The Ontario Reign further strengthened their roster on Thursday with a surname familiar to Kings fans!

Bryce Brodzinski, the younger brother of former Kings and Reign forward Jonny, moved to Ontario’s AHL on a one-year contract for the 2024-25 season.

Brodzinski, a former seventh-round pick of the Philadelphia Flyers in 2019 after winning the Mr. Hockey Award as the best high school hockey player in Minnesota, will turn pro at the start of the 2024–25 season.

The Blaine, Minnesota native has been a standout player at the University of Minnesota over the past five seasons, totaling 119 points with the Gophers, including nearly 60 goals and 59 assists. He came into his own the past two seasons, reaching the 30-point mark in two consecutive seasons, with 31 in the 2022-23 season and a career-high 36 last year.

Brodzinski, in his fourth year with the program, helped Minnesota reach the NCAA national championship game during a stellar run through the postseason in which he scored seven points on four goals and three assists, including a hat trick in a regional win over Canisius.

The 24-year-old forward comes from a well-known hockey family in Blaine. His father, Mike, played for the high school team before going on to great success at St. Cloud State in the mid-1980s. Bryce is the youngest of four brothers who all played in the NCAA Division I and made it to the pro league.

The oldest of his siblings, Jonny, now 31, will be remembered by Kings and Reign fans as a former draft pick by LA in 2013. The fifth-round pick played at the collegiate level in St. Cloud before making his professional debut with Ontario in 2015. He played 54 games for the Kings over three seasons from 2016 to 2019. He is currently preparing to begin his fifth season with the New York Rangers.

His other brothers are Michael, who spent some time in the San Jose organization after his time in Minnesota, and Easton, who spent the last two seasons in the ECHL after a five-year career in St. Cloud.

For more information on the signing, see the team’s press release on Brodzinski –

The Ontario Reign, proud AHL partner of the LA Kings, announced the signing of the striker Bryce Brodzinski to an AHL contract for the 2024–25 season.

Brodzinski, 24, will begin his professional season with the Reign after completing a five-year college career at the University of Minnesota in the Big Ten Conference. The forward played 185 games with the Gophers from 2019-2024, scoring 119 points on 60 goals and 59 assists (60-59=119).

Originally selected by the Philadelphia Flyers in the 7th round of the 2019 NHL Draft (196th overall), he is the all-time most-played player in Minnesota history.

In the final season, 2023–24, Brodzinski was tied for the team’s leading scorer as an alternate captain, setting a career high with 36 points on 14 goals and 22 assists and a +21 rating. He scored 12 of his points on the power play on five goals and seven assists.

The year before, the Blaine, Minnesota, native scored 19 goals and 31 points to help the Gophers to a Big Ten regular season title and the 23rd Frozen Four appearance in program history. Brodzinski was named Most Outstanding Player at the Fargo Regional in the NCAA Tournament after scoring five total points in two games, including a hat trick and a four-point performance.

The 6-foot-3, 200-pound forward was captain of his high school team in Blaine and won the 2018-19 Mr. Hockey Award as the state’s top senior player. His brother Jonny, currently with the New York Rangers, played 156 games with the Reign over four seasons from 2015-19.

Currently, seven forwards have signed AHL contracts with the Reign for the upcoming 2024-25 season, including Brodzinski, Jacob Doty, Shawn Element, Charles Hudon, Quinn Olson, Tate Singleton and Colton Young. Combined with the forwards with NHL contracts making their way to Ontario, the Kings’ affiliate should have good competition for playing time up front.

The Reign are also expected to be tight in the back half, as they have a mix of contracts with the Kings, including rookie Angus Booth and recent college graduates Jack Millar and Luke Rowe.

Interestingly, Ontario only has one goalie (Dryden McKay) under contract in the AHL. While we wait for a new contract for Erik Portillo, who is preparing for his second year as a pro, it will be interesting to see if the Reign add more depth in goal behind Portillo, Phoenix Copley, Darcy Kuemper and David Rittich.

There’s less than a month until the rookies hit the ice at the Rookie Faceoff event in El Segundo! There will certainly be plenty of updates here on LAKI until then.