The 2025 Kelly Cup Playoffs field is getting closer to being set as we enter the final weeks of the regular season.

Any coach will tell you that a hockey team cannot be carried just by its star players. Depth is pivotal.

The best part of ECHL hockey is the goaltending.

The ECHL has two expansion teams this season – the Bloomington Bison and Tahoe Knight Monsters – with another on the way in Greensboro, North Carolina.

The last few seasons in the ECHL has brought a lot of intrigue. There have been new teams, plenty of new exciting players and prospects, and there’s been a three-peat champion bringing a little consistency to the mix.

The ECHL season is almost upon us. When the puck drops Friday, it will mark another exciting chapter for the premier ‘AA’ hockey league. For ECHL fans, we’ve got one more piece of news to get you even more excited for Friday nights throughout the season.

Training camps are opening in ECHL cities across North America, an exciting time for fans tracking the best prospects, best teams and ever-changing landscape of Double-A hockey.

For the vast majority of players in the NHL, they're going to need a stop playing within the farm system of the club that either drafted or signed them. Some will get their start in the ECHL, the premier "AA" hockey circuit, while many will spends some time in the American Hockey League, the last step for most players before they realize their NHL dreams.

So what happens after an NHL team drafts a player?

Perhaps it’s fitting that Matthew Wedman, a player who didn’t skate a single regular-season game with the Florida Everblades, netted the 2024 Kelly Cup-winning goal Saturday night against the Kansas City Mavericks.

The Florida Everblades have made history. With a stunning 4-3 overtime win in Game 5 of the Kelly Cup Finals, Florida won its third straight Kelly Cup, becoming the first team to ever win three consecutive titles in ECHL history.

It’s not surprising that the best-of-seven Kelly Cup Finals, between the Florida Everblades and Kansas City Mavericks, are tied at 1 after the opening weekend of the series.

The Florida Everblades, winners of the last two Kelly Cups, will face the Kansas City Mavericks, who won the Brabham Cup as regular-season champions.

The Florida Everblades are trying to do something no team in ECHL history has done before – win three consecutive Kelly Cup championships – and Game 1 of the best-of-seven 2024 finals will be Friday against the Kansas City Mavericks at Cable Dahmer Arena in Independence, Missouri.

The Kansas City Mavericks have a chance to do something no ECHL team has done since 2014 – follow a regular-season championship with a playoff championship.