nascar99

Hoping most teams steer uncommitted CHLers to the NCAA after they draft em. Just would be better for those players' development and great for NCAA Hockey

Miami loses their top recruit to the K

Selfishly, I hope he gets drafted by a US team

Some of the high end guys will struggle with the adjustment, no doubt about that. There are fairly high end older CHLers coming into the NCAA next year that I'm really interested to see how they do: Oliver Tulk at Wisconsin, Shea Van Olm at Penn State, and even Josh Zakreski at North Dakota; I believe they should do very well right off the bat. 18 year olds like Cole Reschny are talented enough to be able to adjust very quickly and produce at a well above average rate. Some will struggle of course, I tend to think of the high end talent level of many Canadian CHLers as high enough to overcome challenges in the NCAA.

A lot of the 2009 born Canadian CHLers will commit to NCAA programs pretty quickly in this new world. Some will wait, and some will just go the straight to pro route.

Agreed, but you do need high end guys on every team. I'm not convinced Minnesota is going to go after & get (m)any high end, Canadian CHLers until proven otherwise.

Ryan Lin, Liam & Markus Ruck, Chase Harrington, Daxon Rudolph, Mathis Preston are all names I'd add for my wish list.

For all intents & purposes, until North Dakota gets high end commits from the O and the Q, I'm not going to expect them to pull OHLers and QMJHLers at all. The Dub is the one major junior league I expect that UND will grab several players every recruiting cycle, many of them 4/5 star types. So if none of the uncommitted like Kindel, Cootes, McQueen, Lakovic, Schmidt, Behm, Ravensbergen end up at UND (whether it be because they signed ELCs right away or end up at other NCAA schools like Denver or Michigan), then I'll be quite concerned. Not super worried right now because they added Reschny, Verhoeff, & Zakreski for this season and Williams for the season after.

That's a quality addition IMHO

Yep. You're seeing Colorado College and Bowling Green do very good work recruiting the Dub already. No, they haven't gotten any blue chip 5 star types, but they've gotten several that should be very solid 3-4 year guys that help build NCAA Tournament teams and potentially make a deeper run.

I personally think every team in the league other than maybe Edmonton is very comfortable about their guys going the NCAA route. And even Edmonton is fine with the NCAA route, they just don't like Americans, they'll take NCAA route Canadians and Europeans. What NHL teams don't like is when NCAA prospects don't develop quickly enough to sign with 2-3 years and then the allure of going back for their 4th year (removed from being drafted) to potentially run out the clock to UFA. This is why Carolina got Jackson Blake signed after his 2nd year at UND, since he was drafted in 2021, spent his D+1 in the USHL, & then D+2 & D+3 in the NCAA, he only needed one more year to become August 15 UFA eligible. NHL teams are only fine with their prospects getting to 4 years removed if they have the guarantee from those guys that they will sign immediately following the conclusion of their 4th year.

Denver is the wild card team that I think can still make a couple big moves. They have the ability/space to do so, and the prospect of playing for an elite head coach & motivator has a definite allure.

Chyzyk saying that several kids wanted to wait until after the draft to make a decision about NCAA (or not), so I guess we just wait for next week to see how the dominoes fall. And the hockey world will have to wait till mid to late July about McKenna

Wonder if that rumor about a potential car versus pedestrian accident that I keep seeing hints about on Twitter had anything to do with it. Or if the possibility of West playing football cooled any interest Motzko & the Gophers had.

I personally think many teams will wait to release their rosters until late July/early August. Teams still figuring out who they're bringing in and who they're deferring, more complicated due to the CHL player pool being opened up.

Schultz already spent a year in junior and probably needs another year there. Schultz could easily decommit if he wants to be in the NCAA this fall and North Dakota wants to defer him again. Martone has been rumored in past months (Penn State, Michigan State, Michigan were tied to him in those rumors). Literally every CHLer other than maybe Misa should spend a year plus in the NCAA instead of stat padding in junior again or being thrown to the wolves in the NHL when they're not ready. But of course, as Schloss said, the course credits may not have been completed to make them eligible, so it would be moot there.

Seems like every top 10 team has 1-2 flexible spots where they can defer a current committed recruit back to junior if they land a high end big fish from the CHL or elsewhere. Sure, you risk losing a guy via decommitment, but if you can immediately add high end talent, you do it.

Not sure if Wheeler's polling is just from CHLers (or if it also includes European junior players who haven't signed pro yet), but very interesting to note. It's also possible that some of the guys not super interested in going NCAA could be steered in that direction by the NHL teams who drafted them, provided they've completed the course load credits necessary.

Michigan Michigan State poised to have more & more great rivalry games for the short to medium term future. Both getting great players

It's unlikely they win another National Championship with that philosophy, especially since every Canadian is NCAA eligible now.

Looks like Ilia Morozov (2008) will be playing for Miami as a 17 year old freshman for his draft year.

Motzko is a good coach but still only has 2 Frozen Four appearances & 1 Runner Up in the 6 seasons (2020 doesn't count as a season since no tournament) he's been there. 2022 was a great coaching job to get them there (aided by a massive collapse/choke from UMass in the 1st Round). 2023 was one of the best rosters Minnesota has put together, but Motzko was a big reason why they choked in the National Championship game. Since the collapse in Tampa, Minnesota has taken a small step back. It now looks like Motzko is way better than Berry was, but we'll see if Motzko adapts to a new environment, one in which two of his conference rivals are poised to take massive steps above his program. Hakstol had 4 Frozen Four appearances, 1 Runner Up in his first 6 seasons as North Dakota head coach. Despite not getting it done in the Frozen Four, Hakstol was still a bit better than recent Motzko IMHO.

As @beastandco said (& I've said many times), Minnesota has no real pipeline of connections across minor hockey & major junior hockey in Canada. They've never been in on the first time recruit blue chip Canadians (Wood only transferred there because his dad was a Gophers women's assistant back in the day), Kris Chucko being the only exception and that was in the early/mid 2000s. I would be very surprised if Motzko lands Lakovic (who does follow the Goofers on Instagram), Schmidt, Kindel, Behm, Ravensbergen, Cootes, etc. And because Minnesota rarely recruits Canadians (overage goalies being the exception), these guys almost never think about the prospect of going there. Which results in Motzko thinking recruiting them is a waste of time, thus creating a self fulfilling loop there. They'll probably adjust and recruit Canadian CHLers a bit better in the future, but then that'll piss off their fans who still want a 90%+ Minnesotan roster, which will be hilarious.

He's getting up there in age, is used to how NCAA Hockey & Gophers Hockey have always been, and thus is slow to adapt to change. This is very apparent in the lack of CHL recruiting from the Goofers, more impactful because they lost ~65% of their total points produced from last season due to guys turning pro &/or graduation. Motzko has had a pretty bad calendar year of recruiting, where his only 3 new commits are Mason Moe (very solid), Tate Pritchard (Minnesota State decommit, older, projected middle 6 depth), and Finn McLaughlin (Denver decommit, decent but unspectacular defenseman). Motzko hasn't gotten a single 2008 born commit yet, which is wild for a blue blood IMHO. They have a solid incoming class of freshmen, but they're likely a bubble team in the Pairwise as of now for 2025-26.

You have a link to Drew Shore’s podcast with Chyzyk? Would be interested in listening to it when I have time