Prospective Recruits

[atxsioux]

Also if you get into the weeds, who would be his top line center to play with at Penn state? If there were rumors of another high end center going there it might be a different discussion but I've not heard much? (Hagens for BC, Boisvert for BU, even Reschny for UND are more legit scenarios as of today)

[cberkas]

Justin Carbonneau down to BC, BU, or staying with Blainville-Boisbriand

[SiouxForever]

6 hours ago, cberkas said:

Justin Carbonneau down to BC, BU, or staying with Blainville-Boisbriand

How many players BU looking to add? Seems like a lot. Haha

[gfhockey]

16 hours ago, scpa0305 said:

Sounds like C Bear is staying with Everett 

Didn’t want him per source

[nascar99]

54 minutes ago, SiouxForever said:

How many players BU looking to add? Seems like a lot. Haha

Every school can defer their meh/underwhelming recruits back to junior if they want to open up spots. If those deferments result in decommitments, you can replace fairly easily later on through the portal/elite CHLers.

[Blackheart]

On 6/7/2025 at 5:26 PM, atxsioux said:

Him and dupont would be a nice package for 2026. Only thing is if he dominates the dub next year he would likely only be a one year player at UND.

We could take him for a year!

[nascar99]

Tomas Mrsic (2006, WHL, Prince Albert Raiders, 2024 St Louis 4th Rounder) commits to Colorado College. That’s a big, big time get for the Tigers.

[cberkas]

Braidy Wassilyn to BU

Malte Vass to BU

Jacob Oster to Vermont, he's the Tkachuks cousin 

[nascar99]

14 hours ago, cberkas said:

Braidy Wassilyn to BU

Malte Vass to BU

Jacob Oster to Vermont, he's the Tkachuks cousin 

Hopefully North Dakota is at least in on some of these high end OHLers in the coming years. Obviously, Boston University, Michigan, Michigan State, Penn State, Boston College & even Notre Dame will be the most likely destinations based on pure regionality/geography, but would be nice to snag a few and establish a presence so that guys coming up through the GTHL and then OHL know that North Dakota is a great place to go down the road.

[cberkas]

Tyler Cooper signed with the Erie Otters

UND has had success with getting players out of Illinois

in 74 games 61-63-124 

[cberkas]

22 hours ago, nascar99 said:

Tomas Mrsic (2006, WHL, Prince Albert Raiders, 2024 St Louis 4th Rounder) commits to Colorado College. That’s a big, big time get for the Tigers.

They got his brother Mateo Mrsic too

[yzerman19]

56 minutes ago, cberkas said:

Tyler Cooper signed with the Erie Otters

UND has had success with getting players out of Illinois

in 74 games 61-63-124 

not quite a chippa, but could be a real nice player for us

 

[yzerman19]

Quite a few talented 09's and 10's have been attending junior camps over the past couple weeks.  Heard glowing reports on RJ Thompson, Jack Hair, and Henry Meier (all 2010's).  All 3 were on Minnesota Blades and Minnesota Fire back in the day, Meier went to Shattuck, Hair and Thompson to Little Caesars.  Henry is Neal Broten's grandson.  

[cberkas]

8 minutes ago, yzerman19 said:

Quite a few talented 09's and 10's have been attending junior camps over the past couple weeks.  Heard glowing reports on RJ Thompson, Jack Hair, and Henry Meier (all 2010's).  All 3 were on Minnesota Blades and Minnesota Fire back in the day, Meier went to Shattuck, Hair and Thompson to Little Caesars.  Henry is Neal Broten's grandson.  

Could use another Broten at UND

[tnt]

1 hour ago, cberkas said:

Could use another Broten at UND

What Broten was here?

[AlphaMikeFoxtrot]

16 minutes ago, tnt said:

What Broten was here?

Gersich's mom is a Broten

[nascar99]

3 hours ago, cberkas said:

Tyler Cooper signed with the Erie Otters

UND has had success with getting players out of Illinois

in 74 games 61-63-124 

They haven't recruited Illinois (more specifically, Chicago suburbs) well enough. Considering the hockey growth (in terms of minor hockey participation and NCAA player production) in Chicago Metro since the Blackhawks 3 Cups, Berry never went after those kids hard enough. Problem is that with many of them growing up in wealthy Suburbanville USA, they're not as likely to covet North Dakota because Grand Forks is small town, Upper Midwest, much more rural, relatively speaking.

The Chicago suburbs kids like Wisconsin, Notre Dame, Michigan, Michigan State, Denver, Boston University far more because those schools are either regular Midwestern university towns and/or are in bigger cities. I think Berry once touched on the fact that North Dakota has had problems recruiting big metro, non Upper Midwest/Western Canada kids, which would be places like Boston, Chicago, New York, Toronto, Los Angeles, and to some extent, some Vancouver because Grand Forks is so so different culturally from those metros.

[siouxforce19]

18 minutes ago, nascar99 said:

They haven't recruited Illinois (more specifically, Chicago suburbs) well enough. Considering the hockey growth (in terms of minor hockey participation and NCAA player production) in Chicago Metro since the Blackhawks 3 Cups, Berry never went after those kids hard enough. Problem is that with many of them growing up in wealthy Suburbanville USA, they're not as likely to covet North Dakota because Grand Forks is small town, Upper Midwest, much more rural, relatively speaking.

The Chicago suburbs kids like Wisconsin, Notre Dame, Michigan, Michigan State, Denver, Boston University far more because those schools are either regular Midwestern university towns and/or are in bigger cities. I think Berry once touched on the fact that North Dakota has had problems recruiting big metro, non Upper Midwest/Western Canada kids, which would be places like Boston, Chicago, New York, Toronto, Los Angeles, and to some extent, some Vancouver because Grand Forks is so so different culturally from those metros.

I think we have recruited the Chicago area terribly. We got Strathmann but that’s pretty much it. We were in on Jack Hextall last summer but he picked Michigan State over UND, despite being a UND fan. So clearly there’s issues recruiting this area. Maybe with the new staff we can remedy this. 

[AlphaMikeFoxtrot]

15 minutes ago, siouxforce19 said:

I think we have recruited the Chicago area terribly. We got Strathmann but that’s pretty much it. We were in on Jack Hextall last summer but he picked Michigan State over UND, despite being a UND fan. So clearly there’s issues recruiting this area. Maybe with the new staff we can remedy this. 

The last 3 Chicagoland commits prior to Strathmann never made it to campus (Rowe, Reid and Rowe; sounds like a law firm). I'd include Matheau but that's probably a born there, not from there situation.

[nascar99]

Connor Hvidston (2022 Anaheim 5th rounder) commits to Colorado College. Very nice overager snag for them out of the Dub. Tigers going after Dub guys hard, just shows that Western Canada will be a massive battle for recruits amongst programs from all over.

[nascar99]

Just now, AlphaMikeFoxtrot said:

The last 3 Chicagoland commits prior to Strathmann never made it to campus (Rowe, Reid and Rowe; sounds like a law firm). I'd include Matteau but that's probably a born there, not from there situation.

Matteau doesn't count as Chicago because he was merely born there when his dad was still with the Blackhawks, he never grew up or played minor hockey there. 

[gfhockey]

3 hours ago, yzerman19 said:

not quite a chippa, but could be a real nice player for us

 

We want chippaz 

widmans is restocked

[beastandco]

I looked at uncommitted right shot wingers and the pool is rather thin. Outside of Cameron Schmidt and Benjamin Kindel, there doesn’t seem to be an obvious top 6 winger in the WHL. I wonder if Bryn would bring in another center and move someone to the wing. You can never have too many players that can play center. It wouldn’t surprise me if they brought in a center and move someone to the wing until an injury inevitably happens.

[Fratt Mattin]

14 minutes ago, beastandco said:

I looked at uncommitted right shot wingers and the pool is rather thin. Outside of Cameron Schmidt and Benjamin Kindel, there doesn’t seem to be an obvious top 6 winger in the WHL. I wonder if Bryn would bring in another center and move someone to the wing. You can never have too many players that can play center. It wouldn’t surprise me if they brought in a center and move someone to the wing until an injury inevitably happens.

We should be going hard after Braeden Cootes. He’s the exact type of player Dane wants. Western Canadian, physical, fast, tenacious forechecker, and can score. He’s a center, but you could bump Rickwood or someone else out to the wing or move Cootes himself since he’s a righty 

[beastandco]

1 hour ago, Fratt Mattin said:

We should be going hard after Braeden Cootes. He’s the exact type of player Dane wants. Western Canadian, physical, fast, tenacious forechecker, and can score. He’s a center, but you could bump Rickwood or someone else out to the wing or move Cootes himself since he’s a righty 

Cootes seems like a great fit. If we were to get a forward from the dub, I would be ecstatic with him or Kindel. Schmidt’s size concerns me a bit but he is a good player. 

I think Rickwood is our best faceoff guy so I would be surprised if we moved him to wing. I beleive he was at 57% last year. The downside of Rickwood is that he had one great year with Clarkson and that might not translate to the NCHC. Looking back at a few line charts from last year and Littler played a ton of wing and is a right shot. The staff could view him as a wing.
 

At this point, it might be in their best interest to target a center and juggle the lines around. Winning faceoffs with this young forward group concerns me a little bit but having more options would be ideal.