Adam Fantilli Wins The Hobey Baker
Michigan Hockey's season may have ended in heartbreaking fashion last night but Adam Fantilli secured the Hobey Baker Memorial Award as the top player in NCAA D1 Men's Ice Hockey tonight:
Michigan hockey freshman Adam Fantilli has won the Hobey Baker Memorial Award, becoming the third Wolverine to earn the sport’s most prestigious individual honor. pic.twitter.com/sab43NI96C
— Alejandro Zúñiga (@ByAZuniga) April 7, 2023
Fantilli was one of three finalists, alongside Minnesota's Matthew Knies and Logan Cooley. Fantilli was the odds-on favorite and unlike 2016, the Hobey award voters did not mess this one up. Fantilli led the country in points with 65, one of the best seasons for a freshman in NCAA history. He tied Jason Polin for the national goalscoring lead as well (30) and finished fifth in assists with 35. He was Michigan's top forward all-season and was strong in the NCAA Tournament in addition to the regular season. Fantilli's statistical profile was so overwhelming that even the Hobey award voters couldn't find a way to vote for someone vastly inferior.
In winning it, Fantilli becomes Michigan Hockey's third ever winner of the award, joining Brendan Morrison (1997) and Kevin Porter (2008). In the process, Fantilli has become one of the greatest players to ever play for Michigan Hockey. It is also the first time since the creation of the conference that a B1G Hockey player has taken home the sport's most prestigious individual award. Fantilli is highly likely to be drafted either 2nd or 3rd overall in the upcoming 2023 NHL Entry Draft and his status next season is unclear. While the more likely scenario involves Fantilli signing a pro contract and playing in either the NHL or AHL, it is plausible that he could opt to return to Michigan to try and finish what could not be achieved last night. Stay tuned.
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Great and deserved win after an excellent season. Fantilli was the best player in the sport.
Guys like Cooley were good too, but this is completely deserved.
Sadly, it seems Michigan only wins Hobeys when it loses semifinals.
Could he come back? I suppose. It’s not the same as when the big draft class came back, though, because COVID made things very weird and they legitimately could stay for experiences they otherwise had no chance to get, including a proper year in college and, as it turns out, a trip to the Olympics. Fantilli is in a much more conventional situation, and it won’t surprise me if he signs right away.
But if he comes back, well, we’ll welcome him with open arms.
Either way, not bad for a kid from Nobleton. It’s a good area for Michigan. Bolton is a couple miles west of there. It produced Steve Halko, captain of the 96 team. And Dave King, ‘76 Ph.D, who settled in Ann Arbor and had a son who got to cheer for that kid in Nobleton himself.
Congratulations to Adam on winning the hobey this year.
I want to see if he can win it again next season.
Hellllooooooo Hobey!!
Hail Fantilli!
I'd love to see him win it back-to-back and with a championship!
I could have sworn there were more than three. How did Hagelin an JMFJ not win???
Johnson wasn’t the best player on his own team. The real injustice was that TJ Hensick wasn’t given the award (and neither were the two superior line mates of the guy who did win, Ryan Duncan).
Hagelin was an excellent player but he was not a Hobey-type performer.
Connor was the biggest insult, followed by Hensick (in both cases, by far the highest scorers in the country). One could argue Morrison in 96, but we don’t since he won in 97.
Other great players didn’t quite get the Hobey season put together. Mike Comrie left a year early. Mike Cammalleri got mono and missed a huge portion of the stretch run. All our high draft picks last year missed too much time and none put together a dominant season, even when they were there.
And Shawn Hunwick didn’t quite have the all-world stats a goalie needs to be a serious candidate.
Could not agree more that the Kyle Connor year was the biggest insult.
And I was mentally prepared that the "Fantilli will be the first Hobey Baker winner with more PIM than Points" crowd was going to give us another insult to add to this list. Particularly after not even being nominated for Big Ten Player of the Year.
Was incredibly happy to see him win. I thought both he and Luka (who also spoke at the ceremony) were very gracious and did an outstanding job representing Michigan. Adam gave a shout out to the Children of Yost. For those who didn't see his speech, link is below.
Of course, Adam Fantilli needs to do what is right for his career, but I would love to see him back in Yost, playing with Luka, for one more year to become the first two time Hobey winner and help Michigan break through for the NC.
I was surprised to see Minnesota Duluth has the most all time with 6.
Speaking of Hunwick, that was such a magical run to the championship game in 2011. Beat the favorites in North Dakota, then of course ended up losing to Duluth in OT. At one point late in the game I think Hagelin had a great 2 on 1 short handed chance and the Duluth goalie made a great save. That could've been a legendary goal with Gary Thorne calling the game on ESPN.
We played like Quinnipiac that year. We had to play that style and it almost worked to the very very end.
That was a painful loss, now made even more so by seeing it work out for Quinnipiac but not us.
It doesn't seem to matter how we play, we always come up just short. Snake. Bit.
That year was one of the few times I felt like I saw Michigan be the clearly worse team that won in the Frozen 4. Most Michigan teams always felt like the more dominant team, but just didn't have the goalie games that other teams had in the tournament that can carry a team to victory. One game series in Hockey are so brutal. I think Hunwick took almost 50 shots from that ND team.
I really enjoy Michigan's style of seemingly always attacking. It makes for fun games and great seasons, but definitely leaves them open to losses in the NCAA tournament due to the One and Done game structure. Really opportunistic disciplined teams that make the other team make mistakes and sit on small leads seem to be the ones that will win it all.
thanks for a fun season adam, go get paid and enjoy a long career in the show 🫡
Happy for the kid, but more than most years, I think he needs to go. He's got the body, mentality, skill set to go make money on an NHL roster next year and be good at it. He's the unique case for me where I don't think he needs another year of college. I'd love to have him for another year in a2 don't get me wrong, but I'd also be happy as hell if the Wings get the second pick and see him on Larkin's right wing next opening night.
You didn't win the post until the last half of your last sentence... +1 on the strength of that comment!
“I think he needs to go”
Did you think Charles Woodson needed to go after his sophomore season?
Great!
Reading the reports the past few weeks, I was preparing to see him get ignored. Glad to see I was wrong.
Congratulations!
So glad to see the voters come thru for Fantilli. His dominance was so obvious for even the casual observer. The energy level ramped up each time he touched the puck. And I personally love to see the PIM's, just adds to how tough this freshman played all season. Hail
Well deserved and a little unexpected to me. They got this one right. Congratulations, Adam.
Awesome to see Adam win this and glad the voters didn't screw it up! He's been a joy to watch on the ice.
It'd be pretty unusual for a guy to get drafted as high as he will and then stay in school. It's happened (the Blackhawks left Toews in school for another year after picking him 3rd overall) but it'd be pretty surprising here, dude already led the NCAA in scoring, he's probably not developing better by staying in school than going pro.
Enjoy your great players in college, you don't get to see them very long.
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