Michigan Hockey: Incoming Recruits

Excellent write-up.  Thanks

I've been curious why there doesn't seem to be a grading system for NHL prospects. It would be tough to guage where the players stacked up for college teams (since a ton go to the OHL, juniors or smaller pro teams [plus the 99's go straight to the NHL]), but it would be a start at least.

I know the projections are out there, but those can be skewed by team need and all the other reason teams draft who they do, when they do.

i wish upvoting still worked.  this post is worthy.

Awesome job. I really needed this after this weekend. Couple of comments...

1) Just based on his picture, I think you can list Milne as a left handed shooter.

2) I also don't consider a 6'0 goalie as tall. Maybe in NCAA terms it is (especially compared to Hunwick) but anything undr 6'3 seems undersized to me.

3) One of the mock drafts I saw had Nieves going in the end of the first round (26 overall) which would mean two first round picks which IIRC would be a record for Michigan, right?

4) Is there any chance that Trouba doesn't come to Michigan this fall? Is there a chance he goes OHL or AHL (even NHL) because the team that takes him tells him to?

5) I'm really, really hoping the opposite happens and Trouba falls to a team that is loaded at defenders (Phoenix?) but takes his value over need and tells him to stay at Michigan an extra year.

6) If you had to handicap the goalie race at this very early time and place who would you say is the favorite for the job?

Thanks,

Michigan struggled to score goals at times, like before the Guptill-Wohlberg-Brown line was formed, then after it was together for a month of two the scoring dried up again and Michigan REALLY struggled on the power play this season.  I know it's hard to say precisely, because you never know how the current players are going to develop, what the freshman are going to do, who's going to stay/make it to campus, how the coaches are going to focus on different things etc. but, in your professional opinion, do you think the offense and PP are going to improve next year, by an appreciable amount?  Let's say for argument's sake, assume one of Merrill/Moffie leaves and the other stays, you can pck which one.

I know next year the D-corp should be pretty stacked and they were good this year, when somebody (Merrill and Moffie come to mind, but maybe that's just the Cornell game) weren't doing something boneheaded, but Hunwick still baile.d Michigan out a TON and I think Glendening and Wohlberg are the two best defensive forwards on the roster and they're gone and it's incredibly unfair to expect Rutledge/Racine to duplicate Hunwick, especially as a freshman and I expect the goals allowed to increase by probably .33-.5 goals/game.

For some reference, over the entire 41-game season, Michigan was 1st in the CCHA in offense with 3.22 goals/game, which is something like 10th in the NCAA, but some of that was the 10 goal game against Saint Lawrence and defensively, Michigan tied for second in the CCHA with 2.17 goals allowed/game, good for something like 5th nationally.  A .33 jump there would put Michigan at 2.5 goals allowed/game, which would be 5th in the CCHA, behind WMU's 2.24 GAA/game and ahead of Alaska's 2.61 GAA/game (that's a huge difference between WMU and Alaska, wow!) and a .5 GAA jump would put Michigan at 2.67 GAA/game good for tied with Notre Dame at 8th in the conference.

1) Milne plays for the St. Mike's Buzzers, not Buzzards, and from what I've seen he is a winger. http://stmikes.stats.pointstreak.com/playerpage.html?playerid=4215124&seasonid=8603

2) Carrick is good enough to force Serville out of the lineup, and I would expect both Trouba and Carrick to immediately slide into the Top 6 and play every game.  This is not a knock against Serville, they are just that good.

3) There will be no goalie competition.  The only way Rutledge isn't the starter from Day 1 is if he gets hurt, or Janny gets unreal over the summer.  Same with my comments on Serville, this is not to knock any of our other goalies, but Rutledge is the guy, plain and simple.

4) Racine is not a big goalie, and his lack of success in the u-show will make it very unlikely he plays at all his freshman year at Michigan.  Al Montoya and Billy Sauer are big goalies...and I think we can throw out a bias of Red liking only big goalies after starting Hunwick and recruiting Rutledge....granted he didn't really have a ton of choice in either scenario.  

5) Merrill is not leaving.  New Jersey doesn't want him yet after he missed half the year with his suspension.

6) Nice work on the write up.

Justin Selman looks like he’s 30 in that picture. Thank you for the write up, cool stuff.

"The Owen Sound Attack thought highly enough of him to trade up and take him in the third round of the OHL draft, despite him only being 17 years old."

17 is the draft year for most players in Ontario, with underage players at 16 also being eligible in the first four rounds I believe.

Racine is a big athletic goalie listed at 6'3'' 190 Pounds. I dont know exactly where you saw that he was 6' but this kid is big. I had the opportunity to watch him play in the OJHL playoffs this weekend where he single handidly stole the game for his team making 44 saves in a 2-1 win against a very strong Stouffville spirit team (former team of current Wolverine Brennan Serville). Wolverine fans should be very excited about there goaltending of the future with a Rutledge/Racine tandem. THESE GUYS ARE THE REAL DEAL.

I think it's getting a little ahead of ourselves to assume Trouba is one and done. There are teams that like college players over moving them to the AHL. We all thought Merrill was one and done and it looks like it could be 3.

Excellent post, thanks.  I'm no expert, but I play hockey a bit and watch a ton of college and NHL.  It seems to me that our biggest shortcoming this year was a lack of guys who could finish.  We had a lot of talented skaters and guys who could create opportunities, but not much in the way of pure goal scoring.  I'm hoping some of the incoming freshmen and/or the younger guys will develop and fill that void. 

I'm hoping with the addition of Nieves and Milne, plus Trouba, we'll be able to find some sort of offense on the powerplay, because frankly, that's why we're not still playing hockey

EDIT: And can someone help me with pronunciations on Milne? Is it "Mill-knee" or "Mill-neh" or something else? Maybe "Mill-n"?

at the Michigan Rivals site, PDG is the most likely to leave Michigan in the off-season, something about "Talk from those who know the family that his best path to the NHL may be with an OHL club next season, regardless of his draft position."  That doesn't mean he's likely to leave necessarily, but something to keep an eye on.  He didn't explicity say it, but I got the impression that Spath thinks it's something like 55-45 PDG staying. Spath also highlights Brown and Merrill as possibilities to leave.  He also thinks it's critical for K. Lynch to have a break-out season and K. Lynch is Spath's pick for captain next year (I really like that pick, but I thought Red hinted somewhere that it was going to be Brown, though I could have misheard or misinterpreted that).  Some pretty interesting stuff in that whole thread.

http://michigan.rivals.com/showmsg.asp?fid=41&mid=154169984&sid=883&tid=...

According to tweets from Cook and Slovin (Michigan Daily  Hockey Beat Writers), PDG and Bennett are coming back next year. https://twitter.com/#!/YostBuilt A few down, now.  Merrill is still deciding, wants to talk to Red before he leaves.  Cook and Helfand (also Daily Hockey Beat) think (but have no more than a feeling) that Merrill is gone.  Also of interest:  Pateryn turned the Canadians down when they asked him to go directly to AHL right now, he's sticking out the school year to graduate.

Take all that for what it's worth, it's still 7 months before the season starts and Michigan could still end up with 3 walk-ons and the band as the hockey team after everyone else leaves for AHL/NHL/OHL/whatever in the intervening time.

This makes me feel a little better after the weekend......Sort of. But not really. Thanks for the writeups so I know a little more of what to expect from these guys.

Thank you sir!

You can see a bit of Milne in these clips:

http://www.youtube.com/v/H7u9xQF6S08

http://www.youtube.com/v/BPaPHvnIIwg