Over the last two weeks, fans have voted in the 2025-26 NCHC Play of the Year Tournament, and for the third straight year, the winning play comes from Western Michigan. Sophomore goaltender Hampton Slukynsky's toe save in the NCAA Regional Semifinals was crowned the NCHC Play of the Year for the 2025-26 season by fans on Wednesday. This marks WMU's fourth NCHC Play of the Year champion overall, with former forward Alex Bump winning the title last year, former goalie Cameron Rowe claiming Play of the Year in 2023-24, and former Broncos forward Justin Kovacs winning the 2014-15 Play of the Year title in the NCHC's second season.

In this season's NCHC Play of the Year, Slukynsky makes a sprawling toe save on a rebound against Minnesota State in the NCAA Regional Semifinals in Loveland, Colo. on Friday, March 27. The save came late in the first period of the regional semifinal, which WMU went on to win, 3-1, at Blue Arena.

Slukynsky narrowly won the championship match-up in the NCHC Play of the Year Tournament with his NCHC Save of the Year clipping St. Cloud State forward Barrett Hall, who scored the Goal of the Year in the NCHC. Slukynsky earned 52 percent of the more than 5,400 votes cast, totaling 2,822 votes to Hall's 2,627 for a winning margin of 195.

Previous winners for NCHC Play of the Year include (the year links to story/video):
2014 - Drake Caggiula, F, UND
2015 - Justin Kovacs, F, WMU
2016 - Nick Schmaltz, F, UND
2017 - Tyson Jost, F, UND
2018 - Ryan Poehling, F, SCSU
2019 - Sam Hentges, F, SCSU
2020 - Jordan Kawaguchi, F, UND
2021 - Adam Scheel, G, UND
2022 - Matt Vernon, G, CC
2023 - Hunter McKown, F, CC
2024 - Cameron Rowe, G, WMU
2025 - Alex Bump, F, WMU

Video of Slukynsky's winning save is below, while the entire bracket can be seen at the bottom of the page.