Prospect Currents: USHL Draft, NCAA + Amateur Developments
Hey guys, hope everyone is doing well. A few topics for this column:
USHL News/Draft
LIU adding D1 men’s hockey
Illinois putting a pause on their D1 efforts
Hockey academy developments
New amateur league developments + more
USHL and USHL Draft
The USHL draft is just around the corner — May 4 and May 5. It takes part in two phases. If you’re just looking to read about that, there are some comments below and two pieces I’ve written: a public article about some of the top prospects (click here) and a ranking with more details about most of the top talent available in phase one for paid subscribers (click here). I’ll talk about that more further on in the column, specifically Phase One (Futures), but first — the latest news in the USHL:
Ivan Miroshnichenko tenders with Muskegon
The Lumberjacks furthered a Russian pipeline that has been very rewarding for them, (most notably with NHL star Andrei Svechnikov a few years ago), this week when they announced the signing of Ivan Miroshnichenko, who looks to be one of the next great Russian prospects, led the Russians as captain in the Youth Olympic Games, beating a strong American group in the Gold Medal game by a score of 4-0. You can watch it here. His 6 goals and 6 assists in four games was second in the Youth Olympic Games scoring race behind another young Russian phenom, Matvei Michkov, and ‘Miro’ led the tournament with a +13 rating.
Stats aside, the Lumberjacks have pulled an impact player for next season out of their hat at the last minute. You might not get more than a few good USHL players at all in the phase one draft, let alone tender one who can jump in and be as effective as Miroschnichenko likely will. Whether he actually stays for more than a year or jumps ship to major junior for his draft year in 2021, who knows. However, with Muskegon already tendering Canadian forward Owen Mehlenbacher with their first round pick earlier this month, they’ve only spent a second rounder to tender him, which is hilarious.
It’s especially great for Muskegon that they were ready to add a junior-ready talent like Miroschnichenko because the OHL has vacuumed their fair share of 2004-born talent this spring ahead of the USHL draft, the latest names being Gavin Hayes, Ryan Abraham and Brody Crane. All are nice players at forward, one of whom was committed to Penn State (Crane). With then-Michigan State commit Max Namestnikov getting picked third overall by Sarnia, and subsequently signing, that makes two significant losses for Big Ten recruiting efforts in the ‘04 age group. It could be three big losses very soon: my top prospect for the USHL Phase 1 draft is Tristan Luneau, an elite Québécois defender who helped Canada take home Bronze at the Youth Olympic Games. Luneau happens to be a Wisconsin recruit, but we’ll see what happens in the upcoming QMJHL draft on May 6th.
USHL Phase 1 Draft
As far as the draft goes, like everything in amateur hockey, it can seem a lot more complicated than it ought to be. You might think the USHL’s Futures Draft (Phase 1) would be the absolute best players in the country, like the Canadian Hockey League drafts tend to be, but the Phase 1 draft is decimated talent-wise by the fact that the NTDP gets dibs on most of the best players in a given age group, and then there always are a number of great players that don’t make the NTDP who end up signing in the Ontario league. This year was no different — a number of players who would have been near the top of my rankings (Spencer Sova, Max Namestnikov, Ryan Abraham, Gavin Hayes) opted to head north of the border. Then you have the tender process, where USHL teams trade in one of their top picks in phase one to preemptively sign a player.
There were plenty of those tenders this year — I wrote about Miroschnichenko today and many of the others earlier this month. While that means USHL teams secure talent in the draft ahead of time, the draft itself is now primarily players that one might consider to be in a second, third, fourth tier of talent within the age group. The silver lining is that scouting is an imperfect science and at this age, even more so. There is still plenty of talent that USHL teams can lay claim to next week, and I’ve written an article about some of the top prospects in my eyes. For paid subscribers, as I mentioned I’ve included a ranking of about 50 prospects with 100 more listed and some additional notes. Click here for that.
As far as what will actually happen on draft day, it could look very different from a ranking of the best players available. The USHL Phase 1 draft is very much a junior hockey draft — teams can’t just take the best player available and come away with a pick that necessarily will benefit their franchise. This is generally true in major junior but it is even more of a concern in the USHL, for a variety of reasons — the primary one being that most players have a few viable options as far as where to play hockey before college. The USHL is without question the top junior league in America, but there is competition, for example from the BCHL or the high school leagues — namely the one in Minnesota as well as the New England prep circuit.
There is also the fact that colleges bring their best recruits to campus earlier and earlier as of late. This is a factor in both drafts, Phases 1 and 2. The best player available in a given year might opt to stay at high school through senior year and then just go to college ASAP, like Blaine (MN) high school star Riley Tufte did after being picked first overall by Fargo in 2014. Tufte, who went on to become a first round pick in the NHL draft, played 34 total games in the USHL — 27 of which were in his draft year, 2015-16.
The best player in that 2014 Phase One draft might have been the 13th overall pick, Kieffer Bellows, who gave Sioux Falls 52 points in 58 games as a rookie the season after he was drafted. Bellows certainly would have been the best pick of the draft if not for the fact that he did so well in his debut that the NTDP ended up signing him for the following season — things like that are why this is a draft that can punish you for drafting a player who performs at a step above his peers. In the end, someone like 4th round pick Collin Adams (#49th overall) or 7th rounder Ben Meyers (#96) could very well have been the best picks in the draft, as long as the team is willing to be patient — they came to the league later but played two full seasons at nearly a point-per-game pace.
Looked at through that lens, a franchise like Madison, picking first overall, would probably be better off selecting a player ranked in the 10-30 range if they feel confident that the player will actually end up spending a few seasons playing for their franchise. Someone like Quinn Finley, a prolific scorer from Wisconsin who is a really nice player in his own right, but not necessarily the top prospect available — could be far-and-away the best pick for them at #1, as long as he’s actually interested in playing there.
Two new GMs were announced this month in the USHL.
Sioux Falls hired Deloraine, Manitoba native Marty Murray, who has been the head coach of the NAHL’s Minot Minotauros for nine years, and had the GM title as well for the last four. Murray played in the WHL and played over 250 games in the NHL through his playing career, and did a great job bringing Minot around. After starting his tenure there with a 7 win season, he brought the team to the playoffs in every season since, and by the end of his third season would never have a year end below .500. He also helped now Los Angeles King forward Blake Lizotte break into junior hockey with a 52 point season as a 16 year old. Sioux Falls is a great franchise who won the league title last year, and Murray has a great opportunity there.
Madison hired a new GM/Head Coach in Mercyhurst assistant Tom Upton. Upton had been at Mercyhurst for two seasons, and before that spent four years coaching in junior hockey, one season as an assistant at Cedar Rapids and Youngstown each, book-ending two seasons with the Minnesota Magicians as head coach when they were still a relatively new NAHL franchise. I got to know Tom a bit around the rinks during his time working in junior hockey and he always struck me as a good, hard-working guy. I’m hopeful that he can a big part of the effort to get Madison to a competitive place.
Other Hockey News
LIU adds Division 1 Hockey
Long Island University, who added Division 1 Women’s Ice Hockey to their athletics program last year, announced today that they would be adding a Men’s program to match. This news came out just as I was working on this article, so, along with everyone else, I have a lot more questions than answers. I don’t understand how they are going to put together a team for this fall or what the schedule, let alone staff or rink situation could look like. Regardless it’s an exciting development for the college game and could have some serious potential. What might seem like a chaotic time to start a program may actually play out just fine. There won’t be any expectations on the LIU program for a while and now is as good a time as any to get going. It takes years to put together a winner from a recruiting perspective, so this could help them lay the ground-work. There are also probably a lot of overagers whose seasons were cut short that will be eager to play for any Division 1 program offering scholarships. There won’t be a full eighteen scholarships at first, though, according to CHN’s primer on the program — and the budget may be the smallest in all of Division 1 hockey.
I figure in the short term that they would have no conference affiliation and might attempt to join Atlantic Hockey at some point. Long Island has produced a lot of college hockey talent and the area around NYC produces plenty as well. If LIU can keep some of the great players that would otherwise be going to Hockey East and the ECAC in Long Island, the program could be really successful. There were some really nice players in college hockey this season from Long Island, including Shane Pinto (North Dakota), Robert Mastrosimone (BU) and Sam Sternschein (Penn State).
The biggest question is the rink. I spoke with the women’s team coach, Rob Morgan, last year before their inaugural season and he had mentioned that there was some idea of playing out of Brooklyn initially. That’s where the main Long Island University campus is. The second campus is further out on Long Island, not within the city, and that’s where the women’s team ended up playing out of. One spot that could be compelling is the Northwell Health Ice Center, known to many as the Twin Rinks at Eisenhower Park in East Meadow. The New York Bobcats (EHL) played there at one point, but now the Islanders use it as a practice facility as well as for youth hockey and other purposes. It’ll be interesting to see whether that makes playing on Long Island the move, whether a new facility is in the offing, or what.
There are a lot of questions, but for hockey fans from Long Island and NYC, a lot of excitement too.
Illinois puts a pause on Division 1 Hockey
The Illini have flirted with announcing their push into the ranks of D1 and Big Ten hockey for years, leaking details to the press and coughing publicly about the prospect of a major facility being built. This month they announced that the Coronavirus had put that idea on pause. The state of Illinois will be waiting for a few more years (at least) to get a D1 program of their own.
Hockey Academies: here, there and everywhere
There was plenty of news in the rapidly-growing hockey academy world, where it seems there is some new operation being announced every few months.
Selects Academy and South Kent announced that they would officially be continuing their hockey program after months of talk in the hockey world that Selects Academy would be moving to Bishop Kearney in Rochester, New York. That’s where the girls branch of Selects Academy has been for a while. Since the inception of Selects Academy at South Kent, the teams have had a lot of success and moved plenty of players on to the next level. This year the teams ended up ranked 4th (15s), 11th (16s) and 30th (18s) nationally.
Meanwhile, Bishop Kearney are going ahead with a boy’s hockey academy of their own — not connected to Selects Academy — apparently named Bishop Kearney Selects. It’s stuff like this that makes the amateur hockey world such a confusing mess. Bishop Kearney Selects made a splash when hockey director Chris Collins announced that long-time NHLer, former New York Rangers captain and two-time Olympian Ryan Callahan would be the director of player development for the program. Per an article in the Democrat & Chronicle, Bishop Kearney Boys Selects will have full-season AAA teams at the bantam, 15, and 16 age levels.
Not having an 18U team is an interesting quirk. There are different models for how these academies are operated, but many at least have an 18U team that provides a natural progression for players on the younger teams. Northstar Christian, a hockey academy in Minnesota who I interviewed last fall, started their operation with only an 18U team for example.
One aspect that Bishop Kearney Selects has going for it is the proximity to Canada and the potential to play against many of the very competitive 15U teams north of and dotting around the border. It’s possible that the program will attempt to move players on to major junior, prep schools and other leagues as they get older rather than keep them around at 17 and 18. Callahan himself was an OHLer, playing four years for Guelph.
Also filed under new hockey academy: the Boston Imperials Hockey Cub will revive hockey at Matignon, a long-time Massachusetts high school hockey power in Cambridge. Like Bishop Kearney, they also hired a former Olympian in pulling away Rivers head coach Shawn McEachern from the prep school he had coached at for ten years. McEachern, a Matignon graduate who had a 13-year NHL career and won a cup with the Penguins in 1992, will coach the 16 team. Matignon’s new hockey academy opening up is reminiscent of what is going on at Mount, as both are former high school hockey powers from the days when high school hockey in their respective states were actually competitive. Matignon’s new program doesn’t have the same expectations as Mount did, though. That’s nothing against the Imperials. Mount’s staff had been there before — they were a big part of building Selects Academy at South Kent into a national power before heading to Rhode Island. Having had that experience, they understood how complicated it would be to start a program, and took a full year off of coaching to recruit and set the operation up for success, which is something the Imperials are not doing.
That preparation on Mount’s side resulted in a 3rd-ranked 18 team, 5th-ranked 16 team and 10th-ranked 15 team in their first year of operation. Even without that level of preparation, the Imperials Hockey Club at Matignon seem to have the resources and leadership to be a success as well, though a pandemic breaking out during a critical time has to be especially stressful. I do wonder how many more of these hockey academies will pop up and how many survive in the long run. The Imperials will have a 15, 16 and 18 team.
Anyway, one of the new trends in the hockey world has been announcing new players on social media, and the Imperials have wasted no time there. Check out their Twitter to learn about some of their new players, many of which have come over from other hockey academies, including the Northern Cyclones Academy, Seacoast Performance Academy, Gentry Academy, and even Mount.
Speaking of Mount, they also announced many of their new players through hockey reporter Mark Divver’s twitter account. One big pick-up (literally) for their 16 team is 6’4 goaltender Pete Sterling from Team Maryland, who was invited to the NTDP evaluation camp. For more on Mount, I interviewed Mount 16s coach Devin Rask in the fall and did a podcast episode with 18s coach Matt Plante earlier this year after they won the True Cup.
Northstar Christian, which I mentioned above, took a different approach and highlighted more of their program’s ‘out’ box on their social media, announcing (by my quick count) ten players that have signed tenders with junior hockey teams.
Last on the social media transfer announcements front: St. Andrew’s College, albeit more prep school than quote-unquote hockey academy, also announced their class of 2022 on social media. Many of the players were taken in this spring’s OHL draft, but none went higher than big incoming defender Matt Morden, a 2nd round selection by Sarnia. For more about St. Andrew’s, I interviewed head coach David Manning in the fall to preview their season and followed up with him on a podcast ahead of their annual MacPherson Tournament earlier this year.
NCAA Coaching Carousel
UVM announced their new head coach and went a bit off-the-radar with their pick: McGill alum Todd Woodcroft, who spent the last four seasons with the Winnipeg Jets. Prior to that he had been involved in scouting and video coaching at the NHL level, winning a cup in 2012 with the Kings, as well as working with Team Canada. I’m sure the Catamounts wouldn’t hire someone who isn’t up to the task, but Woodcroft’s lack of experience in the NCAA will need to be compensated for by bringing in at least one top level recruiter. You can’t win games without good players, and UVM is really behind the eight-ball on that front. Forget finding new players, without a good recruiter in place to keep their best recruits sold on the vision, the Cats could even lose some of their top NLI-signed players due to the coaching switch — like Salisbury star Lucas Mercuri.
No matter what, it’s not likely to be a smooth transition, as Hockey East is as competitive as ever. If they don’t give Woodcroft’s staff time to get results, UVM could be mired in mediocrity for a decade-plus. Give him the resources and time to turn the program into something that can compete. For more on Woodcroft, CHN’s Adam Wodon interviewed him.
Also in coaching carousel news — long-time Dartmouth coach Bob Gaudet is stepping down. He was the only coach in the history of the ECAC to be behind the bench for 1,000 games in the conference and oversaw the development of a lot of great players. The most recent was Drew O’Connor, named Ivy League Player of the Year as a sophomore. He signed with the Penguins as a free agent this year.
Associate Head Coach Jason Herter is reportedly leaving Minnesota-Duluth, to destinations unknown. The former UND blue liner has had a lot of success helping the Bulldogs become the most successful program in Minnesota as of late and would be a great asset if he were to end up at another NCAA school, though pro hockey may be calling.
Other other news
The USPHL continues to expand — the junior hockey empire will have eight new teams joining from the WSHL next season. The fate of the WSHL seems to be in question now, though there will still be plenty of junior hockey out west, just under the USPHL’s massive umbrella.
AAA Hockey is getting a new showcase league with a big sponsorship. The Under Armour Hockey League’s site lists seven teams as of today: Team Illinois, Rocky Mountain Rough Riders, Sioux Falls Power, Omaha AAA, Northstar Christian, Des Moines Bucs, and CarShield. They will operate at four levels, and three events have been announced: September 11-13 in Detroit, November 27-29 in Chicago for 14/15/18, November 27-29 at Notre Dame for the 16s and January 22-24 in Omaha.
Chicago Steel GM Ryan Hardy is doing a Zoom call with a number of other big names in hockey, including Craig Button, which will be available to watch on Sunday. The topic of the call is ‘Careers in Hockey’. Here’s the link to his Twitter account where it should be linked on Sunday.
If you’re bored while quarantined and looking for a good cause to support on Saturday while playing poker, North Jersey Avalanche 16s coach Vinny Smith passed along a digital invite to the Ryan Rudden Memorial Texas Hold’Em Tournament — a replacement for the annual Ryan Rudden hockey tournament that had to be cancelled this year. Click here for details.
In non-hockey news, U.S. Soccer announced that they would be closing their Development Academy. The program name was kind of a misnomer, as it wasn’t an individual facility like the NTDP but a sprawling operation with the stated goal of improving the quality of competition and development across over one hundred different soccer clubs. It seemed somewhat analogous to a combination of USA Hockey’s ADM push and league play at different age levels.
There were likely a lot of factors leading to U.S. Soccer’s decision but the publicly-stated reason was that the coronavirus presented financial difficulties that made the continuation of the Development Academy untenable. It’ll be interesting to see what fills the void for top soccer programs in the U.S, and if the coronavirus ends up affecting the hockey world in a similar way. A lot of scouting events through the summer have already been cancelled.
Thanks for reading.