So maybe a “two and done,” like JvR and Andrew Poturalski?
I wouldn't be that worried about things just yet. With all due respect to C-H-C, the kid is a 19 yr. old
6th round draft choice, so expectations coming in were not terribly high, and maybe it was easy for Conmy to sneak up and surprise some folks at camp this time. JvR was a high profile draftee who was always gonna be fast-tracked, if for no other reason than he was the #2 overall pick in his draft class. Poturalski, on the other hand, was never drafted (like a certain Jason Krog), so he felt an urgency to jump at age 22 when an offer came in for him from Carolina, and for a short time at the start of his pro career, it looked like he might be someone who could fill a middle six role as a forward ... but in retrospect, he really was never a fit for the grind-it-out game preferred by Coach Brind'Amour, so when he failed to impress in some short cameos, that was pretty much it for any realistic shot at an NHL career. Not at all unlike our old friend Darren Haydar.
NHL teams are usually taking calculated risks by the latter rounds of the NHL Draft, and the longer the draft goes, the more the calculated risks can become an out-and-out gamble. Let's play a game ... have you ever heard of any of the following? Jakub Dvorak, Koehn Ziemmer, Hampton Slukynsky or Matthew Mania? Those are the four kids LA drafted in 2023 between Rounds 2 thru 5 before they got around to picking Conmy. The first kid looks like the plus-size defenseman which are so in vogue in the NHL these days. Ziemmer is bigger than Conmy, has scored more goals at a higher level, and probably fell a round due to injury this past season. Sluky is a goalie from Warroad MN who had a cup of coffee with the USNDT, and just won a title in the USHL. I'm not sure exactly what attracted LA's scouts to Mania (other than a super cool name), so to me, it looks like LA has expectations for the first two kids, and everyone after that is a "hit and hope".
For a 6th round draft pick to eventually sign an ELC (entry level contract) with an NHL team is pretty much an accomplishment in and of itself. I do see a certain Mike Buckley (f/k/a "Captain Video" while the UNH goalie coach) is the current LA Kings goalie coach, but he was in Pittsburgh the year before that, which maybe explains Casey DeSmith's career path to some degree, but seems a little bit off to explain a 6th round gamble on Conmy. LA also has decent-but-not-great scoring depth up front, so at least as things stand right now, if he continues to develop, Conmy could have a shot there.
So my guess is, barring injury or portal or other unusual developments, Conmy will probably get at least three seasons in at UNH, and could be a 50-50 shot at the elusive "four year player" status. FWIW another fairly recent 6th round NHL pick at UNH was goalie Mike Robinson, who was never offered an ELC by San Jose, which is hardly the breeding ground for goaltending excellence. They apparently saw a kid with size, and hoped for the best. If Conmy lit up camp (which almost seems an oxymoron in and of itself), then good for him. Now it becomes all about development, and if he showed LAK something they didn't know he had already, they will be watching him more closely now. It would be nice for MS7 and his guys to have an example of a kid who developed under their watch, so I'm rooting for the kid, not only for his personal situation, but also for the potential long term implications if MS7 2.0 can show he has learned some new tricks ...
