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New York Times
08-04-2025
- Sport
- New York Times
How L.A. Kings goalie prospect Hampton Slukynsky led Western Michigan to its first Frozen Four
'The kid is almost make-believe as far as the quality of young man that he is.' That's what Western Michigan University Broncos head coach Pat Ferschweiler said when asked about his freshman goaltender shortly before the Frozen Four. It's the same place everyone starts when they talk about Hampton Slukynsky. Advertisement Brett Skinner, his old head coach with the USHL's Fargo Force, talks about him as driven, professional, competitive and nice and that he has 'great work habits on a daily basis.' According to Skinner, he puts in extra time in the gym and goes 'above and beyond a normal player.' Cary Eades, Fargo's general manager, says 'he's just flat out a winner' who is a 'great teammate,' an attribute Eades believes often gets overlooked with goaltenders. Where some goaltenders 'can turn their teammates off and get 96 or 97 percent from them,' Slukynsky, nicknamed Hammer by his, gets '100 percent plus' because of how well-liked and respected he is. Jay Hardwick, his old head coach at Warroad High School, says the kid that Ferschweiler, Skinner and Eades all describe hasn't changed over the years, either. He has treated hockey like he was a professional 'since he was real young,' according to Hardwick. Over time, it has paid off. Though he wasn't always viewed as a top prospect — he was drafted 128th in the ninth round of the 2022 USHL draft by the Force and 118th in the fourth round of the 2023 NHL Draft by the Kings — he has played his way into being one. It started on a backyard rink in the small but legendary northern Minnesota hockey town of Warroad, and it now looks destined to finish in Los Angeles. But first, he's got a couple of games to win in St. Louis and a first national championship to chase for the Broncos. There are only about 1,800 people who live in Warroad, which is just south of Minnesota's northern border with the Canadian province of Manitoba. Around town, everyone's got a backyard rink. Few have ever rivaled the one that Tim and Jenny Slukynsky built for their boys, though. It was the real deal, measuring 62 feet by 42 feet with full boards, lights, a small seating area, American and Canadian flags flapping in the wind and an old golf cart turned Zamboni. Growing up, there were times when the Slukynsky family home would run out of hot water for their showers because Tim needed to use it all to flood the ice. Advertisement In games of shinny on the backyard rink, Slukynsky would follow his brother Grant and his friends onto the ice. He became a goalie because they were three years older than he was and thus bigger and stronger than him, too. 'When all of his buddies were over, I wanted to play and be out there and the only way I could play where it was fair to both teams was to stick me in net,' Slukynsky said on a phone call last week, chuckling. 'That's how it started and I just fell in love with the position.' After years on the backyard rink, Slukynsky eventually graduated to the biggest thing in Warroad: Its legendary high school hockey team. 'Warroad is just a hockey town. It just is. That's what it was built on. A lot of their pride comes from their hockey and certainly their high school hockey program is as storied as any in Minnesota high school hockey history,' said Ferschweiler, a Minnesota native from about seven hours south of Warroad in Rochester. 'They've created some fantastic players up there. It's a lifestyle and all of Minnesota is but certainly in Warroad. They take it seriously and they've got a lot of numbers up there, but more than that, I think they do it right up there and are coached well from a young age as well.' At Warroad High, Hardwick said, 'it just kind of kept building every single year where (Slukynsky) just got better and better and people started to notice more and more.' After playing well in five games as a sophomore, he was invited to USA Hockey's U17 camp. After going 26-4-1 with a .925 save percentage as the team's starter in his junior year, the Force drafted him. That season, it was former Force goaltending coach Carter Krier (now an assistant at Ohio State) who saw him play and convinced Eades to select him. 'Krier would be someone who says he could see Sluky being where he's at,' Skinner said. 'It was projecting out high school hockey and you can go there and see the athleticism and stuff like that, but a lot of the times even the level of hockey might work against a goalie. Carter would deserve a ton of credit for it, but at the end of the day, you probably just get more lucky than anything. It's like drafting Pavel Datsyuk when the Red Wings did. It's like 'Well, if you were so good at it, then why don't you do it every year?' We're not picking off kids like Hampton in the draft all the time.' Advertisement Eades also knew Tim and Jenny since before they were even married because he coached in Warroad for 11 years from 1993 to 2004, so he knew about the backyard rink, about how hockey oriented they were and about both their sons (Grant also played in Fargo for a year). Instead of making the immediate jump to the USHL, Slukynsky returned for his senior year at Warroad High and led them to a 28-1-1 record with a .941 save percentage, playing well enough at the high school level and in spot starts with Team USA at the Hlinka Gretzky Cup and U18 Worlds, to convince the Kings to take a chance on him despite his relatively small sample of high-level hockey. Hardwick still remembers the practices from the last two of those three seasons playing for Warroad High. Warroad's team was strong, with would-be Lightning draft pick Jayson Shaugabay and a number of other college-bound players. And when they'd work on their power play, Slukynsky turned it into a competition, refusing to let them score and feel good about it. 'Hammer would make saves that goalies probably shouldn't make because he wanted to make our power play better,' Hardwick said. 'He just kind of raises the level of everyone because if you're not focused and you're not bearing down, he's not going to let you score. And he comes to the rink every day with that attitude and it just carries over into games.' He didn't jump right into college post-draft, either, instead finally joining the Force. In Fargo, Slukynsky started his only season in the USHL in a tandem with the more veteran Anton Castro. Though they split the starts, with Slukynsky playing 33 games and Castro playing 31, the Force were almost unbeatable with their rookie goalie in the net, going 28-3-0. Slukynsky finished the season with a .923 save percentage and, despite the tandem, won USHL Goaltender of the Year. 'He rises to challenges,' Eades said. 'He's very quietly confident and he's calm in the net. There's no wasted movements. It leaves the coach or the GM feeling good about him being in the net.' Advertisement In the playoffs, Skinner felt good enough to hand the net over to him, and Slukynsky led the Force to a Clark Cup title, going 9-3 with a .931 save percentage. 'The run that he went on in the playoffs for us speaks for itself. He's got ice in his veins,' Skinner said. 'He's a good-sized kid (he's now listed at 6-foot-2 and 185 pounds), which gives him a chance, but he's also very athletic. He's positionally sound and has all of the fundamental tools of goaltending, but what separates him are his athleticism and his competitiveness as a goalie. The second-chance efforts and sometimes with him the third-chance efforts that he's able to come up with because of his athleticism and his competitiveness is really what makes him have the success that he does.' This season, as a freshman at WMU, he entered a similar situation to the one he walked into in Fargo a year ago. The Broncos were bringing back fifth-year Cameron Rowe, and Rowe started the first game of the season. After playing all season in a tandem, Slukynsky became Ferschweiler's guy for the playoffs and into the national tournament. (He also went 2-0 with a .933 save percentage for the gold medal-winning Team USA at the 2025 World Juniors in Ottawa, starting against Latvia in the round robin and Switzerland in the quarterfinals.) 'I'm comfortable with both of our goalies, but I'm certainly happy that we have one of them taking charge and commanding the net and that's Hampton,' Ferschweiler said. Entering the Frozen Four, he boasts an identical save percentage of .923 to the one he had in Fargo a year ago. He also stopped 28 of 29 shots in both of WMU's games at the Fargo regional, winning each 2-1 to lead the Broncos to their first-ever Frozen Four appearance. 'The thing that sticks out to me at all times — and it's just a feeling that you get right away — is that no moment is too big for Hampton Slukynsky,' Ferschweiler said. 'And his calm is exactly what you want from a great goaltender. Something goes by him, he doesn't change. He makes a great save, he doesn't change. A lot of that comes from his confidence in himself, but his confidence in himself comes from the preparation and the work that he puts in every single day. It's very impressive. He's got an extremely impressive approach to individual improvement.' When Slukynsky looks back on his journey from being shoved into the net in his backyard to playing at the Frozen Four for a national championship at just 19, he says he 'wouldn't trade it for anything.' Not the Warroad upbringing, with its backyard rinks and free ice time whenever one of the two local rinks was available. Advertisement 'It's a crazy hockey town up there,' he said, laughing again. 'That's kind of all you do from basically the time you can walk.' Not this year, which he called 'kind of crazy,' and everything that has come with it; coming into college and not knowing what to expect; the big step up from the USHL to the NCHC, which he calls 'one of the best conferences in college hockey every night;' the dream come true at the World Juniors; and now another chance at a dream come true in St. Louis. 'Every year I watched the Frozen Four on Thursday and Saturday in April,' Slukynsky said. 'Now I get to play in it.' This is also the first time that he's been able to play with his brother, who transferred to Western Michigan from Northern Michigan this year and is second on the team in scoring entering the Frozen Four. Because the freshmen at WMU don't stay in the dorms, he and Grant have lived together in a two-bedroom apartment on campus. Grant does most of the cooking, but Hampton insists they share the dishes, cleaning and garbage duties 'for the most part.' 'I'd say it's pretty even,' he argued. From afar now, Skinner says that Slukynsky 'has definitely, even since I had him, taken a lot of steps.' 'We were certainly lucky to have him last year, and it has been awesome to watch what he's doing now,' Skinner said. Hardwick says that what Slukynsky has done in Fargo and Kalamazoo in the two years since leaving Warroad doesn't surprise him. 'Being a high school kid from Minnesota, sometimes they worry, 'Well, how's he going to be at the next level?' and he has just proven people wrong at every level how elite of a goaltender he is,' Hardwick said. 'I don't think there's any doubt about it now.' On Thursday, he'll get another chance to prove there's no doubt when he takes the net against the reigning national champions from Denver — a team he beat in overtime in the NCHC final just a couple of weeks ago — at the Frozen Four. (Top photo courtesy of Western Michigan Athletics)
New York Times
07-04-2025
- Sport
- New York Times
Alex Bump became a ‘college hockey superstar.' After 2025 Frozen Four, Flyers are up next
To Pat Ferschweiler, 'Alex Bump is a college hockey superstar.' And the Western Michigan University Broncos head coach will tell you that he has 'said that since the second he stepped on campus.' He said that before Bump, a 2022 fifth-round pick of the Philadelphia Flyers, registered 36 points in 38 games for him as a freshman, and before he came back as a sophomore and scored 23 goals and 47 points in 40 games to lead his program to its first-ever appearance at the Frozen Four and a semifinal matchup Thursday with Penn State. Advertisement Bump was so good this year that Ferschweiler said in advance of the Frozen Four that he has actually 'vastly outplayed his points, even though his points are high and impressive.' 'He was a really, really good freshman for us last year but he came back this year and I think what separated him this year to be a star rather than a really, really good college hockey player is his competitiveness has gone off the charts,' said Ferschweiler, who also gave him an 'A' on his jersey this season. 'His ability to win puck battles, get pucks back and really just be a fierce competitor has been incredible. He has just taken his game to a whole new level.' After his sophomore season wraps up later this week in St. Louis, though, he may not be a college hockey superstar any longer. He'll always be a Bronco, but he'll become a Flyer. 'I'm sure Philly is going to come knocking extremely soon for Alex Bump,' Ferschweiler said. Bump still seems genuinely annoyed that he dropped to the fifth round before the Flyers — guided in large part by scout Shane Fukushima, who is based in his home state of Minnesota — selected him with the 133rd pick. It's a feeling that Bump still carries with him, and drives him, to this day. 'I definitely don't think I'm a fifth-rounder, but it is what it is and I can't do anything about it now,' he said. 'But I definitely don't think I'm a fifth-rounder. I think it did leave a little chip on my shoulder, just to try to prove to people that passed on me that I can play.' Flyers assistant general manager Brent Flahr took notice of Bump's irritation right away, when Bump made his first appearance at development camp a couple of weeks after the draft. 'His first camp he was pissy because he was a fifth-round pick,' Flahr recalled. 'He worked his butt off, showed off himself at that camp, and every year after, he was one of the most improved as far as fitness and strength and conditioning. He's really driven to be a player.' Advertisement Flyers general manager Daniel Briere seems to believe that, too. He even mentioned Bump in his 2023-24 season-ending news conference. '(He's) had a great year. He's pushing himself into a high-end prospect for us,' Briere said last April, even before Bump's achievements this season. On the ice, Flahr has seen Bump's 'skating improve dramatically.' Further, while Bump has always been a volume shooter and a goal scorer, 'other parts of his game have grown up,' Flahr said. '(He now) holds onto pucks, whether it's on cycles or offensive zone sequences, creating things out of nothing,' Flahr said. 'The shot has always been there, but he's taken a step in a lot of different directions.' Bump said he has worked hard at rounding out his game with his offseason skills coach Noel Rahn at the Velocity Hockey Center in Eden Prairie, Minn. He also said it's a non-negotiable when you play for Ferschweiler at WMU. 'He doesn't want you on your team if you don't work hard or have a passion for the game,' Bump said. 'It's all about hockey here. You've got to put your work in and do your part to succeed here and that's the culture here: hard work, doing your part and being a good teammate.' And while some of that hard work is motivated by the chip on his shoulder, he said some of it also comes from getting 'beat up growing up' as the youngest of four Bump kids who all played hockey (his older brothers, Connor and Tyler, played Division III, and his sister, Hannah, played high school). It wasn't until last year, however, when he had success as a freshman with the Broncos, that he really started to think 'Wow, I have a chance of playing in the NHL.' Now he's on the cusp, and all signs are pointing toward Bump signing with the Flyers after the Frozen Four and immediately joining the AHL's Lehigh Valley Phantoms. The Phantoms' regular season concludes on April 19, and although they haven't officially clinched a playoff spot yet, they'll almost certainly qualify. Advertisement Jett Luchanko, the Flyers' first-round pick in 2024 who played four games with the team in October, joined the Phantoms late last month, too, so perhaps coach Ian Laperriere gives them a look together on the same line. It's not out of the realm of possibility that both will be competing for spots on the NHL roster when training camp begins in September. Bump will turn 22 in November, so, at least from a physical standpoint, he should be better prepared than other Flyers prospects. (Western Michigan listed him at 6-foot-2 and 200 pounds this season, but Bump joked that he got an extra inch or two from the Broncos training staff, who let him keep his shoes on for the measurement.) 'He's one guy that has a chance just because of where he's at physically,' Flahr said. 'His game the way it is — he's got things to learn, for sure — but he's a guy I expect to come to camp and compete for a job. We'll see. It's obviously a big jump, but he's got that ability.' Whether he makes his NHL debut late this year or next, Ferschweiler believes he's going to be a top-nine winger in the NHL. 'He's certainly got the skill and the IQ and the ability to make a five-foot pass at one of the higher levels and maybe play on a power play. But I think what's going to make him an NHLer originally and make him stick in the NHL is that compete combined with his skill,' Ferschweiler said. 'That's the special quality of those guys in the NHL from my time there (Ferschweiler is a former assistant coach with the Red Wings). All the best players are the best competitors.' Though Bump is focused right now on winning his last two games of college hockey, he acknowledged that 'it's hard not to' think about his next step with the Flyers. 'It's always in the back of my mind,' he said. Since getting drafted, he said he has talked with Flyers director of player development Riley Armstrong 'about every week' — and about everything from what he needs to work on to simply how he's doing. Advertisement 'It has been nothing but good with the Flyers,' Bump said. 'I couldn't be happier with where I am with the organization that I'm in.' As for what Flyers fans can expect? 'I'm a full 200-foot player,' Bump said. 'I'm more offensive-minded for sure but I can play defense as well and I'm just a hard worker that likes to get in the corners and the grittier spots to use my size. I have a good body, I have a good frame, and I try to put that to effect.' (Top photo courtesy of Western Michigan Athletics
