{"id":550814,"date":"2026-04-12T03:48:37","date_gmt":"2026-04-12T03:48:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/550814\/"},"modified":"2026-04-12T03:48:37","modified_gmt":"2026-04-12T03:48:37","slug":"defenseman-eric-pohlkamp-named-2025-26-sharks-prospect-of-the-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/550814\/","title":{"rendered":"Defenseman Eric Pohlkamp named 2025-26 Sharks Prospect of the Year"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The San Jose Sharks (<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/sanjosesharks\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">@SanJoseSharks<\/a>) announced today that defenseman\u00a0Eric Pohlkamp\u00a0has been named Sharks Prospect of the Year for the 2025-26\u00a0season\u00a0by Sharks hockey management and staff. The award is presented annually to the player who contributes the greatest amount of success to his club and is a part of the Sharks system, not having played\u00a0an\u00a0NHL game.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Pohlkamp\u00a0is the\u00a0sixth winner of the award, the\u00a0second consecutive\u00a0defenseman chosen\u00a0for the distinction, joining\u00a0previous\u00a0winners\u00a0Sam Dickinson (2024-25),\u00a0Will Smith (2023-24), Ethan Cardwell (2022-23), Brandon Coe (2021-22)\u00a0and Thomas Bordeleau\u00a0(2020-21).\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Pohlkamp,\u00a022,\u00a0led\u00a0NCAA defensemen with 39 points and 18 goals\u00a0on the season,\u00a0helping the Denver Pioneers\u00a0win\u00a0the national championship, the first of his collegiate career.\u00a0He garnered\u00a0numerous\u00a0recognitions during his outstanding season, including being\u00a0one of the final three finalists for the\u00a0Hobey Baker Memorial Award, was named NCHC Offensive Defenseman of the Year and earned a place on the\u00a0AHCA First All-America Team,\u00a0NCHC First All-Star Team and\u00a0conference\u00a0All-Tournament Team.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Over the course of the season,\u00a0Pohlkamp registered one hat trick (Nov. 10 vs. Bentley)\u00a0and\u00a011 multi-point efforts,\u00a0never\u00a0going\u00a0more than two consecutive games without finding the score sheet on the offensive end. He logged a season-long, four-game point streak\u00a0from Nov. 1-14 (4g, 2a) and helped the Pioneers capture the NCHC\u00a0tournament championship after a runner-up finish in the regular season.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The rearguard also\u00a0participated\u00a0in the Spengler Cup as part of the U.S. Collegiate Selects squad,\u00a0leading tournament defensemen with two goals and tying atop the group with three points over four games.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>In his collegiate career, Pohlkamp\u00a0has amassed 98 points (40 goals, 58 assists) over 119\u00a0games split between Denver and Bemidji State, where he spent his\u00a0freshman\u00a0season, earning CCHA All-Rookie Team and First All-Star Team honors.\u00a0In his first season at Denver in 2024-25, Pohlkamp was named to the NCHC Third All-Star Team.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The\u00a0six-foot, 205-pound native of Brainerd, Minnesota was selected by San Jose in the 2023 NHL Draft (fifth round, 132nd\u00a0overall).<\/p>\n<p>  <script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The San Jose Sharks (@SanJoseSharks) announced today that defenseman\u00a0Eric Pohlkamp\u00a0has been named Sharks Prospect of the Year for&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":550815,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5127],"tags":[5,4,519,168,5306,5305,1780],"class_list":{"0":"post-550814","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-jose-sharks","8":"tag-hockey","9":"tag-nhl","10":"tag-san-jose","11":"tag-san-jose-sharks","12":"tag-sanjose","13":"tag-sanjosesharks","14":"tag-sharks"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116389694893419779","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/550814","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=550814"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/550814\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/550815"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=550814"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=550814"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=550814"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}