Presidents’ Trophy-winning campaigns (Nashville in 2017-18; New York in 2023-24).

Following his playing career, Muse quickly transitioned into coaching, beginning with a one-year stint at Williams College (2007-08), followed by two seasons at Sacred Heart University (2008–10). He then joined Yale University as an assistant coach, eventually serving as associate head coach in 2014-15.

Muse later made the leap to head coaching in the United States Hockey League (USHL), where he guided the Chicago Steel to a 68-43 record over two seasons. During the 2016-17 campaign, he led the Steel to the top record in the Eastern Conference and a franchise-first Clark Cup Championship.

In addition to his professional and collegiate coaching resume, Muse has played a prominent role with USA Hockey. From 2020 to 2023, he served as head coach with the U.S. National Team Development Program. He led the U18 team to a gold medal at the 2023 IIHF World Under-18 Championship and helped set a program record with 16 wins over NCAA opponents that same season. Muse also served as head coach of the U17 team in 2021-22 and contributed as a video coach during the 2013 and 2014 IIHF World Junior Championships, including a gold medal performance in 2013.

Muse now looks to return the Penguins to Stanley Cup contention, aiming to guide the franchise to its first Finals appearance since back-to-back championships in 2016 and 2017.