Alumni in the pros 25-26

[BearLover]

Yeah so he's gone. Sucks because they straight up say he would've stayed had he not been traded. Hopefully Walsh gives it another ride.

tbh i think this probably overstates how honest he was being about an unwillingness to sign with utah. i agree that he said it but ... saying it is basically his only leverage to encourage a trade. push comes to shove i don't know that he would have ultimately risked injury before signing a pro contract. i don't think he was coming back either way. despite what stereax said while i was typing.

I don't agree. He wasn't trying to encourage a trade. By all accounts being traded wasn't even on his radar. Based on what's come out I highly suspect he would have stayed next year had he not been traded as the alternative would have been playing probably the entire season in the minors for less than six figures when he could instead stay his senior year, command a bigger salary and go straight to the NHL as a free agent. I'd say the trade shifted the odds from 80% he comes back to more like 30%...it really sucks.

[adamw]

Yeah so he's gone. Sucks because they straight up say he would've stayed had he not been traded. Hopefully Walsh gives it another ride.

tbh i think this probably overstates how honest he was being about an unwillingness to sign with utah. i agree that he said it but ... saying it is basically his only leverage to encourage a trade. push comes to shove i don't know that he would have ultimately risked injury before signing a pro contract. i don't think he was coming back either way. despite what stereax said while i was typing.

I don't agree. He wasn't trying to encourage a trade. By all accounts being traded wasn't even on his radar. Based on what's come out I highly suspect he would have stayed next year had he not been traded as the alternative would have been playing probably the entire season in the minors for less than six figures when he could instead stay his senior year, command a bigger salary and go straight to the NHL as a free agent. I'd say the trade shifted the odds from 80% he comes back to more like 30%...it really sucks.

Best thing to do going forward is to always assume star players will leave after 3 years at most. If you get a fourth, it's a miracle. It's no one's fault - it's just how it is. Whatever happens, they'll replenish, as they did this year. Every team faces the same thing or worse.

[BearLover]

Yeah so he's gone. Sucks because they straight up say he would've stayed had he not been traded. Hopefully Walsh gives it another ride.

tbh i think this probably overstates how honest he was being about an unwillingness to sign with utah. i agree that he said it but ... saying it is basically his only leverage to encourage a trade. push comes to shove i don't know that he would have ultimately risked injury before signing a pro contract. i don't think he was coming back either way. despite what stereax said while i was typing.

I don't agree. He wasn't trying to encourage a trade. By all accounts being traded wasn't even on his radar. Based on what's come out I highly suspect he would have stayed next year had he not been traded as the alternative would have been playing probably the entire season in the minors for less than six figures when he could instead stay his senior year, command a bigger salary and go straight to the NHL as a free agent. I'd say the trade shifted the odds from 80% he comes back to more like 30%...it really sucks.

Best thing to do going forward is to always assume star players will leave after 3 years at most. If you get a fourth, it's a miracle. It's no one's fault - it's just how it is. Whatever happens, they'll replenish, as they did this year. Every team faces the same thing or worse.

I wouldn't say it's a miracle—the Ivies (especially Harvard) have gotten four years out of many of their stars. Other teams deal with it too, but they get better talent than us. If we want to make the frozen four or win a national championship, we need our players to stay longer than other teams' to offset the talent disparity. I do agree though with your general premise.

[ursusminor]

FWIW, RPI has no players this year on its team who entered in 2022, i.e., playing their fourth season in Troy. It's mainly due to the portal in both directions.

[Trotsky]

Ultimately players will do what is best for them, which is proper.  IMO, based on what has happened with early departures in recent history, forwards should go, goalies should stay, and defensemen are case-by-case.

[BearLover]

Ultimately players will do what is best for them, which is proper.  IMO, based on what has happened with early departures in recent history, forwards should go, goalies should stay, and defensemen are case-by-case.

Forwards should not go. It's a case by case basis, obviously, and to be honest Castagna has a much higher likelihood of success than eg. Bancroft or Angello did when they left. But our early departures have failed to crack the NHL far more often than not regardless of position, and anyone considering leaving before graduation should exercise extreme caution.

AHL salaries are (considerably) lower than a typical intro finance role most Cornell hockey graduates get right out of college.

[stereax]

McNally's mailbag!

Notably, for everyone wondering, she mentions that, as per the Calgary Herald, Castagna will finish the "season and semester" before deciding whether to turn pro. Which removes some of the "burn a year of ELC" talk - if he's finishing the semester here, he'd sign earliest in May, and the Flames are not making the dance. With that in mind, I'd suspect that if Calgary guarantees him an NHL spot to start next year he's going pro (as, I suspect, anyone would); if they want him in the A, it's more in the air. And it could very well be the case that they put him directly in the NHL - the Flames are a terrible hockey team with zero pressure (in the sense that you're not making the playoffs and indeed probably tanking, so you'll get a much longer leash to develop) and a TON of opportunity to seize a high-minute role. I mean, in a world where you get McKenna on your wing... pretty hard to turn that down.

Again, though - most prospects take some time to marinate in the A. Your exceptions are generally your true blue-chip guys and the occasional undrafted four-year-college pro that explodes while in the NCAA. I mean, hell, guys like Seamus Casey (yes I am a Devils fan how did you know) have been languishing in the A for what feels like too long. However, if Calgary and/or Castagna believe he is "pro-ready" in the sense that he can stick the landing to the NHL, you've got a vastly different story on your hands. In either case, considering Castagna is still pretty young, you've got that wiggle room to, for instance, stay at Cornell next year and then go full NHL pro after next season. (As in - if the question is "AHL or Cornell for a year, then NHL", I really want to believe Casty sticks around for year 4. On your perennial injury worries, the NCAA and especially Ivy League play way fewer games than the AHL. Much more time for conditioning, too - which a ton of players reference as incredibly valuable.)

A comparable here could be Ike Howard - D+1 to D+3 in the NCAA, now in between the Oilers and the A. (Coincidentally, he also wanted a trade due to reduced opportunity with his draft team.) Main difference is that Howard was pretty clearly done with NCAA hockey after his junior season. Casty is still very much up in the air - even if he did tell the Mammoth he wanted out in those words, (which, unlikely, have you met most hockey players?) he still knew about the trade maybe a few hours - even minutes - before the rest of us. (Note that due to tampering stuff, other teams can't talk to Casty until/unless they pick up his rights.) (Also lmao looking through my old texts with a friend and man, the second I heard "Weegar trade" I was like "man if Castagna becomes a FLAME I gotta watch that???" at probably the same time - 5 pm - that he got a call from his agent about it, as per that one podcast he did just after the trade.) So he's still trying to figure out what he wants to do as well - it's not an easy decision, contrary to how so many of us talk about it.

Honestly, this might be a signing after free agency starts and the early July trades go down - at that point, everyone will have more of an idea about how the 26-27 Flames will look (besides, uh, dreadful, have you seen that roster?) and can go from there.

...Or Cornell wins the natty (knock on wood) and none of this "will he stay for another shot" matters anymore 😂

...Besides that, there's a lot of good analysis here - about bracketology, about Jones compared to Schafer, about not being crimebags vs Harvard, etcetera. Very worth a read.

[BearLover]

Can Calgary really guarantee him an NHL spot though? Outside of literally giving a veteran player a clause in their contract that says they won't be sent down to the minors (such clause does exist for some veteran players), it seems weird to tell an incoming player he has a guaranteed spot. He's never been a pro, nobody really knows how he'll look in his first year, and it kind of defeats the point of training camp if guys aren't competing for spots.

One positive is Calgary speaking highly of how Cornell plays and develops its players. Makes it more likely pro teams will send prospects to Cornell in the future. Though, still unlikely since that mostly only happens with kids planning to spend 1-2 years there before pros.

[stereax]

Bancroft traded to Nashville in a minor league deal.

Hopefully the change of scenery helps him out. Nashville's got a bit of a youth movement going on right now.

[stereax]

Can Calgary really guarantee him an NHL spot though? Outside of literally giving a veteran player a clause in their contract that says they won't be sent down to the minors (such clause does exist for some veteran players), it seems weird to tell an incoming player he has a guaranteed spot. He's never been a pro, nobody really knows how he'll look in his first year, and it kind of defeats the point of training camp if guys aren't competing for spots.

One positive is Calgary speaking highly of how Cornell plays and develops its players. Makes it more likely pro teams will send prospects to Cornell in the future. Though, still unlikely since that mostly only happens with kids planning to spend 1-2 years there before pros.

For sure - you can't ever GUARANTEE anything. I say it more as in a "they will move pieces around and pencil him in as an everyday NHLer" way. Again, we have seen similar arrangements where guys make the hop straight to the NHL and have that roster spot guaranteed to them in sorts of handshake deals.

[stereax]

Can Calgary really guarantee him an NHL spot though? Outside of literally giving a veteran player a clause in their contract that says they won't be sent down to the minors (such clause does exist for some veteran players), it seems weird to tell an incoming player he has a guaranteed spot. He's never been a pro, nobody really knows how he'll look in his first year, and it kind of defeats the point of training camp if guys aren't competing for spots.

One positive is Calgary speaking highly of how Cornell plays and develops its players. Makes it more likely pro teams will send prospects to Cornell in the future. Though, still unlikely since that mostly only happens with kids planning to spend 1-2 years there before pros.

For sure - you can't ever GUARANTEE anything. I say it more as in a "they will move pieces around and pencil him in as an everyday NHLer" way. Again, we have seen similar arrangements where guys make the hop straight to the NHL and have that roster spot guaranteed to them in sorts of handshake deals.

In Calgary news, it's reported Tyson Gross (college free agent) signed with Calgary and is going to debut in the NHL this season. Drops Calgary to 2 contract slots. Francis speculates these will be Wiebe and Castagna.

[Dafatone]

Ultimately players will do what is best for them, which is proper.  IMO, based on what has happened with early departures in recent history, forwards should go, goalies should stay, and defensemen are case-by-case.

Forwards should not go. It's a case by case basis, obviously, and to be honest Castagna has a much higher likelihood of success than eg. Bancroft or Angello did when they left. But our early departures have failed to crack the NHL far more often than not regardless of position, and anyone considering leaving before graduation should exercise extreme caution.

AHL salaries are (considerably) lower than a typical intro finance role most Cornell hockey graduates get right out of college.

I'm not sure there's a ton of projecting to be done with the last decade or so of players. Morgan Barron is the only one who has put together a steady starting role for more than a couple seasons, although Sam Malinski appears poised to join that list.