The 2025 NCHC Tournament was the 11th tournament in league history. It was played between March 14 and 22, 2025. Quarterfinal games were played at home team campus sites, while the semifinal and championship matches were held at the Xcel Energy Center in Saint Paul, Minnesota. As the tournament winner, Western Michigan, earned the NCHC's automatic bid to the 2025 NCAA Division I men's ice hockey tournament.
Format The first round of the postseason tournament features a best-of-three games format. The top eight conference teams participated in the tournament. Teams were seeded No. 1 through No. 8 according to their final conference standing, with a tiebreaker system used to seed teams with an identical number of points accumulated. The top four seeded teams each earn home ice and host one of the lower seeded teams.
The winners of the first round series advanced to the Xcel Energy Center for the NCHC Frozen Faceoff. The Frozen Faceoff uses a single-elimination format. Teams were re-seeded No. 1 through No. 4 according to the final regular season conference standings.
Standings
Bracket Teams are reseeded for the semifinals.
Note: * denotes overtime period(s)
Results Note: All game times are local.
Quarterfinals (1) Western Michigan vs. (8) St. Cloud State
Western Michigan wins series 2–0
(2) Arizona State vs. (7) Minnesota Duluth
Arizona State wins series 2–0
(3) Denver vs. (6) Colorado College
Denver wins series 2–1
(4) Omaha vs. (5) North Dakota
North Dakota wins series 2–0
Semifinals (1) Western Michigan vs. (5) North Dakota
(2) Arizona State vs. (3) Denver
Championship (1) Western Michigan vs. (3) Denver
Tournament awards Frozen Faceoff All-Tournament Team G: Matt Davis (Denver) D: Zeev Buium (Denver) D: Joona Väisänen (Western Michigan) F: Alex Bump * (Western Michigan) F: Sacha Boisvert (North Dakota) F: Artem Shlaine (Arizona State) * Most Valuable Player(s)
References