Conference tournaments are underway across the college hockey landscape, and several Preds prospects are poised to compete for an NCAA championship.

ECAC

In the ECAC Hockey Championship, Sutter Muzzatti helped the last-place RPI Engineers to an upset victory over Clarkson in the opening round. The 2023 fifth-round pick has scored nine goals and 24 points in 31 games for the Engineers, including the game-winner against the Golden Knights:

RPI will now face top-seeded Quinnipiac in a best-of-three series this coming weekend. If the Engineers lose, Muzzatti’s season will be over.

NCHC

In the NCHC, Ben Strinden and the North Dakota Fighting Hawks finished the year atop the conference with a 24-10-2 record. Strinden, a staple of North Dakota’s fourth line, has scored five goals and ten points in 35 games this year. He’ll be a key part of the Fighting Hawks’ NCHC Tournament run, which starts with a best-of-three series against Miami of Ohio.

If North Dakota fails to capture its conference championship, they’ll still have an excellent chance at an at-large bid to the NCAA tournament.

Adam Ingram and St. Cloud State finished third in the conference in the regular season. Ingram has chipped in nine goals and 26 points in 34 games and has been a feature on the Huskies’ power play. They’ll take on Western Michigan in the opening round of their conference tournament, which they’ll likely need to win to hear their name on Selection Sunday.

Big Ten

The Big Ten Hockey Tournament began this weekend with six-seed Penn State taking on three-seed Minnesota. The Nittany Lions stumbled down the stretch, finishing with a 15-18-3 record and a sweep at the hands of the Golden Gophers.

They won’t be picked for the NCAA tournament, ending Aiden Fink’s freshman year. Fink impressed with 34 points in 34 games and scored a primary point on 50.0 percent of the even-strength goals he was on the ice for.

Senior Chase McLane, injured since early December, capped off a stop-and-start collegiate career with six points in 17 games for Penn State. He’s scheduled to become a free agent in August.

Hockey East

In the Hockey East, college hockey’s toughest conference, the postseason picture is as cloudy as ever.

Ryan Ufko, Cole O’Hara, and the University of Massachusetts Minutemen finished fifth in the conference with a 19-12-3 record. Ufko, who Nashville will be looking to sign when his season is over, has scored 25 points for UMass, skating more than 25 minutes each night. O’Hara has added seven goals and 18 points in 34 games as a middle-six winger for the Minutemen. They’ll take on the Providence Friars in a single-elimination round-two matchup on Saturday.

Luke Reid and the New Hampshire Wildcats will face off against UMass Lowell on Wednesday in a first-round matchup between the six and 11 seed, respectively. Reid, a four-year defender at New Hampshire, has scored 15 points this year and is also on track to become a free agent in August.

Northeastern will matchup with Merrimack in the first round of the Hockey East Tournament; seniors Alex Campbell, who hit the 20-goal mark over the weekend, and Gunnarwolfe Fontaine will hope to power the Huskies to a long tournament run.

Finally, Matthew Wood, Ethan Haider, and the UConn Huskies will also play Isak Walther and the Vermont Catamounts on Wednesday night. Wood has been heating up lately with five goals and six points in his last three games, while Haider should get the nod in the postseason for Connecticut. Isak Walther returned from injury in January and has helped the Catamounts with seven points in his last ten games.

Vermont, Connecticut, and likely Northeastern must win the Hockey East postseason to earn a spot in the NCAA tournament. Once their seasons are over, Nashville will have until August 15 to sign Campbell, Fontaine, Haider, and Reid.

New Hampshire and UMass are where things get tricky. A couple more Hockey East wins could secure an at-large bid for either team if they fail to win the conference title, which could be a tough test against heavyweights like Maine, Boston College, and Boston University.

The selection show for the NCAA tournament is scheduled for Sunday, March 24, where teams will figure out which regional sites (St. Louis, Providence, Sioux Falls, or Springfield) they’ll head to ahead of the Frozen Four in St. Paul.