Tradition

That's correct. Hockey scholarships are "shared scholarships." Each team gets 18 full scholarships that they may split up with up to 30 players. Some are on full scholarship while others get a percentage of a scholarship.

For those keeping score at home: 3 senior forwards leaving: Gardner, Jones, Janatuinen 3 incoming forwards to take their spots that have signed NLI's: Rizzo, Caulfield, Pinto 1 incoming forward who sits out next year and does not count against scholarship: Stratton 4 eligible forward recruits who are not ready yet: Randklev, Costello, Mancinelli, Schmaltz 2 highly skilled forward recruits who are ready but need a spot: Donovan, Blaisdell ? forwards who may leave early for the pros: Don't see any as of now. First time in years this has been the case. ? forwards who may transfer out: Don't see any as of now. Usually these are sophomores who leave to find more playing time elsewhere. 1 possible forward roster spot opens if Johnson moves back to defense for next year. Please add any corrections or thoughts you may have. I sure hope we keep Donovan. He's gonna be a good one.

Donovan could very well be taken in the late first or early second round of next summer's draft. No one drafted that early wants to wait a year before college. The problem is we have five great forward recruits ready for next fall and this is the first year in a long time we won't have one or two forwards leaving early. I sure hope we don't lose him, but as has already been discussed, Rizzo, Caulfield, Pinto and Blaisdell next fall plus Halliday and Bowen locked in for the following year makes for a very loaded group of highly skilled scoring forwards coming in soon.

Wahlstrom decommited from Maine. Then he decommited from Harvard. If he walks out on his Boston College teammates after just 9 games I say no thanks.

With all this talk about our lack of scoring, I thought I'd do a little research to see just how many points per game our forwards scored in their final year before enrolling at UND. Here are the results along with the league in which they played: SENIORS Jones 1.07 BCHL Gardner 1.00 BCHL Janatuinen .94 USHL JUNIORS Smith 1.13 MJHL Hoff 1.02 USHL Yon .64 USHL Bowen .47 BCHL SOPHOMORES Kawaguchi 1.55 BCHL Mismash .94 USDP Adams .89 USHL FRESHMEN Weatherby 1.23 BCHL Hain .57 USDP Keane .49 BCHL Senden .40 USHL INCOMING RECRUITS (THIS YEAR'S CURRENT STATS) Blaisdell 1.22 BCHL Caufield 1.15 USDP Pinto 1.13 USHL Rizzo 1.11 BCHL RECENT FORMER HIGH SCORING FORWARDS FOR COMPARISON Jost 2.12 BCHL Boeser 1.19 USHL Schmaltz 1.15 USHL Caggiula 1.36 OJHL Grimaldi 1.26 USDP Kristo 1.14 USHL Knight 1.18 BCHL Frattin 1.43 AJHL Duncan 1.60 BCHL

Doubt he could have cracked our defensemen lineup for next year anyhow...

So Caulfield, Rizzo and Pinto have now signed NLI’s. These 3 forwards replace Gardner, Jones and Janatuinen, our only 3 senior forwards. I don’t foresee any other forwards leaving early either for the pros or to transfer so what do we do with Donovan and Blaisdell? Maybe bring in one and have Johnson be our 8th defenseman? It seems that both Donovan and Blaisdell would be ready to come in next fall but there aren’t currently enough forward roster spots.

Question on Murphy Stratton: When he committed last summer, Brad’s article said he would be coming in the fall of 2019 but that he has to sit out one full year plus the first 7 games of the following season. So do we in essence “lose” a scholarship player for that year as he sits out?

Central Scouting has released it's November ratings. They list 8 of our recruits who could be drafted next June. Yes, 8. A rating, 1st round candidates - none B rating, 2nd/3rd round candidates - 3 F Ryder Donovan F Massimo Rizzo G Cameron Rowe C rating, 4th, 5th, 6th round candidates - 5 F Harrison Blaisdell F Judd Caulfield F Shane Pinto D Ethan Frisch D Luke Bast Our pipeline is full of top quality recruits. Who do you think comes in next fall?

More reason to be excited about our 2020 class, a regular poster on Hockeysfuture has 4 of our recruits in his top 62: 14. Kleven 30. Sanderson 49. Miller 50. Halliday Take this with a grain of salt as I don’t know how good a judge of talent he is, but I thought having listed 4 of our recruits in his top 50 was worth posting here. The North Dakota pipeline is full of top end recruits!

Then Jon Casey came in the next year. Those were some incredible years with great goalies. Casey had a nice NHL career mostly with the old North Stars.

Game starts in one hour. 5:37 Mountain time.

Quote from The Draft Analyst describing Donovan: “Towering winger who can serve as a pass-first playmaker or a goal scorer. Donovan has incredibly soft hands and is unpredictable once he takes the puck strong to the net.”

The Draft Analyst November Top 100 is out: 25. Donovan 40. Rizzo 53. Caulfield

Future Considerations November Top 100: 53. Rizzo 62. Donovan 76. Pinto 93. Caulfield

Tryamkin’s November Top 200 is out. He lists 6 of our recruits: 101. Ryder Donovan 113. Harrison Blaisdell 118. Shane Pinto 124. Judd Caulfield 132. Massimo Rizzo 192. Ethan Frisch

Oops, sorry stoneySIOUX. I should have noticed your post!

Craig Button’s latest draft rankings just came out. Four of our boys in his top 62: 40. Shane Pinto 47. Ryder Donovan 53. Judd Caulfield 54. Harrison Blaisdell