Recruits 2026 and Beyond

[chimpfood]

Chicago played their first game of the season today, major tallied an assist and Tuminaro was +1. Exciting that hockey is starting back up.

[chimpfood]

The Heisenberg list has a couple names I don't remember seeing before. One is Nolan Long who is playing for Saint Andrews this year. Presumably he is Aidan Long's brother because they have the same birthplace. There is also Declan Wotton who is a 16 year old (may birthday) in the Q who scored in his first game.

[stereax]

The Heisenberg list has a couple names I don't remember seeing before. One is Nolan Long who is playing for Saint Andrews this year. Presumably he is Aidan Long's brother because they have the same birthplace. There is also Declan Wotton who is a 16 year old (may birthday) in the Q who scored in his first game.

Nice. Wotton's on the Drakkar, which are a better team in the Q. I'll have to keep an eye out for him.

[BearLover]

It's the very beginning of the junior hockey season, and things should clear up as we move forward, but right now the state of our recruiting seems highly uncertain.

Three main points of uncertainty:
1. I don't have a good baseline for how much our players should be scoring in the three CHL leagues. Is a point per game not as impressive as it is in the lower scoring USHL? How should we adjust expectations based on age (eg. if our recruit is 16/17/18/19)?
2. The relative strengths of the leagues has been jumbled. Has the USHL gotten worse with more players going to the CHL? Right now, I'm viewing it as largely the same. And then there are the lower junior leagues, in which we have fewer players than in past years, but I have to imagine those leagues have gotten weaker.
3. Everyone else is recruiting better, but how much better? Now that the pool of eligible players is much larger, the average quality of recruit has improved. That means ours will need to improve to keep up. How much it needs to improve, though, is a mystery. A point per game player in the USHL was almost a surefire strong recruit before—how about now? What about a point per game player in the BCHL, or a D who averages .5 PPG? A goalie with a .920 sv%?

I have started to miss Big Red Puckhead, which compiled all the stats in the same place. When everyone was in the USHL and BCHL it was simple enough to keep up, but now the recruiting is more diffuse and harder to keep tabs on.

[Trotsky]

1. I don't have a good baseline for how much our players should be scoring in the three CHL leagues. Is a point per game not as impressive as it is in the lower scoring USHL? How should we adjust expectations based on age (eg. if our recruit is 16/17/18/19)?

I have always felt things change enough year to year that the only way to judge is by relative position during that year in that league.  Look at league leaders to get a feel.  Look at the mean GPG for the league.  Also try to get a feel for the dispersion -- some leagues tend to "clump" while others (e.g., the CHL) are wildly spread out.

For age, do the same but within the age pool.

And even then the coachs' eye tests are often at odds with on-ice production.  You can pick your nose but you can't pick your line mates.

[Trotsky]

There is an 18-year old Max Psenicka from Prague on the Portland Winterhawks (WHL).

[BearLover]

At the moment the recruit who looks most promising to me is Cole Emerton. He turned 17 in March and has 4 assists in 4 games in the OHL as a defenseman. Other than Emerton, nobody is jumping off the page yet.

[chimpfood]

Michael Dec looks very exciting to me, 15 points through his first 15 OHL games, looks like he's on the first power play as well.

[BearLover]

Michael Dec looks very exciting to me, 15 points through his first 15 OHL games, looks like he's on the first power play as well.

Dec has had a good couple of good games since I posted the above message. I think it may have inspired him.

[ursusminor]

A free article on Neutral Zone about changes which have affected college hockey's entering classes. There is a paragraph titled "Cornell". This is not the appropriate thread for it, but I didn't want to resurrect last year's recruit thread.

https://neutralzone.com/2025/10/06/a-new-era-of-ncaa-hockey/

[The Rancor]

A free article on Neutral Zone about changes which have affected college hockey's entering classes. There is a paragraph titled "Cornell". This is not the appropriate thread for it, but I didn't want to resurrect last year's recruit thread.

https://neutralzone.com/2025/10/06/a-new-era-of-ncaa-hockey/

Similarly - this fits well enough here as well. Cornell mentioned, by new RPI Coach Eric Lang.

Eric Lang Mentions Cornell

[The Rancor]

A free article on Neutral Zone about changes which have affected college hockey's entering classes. There is a paragraph titled "Cornell". This is not the appropriate thread for it, but I didn't want to resurrect last year's recruit thread.

https://neutralzone.com/2025/10/06/a-new-era-of-ncaa-hockey/

Interesting article. The authors pose this question at the end: "Are the CHL players staying for the full-season or are some leaving at Christmas break?" which is something I've been curious about too. Sure it seems like a good idea to go get NIL money and play hockey at a well known brand school- but you might actually have to go to school. Some players might not like playing 50 less games a season in front of empty arenas. It could be one or two seasons before we see a slowdown of CHL players- or maybe they like it better and it only increases.

[BearLover]

A free article on Neutral Zone about changes which have affected college hockey's entering classes. There is a paragraph titled "Cornell". This is not the appropriate thread for it, but I didn't want to resurrect last year's recruit thread.

https://neutralzone.com/2025/10/06/a-new-era-of-ncaa-hockey/

I'm not so sure about the Cornell section of this article. It speaks of Cornell going off the beaten path for recruits and references two aspects of our recruiting:
(1) that we have a lot of incoming players from the BCHL rather than the CHL. But most of our BCHL recruits committed before CHL players became eligible.
(2) that we recruit from the OJHL and CCHL. But that hasn't really been true in the past five years?

[scoop85]

A free article on Neutral Zone about changes which have affected college hockey's entering classes. There is a paragraph titled "Cornell". This is not the appropriate thread for it, but I didn't want to resurrect last year's recruit thread.

https://neutralzone.com/2025/10/06/a-new-era-of-ncaa-hockey/

I'm not so sure about the Cornell section of this article. It speaks of Cornell going off the beaten path for recruits and references two aspects of our recruiting:
(1) that we have a lot of incoming players from the BCHL rather than the CHL. But most of our BCHL recruits committed before CHL players became eligible.
(2) that we recruit from the OJHL and CCHL. But that hasn't really been true in the past five years?

Yeah, we haven't done much in the OJHL and CCHL the past few years -- I think that summary is off the mark.