At first blush, hockey and Harvard appear to go together about as well as a concussion and a Nobel Prize. Yet that dichotomy is what drew Kings right wing Alex Laferriere to the school on his way to the NHL.
“You’re kind of set up for life,” said Laferriere who, at three weeks past his 23rd birthday, is just beginning that life. “If you get hurt and you can never play hockey again, being able to have a Harvard degree is something that I think is pretty attractive.”
Laferriere isn’t there yet. A psychology major, he still has four classes to finish before he can earn his diploma. In the meantime, the hockey part of his life plan is working out pretty well: Laferriere is tied for the team lead with nine goals and ranks third with 15 points for the Kings (10-6-3), who are second in the Pacific Division nearly a quarter of the way into the season.
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That production has come in a season that has seen him split time between a forward line centered by Quinton Byfield and the top team’s line, where he has played with captain Anze Kopitar and winger Adrian Kempe. As a rookie, Laferriere said his focus was on learning what it took to play in the NHL. This season he’s applying those lessons.
“I would say confidence is the main thing,” he said. “Last year was more focused on sticking in the NHL and kind of proving that I belonged. This year I want to be one of the guys that they look to in situations where we need goals, where they can trust me on the ice.”
Laferriere is a speedy, versatile and savvy right winger with a strong forecheck and a deceptive shot. But his most important asset might be his high hockey IQ, which might be expected from a guy who played two seasons at Harvard.
The school has been affiliated with more than 160 Nobel Prize winners, by far the most of any U.S. college or university. But it’s also sent 43 players to the NHL; that doesn’t exactly make it a hockey factory but it probably qualifies it to be called a hockey workshop.
“There’s a lot of great students that are also great athletes,” said Ted Donato, a former Harvard coach and briefly a Kings’ winger who has coached the Crimson since 2004. “We’ve had kids that say ‘Hey, you know what? I can do both things at a really high level. Why shouldn’t I use my hockey talents to have an opportunity to go to a place like Harvard?’ “
That combination of smarts and skills is certainly what led Laferriere, one of New England’s top prep players as a high school senior, to switch his allegiance from West Point, where he had originally committed, to Harvard.
“My dad went to Boston College; he also went to Princeton,” Laferriere said of his father Rob, a standout hockey player at both schools who is now head trader at BlueMar Capital, a hedge-fund manager. “So growing up my dream school was Harvard because it had the academics of Princeton and the hockey of BC.”
That dream lasted just two college seasons before Laferriere realized his other dream, which was signing a professional contract. He made his debut with the Ontario Reign in March 2023 and 10 days later signed a three-year entry-level contract with the Kings, who had selected him in the third round of the 2020 draft.
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He played his first NHL game the following October, marking the milestone by squaring off with Colorado’s Logan O’Connor and wrestling him to the ice, winning his first fight four games before he scored his first goal. He finished his rookie year by scoring his last goal in the first period of the Kings’ season-ending playoff loss to the Edmonton Oilers.
“He had a great season last year so his start to [this] season hasn’t surprised me,” Kings coach Jim Hiller said. “He is a good, solid player that’s good in a lot of different areas.”
And when he stops being that, he has something to fall back on.
“Whether or not you can play professional hockey, you have a Harvard degree to use,” Laferriere said.
Talk about a power play.
This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
