Avalanche prospects at the NCAA tournament

No points but a lot of experience for four players.

With a severely depleted prospect pool, the Colorado Avalanche still had good presence at the 2025 NCAA Tournament with four teams and players participating in the opening round of 16 teams. Here are the results of those performances.

Maine Black Bears

It was a much shorter than anticipated tournament for the Black Bears who arrived on the heels of a Hockey East championship. Maine had an incredible season but were just too inexperienced on the big stage and lost their opening game of the NCAA tournament 5-1 to Penn State. It appeared power forward Taylor Makar scored Maine’s lone goal and the puck bounced around the net front but ultimately the score was given to a teammate.

Now all eyes are on Taylor Makar who is a senior and should look at turning pro after a school switch saw him elevate his production to 30 points and 18 goals in 37 games. At 24-years of age he’s very physically imposing at the college level and should have enough polish to move on to a greater challenge. We’ll see if a NHL contract offer materializes soon what Makar can do next in the Avalanche organization.

Denver Pioneers

The defending champions had a tougher road to the Frozen Four as a lower seed but they handily beat Providence 5-1 in their opening game of the tournament. The next test of number one overall seed Boston College was quite a challenge but after holding on to a tight 2-1 lead DU scored an empty net goal to punch their ticket in the 3-1 victory to St. Louis, Missouri where they will face Western Michigan on April 10th.

A duo of Freshmen from Colorado’s 2024 draft class got their feet wet in the tournament but both played marginal roles and no points in the games they participated in for the Pioneers. Right shot defenseman Tory Pitner got in 38 games this season mostly on the third pair but registered only one assist. Jake Fisher played 40 games and had a little more impact at forward all over the lineup but was on the fourth line for the postseason. Still, he has a good season with 15 points and eight goals. Both players will look for increased roles next season.

Cornell Big Red

It was an upset special for Cornell when they knocked out top seeded Michigan State in their opening game of the tournament in 4-3 fashion. The Big Red had great momentum following their second straight ECAC championship win. Their next big test was Boston University and though Cornell got the powerhouse to overtime it was the Terriers that prevailed 3-2.

Following the footsteps of Matt Stienburg and Sam Malinski as Cornell alums, so is the newest Avalanche hopeful Hank Kampf who came over from the New York Rangers in the Ryan Lindgren trade. The left shot defenseman didn’t record any points in the tournament but wasn’t really expected to, though, with just seven on the year. He, too, is a senior and should be available for the Avalanche to sign should they be interested.

Ohio State Buckeyes

To round out the full Avalanche prospect slate, Chris Romaine’s team Ohio State lost their opening game to the aforementioned Boston University Terriers 8-3. The Buckeyes held up well through two periods but ultimately succumbed to the powerhouse team in the third period.

He’s been in the Avalanche prospect system since his sixth round selection in the 2022 draft, but right shot defenseman Chris Romaine has finally started his NCAA career with Ohio State. Unfortunately he was a scratch in this contest and hasn’t played a game since December. The Freshman only played nine games in the season with zero points, so clearly he will have several more years of collegiate hockey ahead of him.