As we continue to welcome in transfer portal student athletes who will be wearing the Maize & Blue on the ice at Yost this year, today we are going to go into detail about F Josh Eernisse. The sophomore transferred from St. Thomas University, a rather new program to D1 hockey. The 21-year-old Eernisse was 2nd in goal scoring and tied for 2nd in points for the CCHA Tommies with 14 and 21, respectively. Who is Josh Eernisse? And how important is this get for Michigan Hockey? Let’s break it down:

 

Background on Josh Eernisse

Before attending St. Thomas, Eernisse played 2 seasons with the Tri-City Storm in the USHL. During his 2 seasons with Tri-City, Eernisse appeared in 85 games and only lit the lamp a total of 10 times while totaling 24 points, with 17 being a season high the year before he went to St. Thomas. Based on that, one could ask, “where did Eernisse's offensive production come from, especially since he didn't even score his first NCAA goal until the fourth game of the season”?

The answer can be one or a multitude of things ranging from better linemates, position in the lineup, and growth and maturity as a player. Something I've witnessed throughout the years is a player thriving within the structured play at the NCAA and pro level, compared to the more freelance approach that most junior teams allow their players to play. Junior coaches often encourage/tolerate individual skill and taking more chances (as long as the coach feels secure about his job status!), whereas NCAA and pro coaches often encourage players to use their individual skills, but not to the detriment of overall team success, leading to a more structured environment. Conversely, there have been MANY players who've been phenoms in junior but couldn't translate that success to the NCAA or pro level. Jay O'Brien, once a 1st round draft pick of the Philadelphia Flyers, is a current example of a player who couldn't translate their junior success to the NCAA and the Flyers decided not to sign him to a pro contract.

[AFTER THE JUMP: the breakdown]

[Wesley Dean/University of St. Thomas Athletics]

One thing that will be abundantly clear the first time Josh Eernisse takes the ice at Yost is that he is a big man. Standing 6'3" and tipping the scale at 205 pounds, Eernise will be the biggest forward for Michigan this year, an inch taller and about 8 pounds heavier than Mark Estapa. When describing Josh Eernisse as a hockey player, the term 'Power Forward' immediately jumps into your brain and it's an accurate assessment. A 'Power Forward' in hockey is generally described as a winger who is big and strong, can play a tough, physical game, contributes to the offense, and usually has high totals in both points and penalties. Although most hockey people consider the legend, Gordie Howe to be the first Power Forward in the NHL, Cam Neeley (Boston Bruins legend) is recognized as the first player who was commonly referred to as a Power Forward.

To get a look at what we can expect from Josh Eernisse this season in Michigan, we are going to compare averages from various statistical categories from last year at St. Thomas to eight other Power Forwards playing NCAA hockey. The comparative players will be two freshmen, two sophomores, two juniors and two seniors. Six of the eight comparative players played in the B1G last year, while one played in the NCHC and one played for Lindenwood (Independent). It's worth noting that the Lindenwood player, Hunter Johannes, played center last year and would normally not make him admissible to my list of Power Forwards. But, before playing with the Lions he was a left wing and was probably moved to center to ensure that the team’s best forwards were playing the most important position during the program’s first season at the D1 level. With that in mind, here is a table of the forwards we will compare Josh Eernisse to:

Name	2022-23 Team	Conf	NHL Draft	Height	Weight
Josh Eernisse	St. Thomas	CCHA	Undrafted	6'3"	205

Freshmen

Name	2022-23 Team	Conf	NHL Draft	Height	Weight
Jimmy Snuggerud	Minnesota	Big10	1st Round	6'1"	185
Davis Burnside	Ohio State	Big10	Undrafted	6'	176

Sophomores

Name	2022-23 Team	Conf	NHL Draft	Height	Weight
Mark Estapa	Michigan	Big10	Undrafted	6'2"	197
Matthew Knies	Minnesota	Big10	2nd Round	6'3"	210

Juniors

Name	2022-23 Team	Conf	NHL Draft	Height	Weight
Hunter McKown	Colorado College	NCHC	Undrafted	6'1"	195
Joe Dunlap	Ohio State	Big10	Undrafted	6'	185

Seniors

Name	2022-23 Team	Conf	NHL Draft	Height	Weight
Jagger Joshua	Michigan State	Big10	Undrafted	6'3"	210
Hunter Johannes	Lindenwood	IND	Undrafted	6'3"	209

 

[University of St. Thomas Athletics]

Basic Counting Stats

Coach Naurato and his staff realized that they needed to find players to put the puck in the net to replace the 50 goals they lost when Adam Fantilli and Mackie Samoskevich both decided to turn pro. They brought in Josh Eernisse with the thought he can be a major contributor for 2023-24 and hopefully for the next 2-3 years too. Compared to the other eight power forwards listed below, those 14 goals put Eernise in a tie for 5th, but he scored them on only 80 shots which gave him the top shooting percentage of 17.5%. Eernisse also became a prominent member of St. Thomas' special teams, where he contributed two power play goals and one shorthanded goal. Also of note, 3 of his goals were game winners.

2022-23 Stats

Name	GP	G	A	PTS	Shots	SH%	PPG	SHG	GWG
Eernisse	36	14	7	21	80	17.5%	2	1	3
Snuggerud	40	21	29	50	149	14.1%	8	0	3
Burnside	40	14	7	21	86	16.3%	0	2	0
Estapa	40	5	7	12	68	7.4%	0	1	1
Knies	40	21	21	42	131	16%	6	2	7
McKown	38	21	7	28	140	15%	14	0	4
Dunlap	40	13	9	22	110	11.8%	0	1	2
Joshua	37	13	11	24	76	17.1%	7	0	2
Johannes	28	13	16	29	95	13.7%	1	1	1

 

[University of St. Thomas Athletics]

Ice Time Microstats

Along with scoring goals and generating offense in general, one of the other main components that went into the coaching staff's decision to bring Eernisse to Michigan was to play productive, meaningful minutes and being able to play in all situations. We're going to look at ice time microstats for Eernisse and compare them to the other Power Forwards in our list. As we've done in previous articles when looking at microstats, they are from Instat and based on average per 60 minutes, so that all comparisons are done on a level playing field.

Eernisse averaged 18:00 per 60 minutes which ranked him 3rd in this category, trailing only Hunter McKown and Matthew Knies. On the powerplay, Eernisse averaged 2:38 per 60 minutes, which ranked him fourth on the list; Hunter McKown again led the way with 3:59 per 60 minutes. As for short-handed time, Eernisse averaged 2:32 per 60 minutes, second only to Hunter Johannes from Lindenwood who averaged slightly more at 2:50 per 60 minutes. Since Big 10 referees like to hand out penalties like Oprah gave away cars, Eernisse's ability to kill penalties may have been the clincher in the coaching staff's decision to bring him in.

Ice Time - Average per 60 minutes

Name	Time on Ice	Powerplay Time on Ice	Shorthanded Time on Ice
Eernisse	18:00	2:38	2:32
Snuggerud	17:21	3:03	0:19
Burnside	14:29	0:47	1:57
Estapa	14:19	0:26	2:16
Knies	19:01	3:09	1:14
McKown	19:05	3:59	0:03
Dunlap	13:26	0:41	0:31
Joshua	15:48	2:35	1:27
Johannes	16:15	1:58	2:50

 

[University of St. Thomas Athletics]

Physical Play Microstats

One of the characteristics of a Power Forward is their willingness to go to the tough areas of the ice where physical prowess plays a major part in your team's ability to maintain or regain possession of the puck to create offense. Bodychecking is a major part of the game, and a solid check can not only allow your team to regain possession, but it can quite often change the momentum in a period or game. Josh Eernisse ranked third in our list, averaging 8.38 hits per 60 minutes, trailing only Jagger Joshua and Joe Dunlap in that category.

In my estimation, 80-85% of each game is played outside the dots, so winning board battles is a major factor to winning games, because you can't score if you don't have the puck. With that in mind, Josh Eernisse averaged 38.5 board battles per 60 minutes, which ranked him fourth in this category. Of course, you don’t want to merely be in board battles, you want to win them. Eernisse won an average of 19 per 60 minutes which put him in a tie for third in our list, but his average board battle winning percentage was 52.6%, which interestingly put him at the top of the group. The only other player with a percentage over 50% was Snuggerud at 50.1%.

Finally in this category we're going to look at is loose puck recovery. Regaining possession of a loose puck in any zone of the ice immediately sends your team on the offense as opposed to having to defend. Again Josh Eernisse finds himself at the top of our group in this category, averaging 7.47 per 60 minutes, which was a full puck ahead of the next man in the list(!). As we can see from this section, when it comes to the physical dimension of being a Power Forward, Josh Eernisse proved himself to be high-end last season.

Physical Play - Average per 60 minutes

Name	Hits	Puck Battles	Puck Battles Won	Puck Battles Won, %	Loose Puck Recovery
Eernisse	8.38	38.5	19	52.6%	7.47
Snuggerud	1.24	30.2	14.8	50.1%	3.9
Burnside	1.74	33.9	17.5	49.7%	5.99
Estapa	4.94	32.1	15.6	44.3%	4.62
Knies	2.18	42.3	19	45.1%	4.45
McKown	3.23	47.3	21.7	44.6%	5.81
Dunlap	9.05	32.3	15.4	42.4%	6.7
Joshua	10.3	44.3	22	49.2%	6.47
Johannes	6.25	35.4	17.6	47.8%	4.83

 

[University of St. Thomas Athletics]

Scoring Threat Microstats

The other half of being a Power Forward is offense… if you only have the physicality, you’re a grinder and not a Power Forward. To look at the offensive side of Josh Eernisse’s game, we will examine three scoring threat microstats, the first of which being scoring chances total per 60 minutes. On this metric Eernisse didn’t do terribly well, ranking 7th on our list with 6.21, Hunter McKown leading the way with 10.3. Eernisse also ranked 7th in scoring chances scored per 60 minutes with 0.99, Matthew Knies of Minnesota leading the list at 1.62. Although Eernisse didn't rank high in either of those categories, when it game to scoring chances percentage, he did top the list at 17.3% which was .1% higher than Knies.

Getting shots to the net in the offensive zone is a big part of what a successful Power Forward consistently does. Shots from outside the slot are good and can lead to excellent second chance opportunities if they don't go in depending on how the goalie handles them, but a Power Forward’s job isn’t to be a perimeter player. Rather, a Power Forward’s true value is getting shots off in the high traffic slot area in front of the net. Eernisse, in comparison to our group, ranked the lowest in outer slot shots total average at 1.8 per 60 minutes. On the flip side, Hunter McKown led the way with 7.66. Likewise, in outer slot shots that scored, again Eernisse was the lowest on the list with an average of 0.09 per 60 minutes. His outer slot shots scoring percentage had him 6th on the list at 2.7%. So Eernisse doesn’t do well at the stuff a Power Forward isn’t supposed to do. How does he do at getting shots from the high traffic area in the slot, which is the calling card for a top-end power forward? In a short answer, Eernisse was terrific. He was at the top of the list averaging 4.41 slot shots per 60 minutes, was fifth in average slot shots scored and second in slot shots shooting percentage at 14.9%.

Scoring Threat - Average per 60 minutes

Name	Scoring Chances Total	Scoring Chances Scored	Scoring Chances %	Outer Slot Shots Total	Outer Slot Shots Scored	Outer Slot Shots %	Slot Shots Total	Slot Shots Scored	Slot Shots %
Eernisse	6.21	0.99	17.3%	1.8	0.09	2.7%	4.41	0.9	14.9%
Snuggerud	9.93	1.6	12.9%	7.27	0.89	10.1%	2.66	0.71	11.1%
Burnside	7.63	1.09	10.3%	4.14	0.11	1.32%	3.49	0.98	11.4%
Estapa	3.87	0.21	3.85%	2.58	0.11	2.56%	1.29	0.11	2.56%
Knies	10.2	1.62	17.2%	6.07	0.32	4.25%	4.13	1.29	24.8%
McKown	10.3	0.89	7.48%	7.66	0.4	5.77%	2.66	0.48	10.3%
Dunlap	7.17	1.29	14.3%	4.47	0.35	4.82%	2.7	0.94	13.2%
Joshua	5.44	1.03	14.2%	2.36	0.1	1.35%	3.08	0.92	13.5%
Johannes	9.37	1.28	14.1%	6.11	0.57	6.86%	3.27	0.71	13.5%

 

[University of St. Thomas Athletics]

Final Word

The comparisons that were done above give a good overview of the type of player that Josh Eernisse is and what can be expected over the course of his remaining NCAA career at Michigan. The players that were used in the comparisons are not knuckle-dragging 4^th line grunts but are comprised of two NHL draft picks, one of which who signed and played in the NHL after the season (and made a substantial impact in the Stanley Cup Playoffs). Another one was undrafted, signed an NHL contract, and finished the season in Columbus and another moved on to the AHL after the season. We placed Eernisse up against some legit NCAA players with pro potential and saw that he compared favorably in the physical component and at dominating in the slot, while lacking more on the perimeter and in overall scoring volume.

If anyone is expecting Josh Eernisse to come to Michigan and immediately score 25 goals and set the B1G on fire, then they will be greatly disappointed. What you can expect, though, is a player who will carry his proverbial 'lunch box’ and wear his ‘hard hat' and work his tail off for 60 minutes a night. He should be able to make an impact in the corners and around the net and give the Wolverines a physical/size dimension that they haven’t always had. When I glance into my 'Crystal Puck', I see Eernisse playing on a line with Frank Nazar in the middle and Rutger McGroarty on the left side. I see this line creating numerous scoring chances every game as a result of Eernisse's physical play, which will open the ice up for his linemates. I also see Eernisse and Nazar becoming a dynamic combination on the penalty kill and creating numerous offensive opportunities. In totality, he should be in Michigan’s lineup regularly, possibly high up, playing roles on special teams, and rounding out the skill of the Wolverine lineup with a bit more sandpaper.