Agreed, very interesting but hardly surprising (more on that later). FWIW I think MS7 is professionally "dead man walking" at UNH, barring a sensational turnaround - i.e. way better than his sole winning season - so I'm not sure if any 20-year-old freshman has the ability to turn this barge around. We know there will be a new AD making a decision on Souza now, and replacing the HC of a long-floundering flagship Men's Hockey program, working on an expiring deal, is the lowest possible of all low hanging fruit for whomever that might be. Look at what our outgoing AD did to Bill Herrion in similar circumstances a few short years ago.
AD Rich isn't leaving without an extension being offered to her for doing a bang-up job (assuming she's nailed the compliance stuff) with on-field results. She got hornswoggled by Souza for a 3-year extension few of us thought was deserved. The move to replace Herrion was understandable, but his replacement has since squandered whatever modest progress Herrion had made with a historically abysmal Hoops program. She had two relatively young alums walk out for greener pastures in Football and Soccer, with the latter being the most successful UNH HC since Coach Umile, AND a Durham townie on top of that. She fell short of the mark, and now UNH will try to correct course.
If we see any of the three (Souza, Davis and Weinrebe) still in situ in Titletown 2 years from now, color me shocked, and do feel free to remind me of this prediction.
I think we already know how NHL teams view UNH in terms of developing players. At the very least, Coach Umile was viewed as a "safe pair of hands" by the NHL front offices/scouts, as there would be a steady if modest stream of AHL caliber players, several of whom would go on to decent pension-earning careers in The Show. And NHL organizations weren't plucking his/their prospects out of the program early for the minors or directing them to other programs (see Conmy, Ryan). Currently, UNH players struggle under the MS7 regime struggle to establish themselves at even the AHL level, and most end up flailing in the Coast or overseas in low level Euro leagues. It's also questionable (perhaps even naive?) to assume high-level Juniors coaches are automatically an inferior option to an NCAA coach.
Like you, I won't claim any level of expertise on this issue. Dan (and others) will be better informed on whether signing his financials binds him to the school. Just guessing here, but if there is any level of restriction, it may prevent the player from trying to go to another school this year, but I doubt it would prevent him from opting out of his UNH commitment to play pro/return to his Juniors team. The NCAA is on a long losing streak when it comes to restricting player movement lol.
What I'm actually hearing here is the feedback of a pretty shrewd advisor, sending a clear signal to NHL teams thinking of drafting Tournas that he's open to whatever their preference might be. Smart way to maximize his draft potential. It definitely does NOT send the message that he's committed on principle to coming to UNH, and at this point, I'm downright doubtful we'll ever see him coming to Titletown. If he goes in the first 3 rounds, I can't imagine the drafting team wouldn't want him in their organization instead of at UNH. If he's fourth round or after (or undrafted), then yeah, maybe we'd see him, as he presses to develop and impress towards getting that ELC. But with him raising the possibility of staying put in QMJHL, I suspect UNH's chances are slim and none, and I think we see Slim ambling his way outta Durham.
