Photo: Prince George Cougars Site
Next up in our annual Washington Capitals prospect review and forecast series is Zac Funk, winger for the Prince George Cougars in the Western Hockey League (WHL). (You can access all of our Capitals Prospect Reports and player analysis on our “Prospects” page in the top menu or right here.)
VITALS
The Washington Capitals signed Zac Funk to a three-year entry-level contract on March 1, 2024. Funk, 20, is listed at 6’0” and 209 pounds. He was born in Vernon, British Columbia.
CAREER SUMMARY
Funk began his major junior hockey career with the Calgary Hitmen, starting with a few games in 2018-19 and 2019-20. He became a full-time member of the Hitmen during the 2021-22 season where he scored 22 goals and recorded 19 assists in 63 games.
Calgary traded Funk midway through the 2022-23 season to the Prince George Cougars. That season, he scored 13 goals for both Calgary and Prince George for a total of 26 goals and recorded 19 assists with Calgary and 13 assists with Prince George for a total of 32. He played in the WHL playoffs for the first time that season where he logged 10 playoff games, scoring 5 goals and recording 3 assists.
For the 2023-24 season, Funk made a dramatic improvement in his offensive statistics from his past season. He scored 67 goals, which led the WHL and recorded 56 assists for 123 total points, which ranked second in the WHL. He played in 68 games, scoring nearly one goal per game.
He also contributed 8 goals and recorded 10 assists in 15 playoff games as Prince George advanced to the third round of the WHL Playoffs.
2023-2024 MONTH-BY-MONTH RECAP AND TREND ANALYSIS
The following is a compilation of the month-by-month prospect reports for Zac Funk during the 2023-2024 season. All monthly prospect reports can be accessed from our “Prospects” page in the top menu.
October
Funk was “en fuego” even before October 1. In his very first game of the season, on September 23 in a 9-0 win against the Tri-City Americans, he scored a hat trick and also recorded two assists.
His September statistics were 4 goals and 6 assists in four games.
October continued to be a strong month for him as he scored 10 goals and 10 assists in 10 games. He had three multi-goal games, with a two-goal game in a 6-4 win against the Wenatchee Wild on October 6, a two-goal game in a 5-4 loss to the Kelowna Rockets, and a hat trick on October 21 in a 7-1 win against the Kamloops Blazers.
November
November featured more goals for Funk, even if not at a prolific rate as October. He still had two multi-goal games that month, one in a 6-4 win against the Lethbridge Hurricanes on November 24 and the other in a 4-3 loss against the Everett Silvertips on November 28.
His totals for November were 9 goals and 4 assists in 11 games.
December
December was another spectacular month for Funk. It featured a hat trick of hat tricks, one on December 1 in a 4-1 win against Tri-City, another in a 4-0 win against the Portland Winterhawks just two days later, and his third hatty in a 6-3 win against the Wenatchee Wild on December 15.
Funk also scored two goals in a 5-3 win against the Victoria Royals on December 8. He had one goal and three assists in a 9-2 against the Vancouver Giants on December 16.
In ten games for the month, he scored 14 goals and 8 assists for 22 points.
January
January was a quieter month for Funk on the goal-scoring front but featured a hat trick from him on January 3 during a 6-2 win against the Wenatchee Wild where he also had an assist. For the month, he played in 12 games, scored 7 goals, and recorded 7 assists.
February
February was another strong month for Funk. He scored two hat tricks and had three other multi-goal games. There were hat tricks during a 6-1 win against Victoria on February 10 and a 6-5 shootout win against Kelowna on February 24.
Funk also had multi-goal games on February 4 in a 5-1 win against Kamloops, February 16 in a 7-1 win against Kamloops, and a 5-1 win on February 20 against the Seattle Thunderbirds where he also had two assists.
On February 16, he marked a milestone in that he scored his 50th goal of the season for the first time in his career.
Photo: Ted Clarke/Prince George Citizen
He scored 12 goals and recorded 8 assists in 10 games during February.
March
On March 1, Funk signed a three-year entry-level contract with the Capitals on March 1, 2024. Since then, he has been in anything but a funk. He continued to tear up the league by scoring 11 goals and recording 13 assists in 10 games to close out the regular season.
He had four games in March where he scored two goals: March 1 (5-4 OT loss against Spokane), March 8 (5-3 win against Vancouver), March 9 (6-3 win against Vancouver), and March 17 (6-3 win against Vancouver). He had five games where he recorded three or more points, recording four points on March 16 and March 17. He was the third star of the game on March 16 for a goal and three assists and the first star on March 17 for his two goals and two assists.
His final totals for the regular season were 67 goals and 56 points for 123 points in 68 games. He ranked first in the Western Hockey League in goals and second in points, only behind Jagger Firkus. He scored 31 power-play goals, to lead the league. During the season, he had hat tricks on seven different occasions.
He also contributed 8 goals and recorded 10 assists in 15 playoff games as Prince George advanced to the third round of the WHL Playoffs. This included a hat trick in the second round of the playoffs against the Kelowna Rockets (and Andrew Cristall) on April 19 in a 6-3 win which eliminated Kelowna from the WHL playoffs.
PLAYER FORECAST
Funk will begin his professional career in 2024-25. He will likely start the season with the Hershey Bears unless he wins a spot on the Washington Capitals roster.
By Diane Doyle
