nascar99

Get consistent goaltending and there's no reason why the team shouldn't be in the 7-10 range in the Pairwise

Although Marek alluded to Penn State throwing bags of NIL at various high end guys, so we'll see. Also, wouldn't be surprised to see a few teams steer Michael to the NCAA for a year if they don't think he's NHL ready: he's too good for junior and not eligible to play in the A under the current CHL-NHL Agreement, so the NCAA is the perfect one year stop to improve and work on his weaknesses before stepping into the NHL as a 19 year old.

All the scouts seem to think Mac will follow his dad's career arc of being an elite NCAA player but not elite enough to make the NHL but still have an elite minor pro/European Pro career. Although Brian Swanson would have played more in today's NHL as opposed to the clutch & grab, two line pass NHL pre 2004-05 lockout.

Swanson being moderately underwhelming was all the more justification to get Berry out of there & start anew.

I think it depends on how much he produces on the power play. Would be nice to have Swanson on one side of the power play sending cross ice sauce passes to Zellers for the one T snipe.

It's not sexy, but sometimes, the under the radar moves are better for winning. Just need one or two more elite scorers to complement those guys. Would help if Swanson takes the next step and we get a full year of consistency from James.

Will depend on who drafts Michael and what development situation they want for him. Certain teams love the NCAA route, some are meh on it, and some much prefer to sign their prospects right away & have them in training camp. Will depend on what the CHL-NHL Agreement looks like in the future and if CHLers are still barred from the A until their 20 year old season

Carle stole Mazur (Jackson Michigan) away from Michigan State. They don't win the 2022 National Championship without Mazur. Most national championship winning teams need to win at least one recruiting battle that isn't super favorable to begin, so yes, Chyzyk will need to win battles.

Agreed, Chyzyk/Jackson need to build recruiting pipelines. Hence why I've brought up needing to go hard after Cole Reschny, not only because of his talent, but also because his head coach is James Patrick. Victoria Royals to North Dakota would be a nice pipeline to establish, especially with Keaton Verhoeff upcoming

Of course Chyzyk/Jackson need to try. But because NCAA Hockey has historically been the most regional thing ever, kids tend to commit to places closest to home that they have cultural familiarity to. Like it or not, the odds of North Dakota getting many kids from east of Lake Michigan aren't super high.

Brooks Rogowski (2008). Posted it in the recruiting thread. But he'll have significant interest from Michigan, Michigan State, and probably Notre Dame, as he's a Michigander who tore it up with Detroit Catholic Central in Michigan HS Hockey before going to the O.

Decent USHLers are typically better defensively. Decent CHLers are typically better offensively. We'll see how the middle tier CHLers adapt to the NCAA. I do think the best guys will produce regardless. I really like the Shea Van Olm and Oliver Tulk commitments for Penn State and Wisconsin respectively. Both appear to be high impact offensive forwards right away in the NCAA, but we'll see.

Pegula money, just like how their program was started.

Basketball has European Pro options, just like hockey. Baseball has signing right out of HS & playing minor pro, 30-50% of the top players don't play NCAA baseball. (plenty of Caribbeans/South Americans develop at home & just sign at 16/17 years old) The big bag of cash is not going to come from major junior, it would come in the form of an ELC with bonuses from the NHL team holding their rights

Rumors on HFBoards that Penn State is offering a ton of money to high end CHLers. This had been hinted at Jeff Marek in his blog last month. Penn State has a ton of wealthy alums across the country, especially in the Northeast/Mid-Atlantic region. We will see if their Frozen Four run can turn them into an up & coming power.

There are tons of bottom 6ers in the CHL who've committed to CCHA programs lol

The CHL is also a younger higher skilled league than the USHL. The USHL is older & more defensive. But each CHL league is a bit different from one another, so who knows how Dub guys do in the NCAA compared to O and Q guys

Some interesting names committing in the portal today

He was a 4th round pick, likely only due to the fact that he was playing MN HS hockey in his DY & his size. The elite skill was always there. I tend to give programs more credit if they develop nobodies into NHLers, like UND did with Cole Smith. Having a somebody come to your program doesn't mean you developed them, they probably took several steps of development back in minor/junior/HS hockey

Sanderson and Pinto developed very well at UND but otherwise, since Boeser left, you're on point. Idk how much credit you want to give UND for developing Blake, as he was the same player back in junior and HS, but he's a success.

Reschny's head coach for the Victoria Royals is James Patrick, so a great UND connection there. I've been hoping that Chyzyk and Jackson have been calling Patrick about Reschny and Verhoeff.

Michigan is willing to be aggressive and go after every elite Canadian. They (along with North Dakota & to a bit lesser extent Denver) have rich history of Canadian talent in their program & thus have so many connections across the hockey world with Canadians, who know that Michigan sends guys to the NHL. They're also a brand name elite university in a great university town in a state that borders Ontario. The National Championship drought hasn't really hurt their high end talent recruiting, their problem is not having enough talented culture guys who stay 3-4 years. This is the big issue for Minnesota: they've intentionally & quite publicly not recruited Canadians due to their tribalistic historical recruiting policies, so they have almost zero connections in the (minor) hockey world in Canada. And it has become a self fulfilling loop where Canadians don't consider Minnesota because Minnesota doesn't have/recruit Canadians and Minnesota doesn't recruit Canadians because they don't think Canadians will have serious interest in going to Minnesota. They're not in a good position at all to get good to great CHLers, but if they get someone like Lakovic and then more, they'll have proven me wrong.

Buyout Ferschweiler's contract that he had agreed to with Western Michigan.

What is Wisconsin's objective going forward? Are they going full older grinders that Hastings loved at Minnesota State, will they be going heavy after all of the CHLers, both high end skill and depth/culture guys, will they try to go hard after the top end NTDP/USHL talent, or a mix of all of these?