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Michigan State Hockey 202?-202?

A few new developments.

It looks like Griffin Loughran will be leaving.

Laker Aldridge and Zach Dubinsky are still expected, but haven’t been signed yet.

Miroslav Mucha entered the portal after May 1 and is appealing to the NCAA so he can transfer to MSU.

UPDATE: While I was posting this MSU announced the signings of Dubinski and Mucha.
 
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wsummers said:
A few new developments.

It looks like Griffin Loughran will be leaving.

Laker Aldridge and Zach Dubinsky are still expected, but haven’t been signed yet.

Miroslav Mucha entered the portal after May 1 and is appealing to the NCAA so he can transfer to MSU.

UPDATE: While I was posting this MSU announced the signings of Dubinski and Mucha.
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Better get NMU on the schedule, 5 of Mucha's 10 goals last season came against the Wildcats.

Not sure how this one worked logistically, since I understand you had to declare for the portal before May 1 and he isn't listed as coming into it until the 13th. If he's a grad student it would be much easier since LSSU has no grad level classes so you can make one of those Russell Wilson moves. One way or another he was the best player available in the portal at that point.
 
John J. MacInnes said:
Better get NMU on the schedule, 5 of Mucha's 10 goals last season came against the Wildcats.

Not sure how this one worked logistically, since I understand you had to declare for the portal before May 1 and he isn't listed as coming into it until the 13th. If he's a grad student it would be much easier since LSSU has no grad level classes so you can make one of those Russell Wilson moves. One way or another he was the best player available in the portal at that point.
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He’s apparently saying that he was out of the country and unable to enter the portal in time. I have no idea how it works so I assume it’s not a fake excuse.
 
Good pick up for 1 year, however no recruiting process in place and losing out on players that could actually give you 4 years.. Portal is not the answer for a rebuild
 
Puckstopper467 said:
Good pick up for 1 year, however no recruiting process in place and losing out on players that could actually give you 4 years.. Portal is not the answer for a rebuild
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What top uncommitted recruits for next year are still available? Also, coaches can't just think 4 years down the line as by then they could be out of a job. Gotta do whatever you can to get some results and hope the recruiting follows. He was never gonna be able to bring in top players for this upcoming season.
 
J.D. said:
What top uncommitted recruits for next year are still available? Also, coaches can't just think 4 years down the line as by then they could be out of a job. Gotta do whatever you can to get some results and hope the recruiting follows. He was never gonna be able to bring in top players for this upcoming season.
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Agree. Any incoming freshman still available to sign is likely a borderline talent player that we’d be saddled with for 4 years. We’ve had plenty of those over the last decade. It’s why we’re here right now.
 
Pirateasaur said:
Agree. Any incoming freshman still available to sign is likely a borderline talent player that we’d be saddled with for 4 years. We’ve had plenty of those over the last decade. It’s why we’re here right now.
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All good points, recruiting is recruiting. You want to land the best possible recruits through whatever means, portal or conventional. The portal is essentially a way to either fill holes from unexpected losses or upgrade prior recruiting misses. While I acknowledge that Mucha is a nice get by Nightingale, I don’t expect him to be considerably better than portal loss Nodler or academic flameout Loughran. Or perhaps Nightingale can upgrade that late walk-on recruit by Cole who hasn’t been formally announced. Suffice to say I’m still waiting for him to land that first elite recruit through conventional means.
 
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FLHockeyMom said:
All good points, recruiting is recruiting. You want to land the best possible recruits through whatever means, portal or conventional. The portal is essentially a way to either fill holes from unexpected losses or upgrade prior recruiting misses. While I acknowledge that Mucha is a nice get by Nightingale, I don’t expect him to be considerably better than portal loss Nodler or academic flameout Loughran. Or perhaps Nightingale can upgrade that late walk-on recruit by Cole who hasn’t been formally announced. Suffice to say I’m still waiting for him to land that first elite recruit through conventional means.
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As to that late Cole unsigned to date recruit…One of his former NAHL coaches told me he is a great kid with a strong work ethic..that said, he also has never played at the USHL level. Unless he surprises, he’s most likely a 4th line or practice player. He is enrolled at MSU for the fall, but hasn’t been signed which indicates Nightengale is working on another possible higher skilled forward.
 
wsummers said:
As to that late Cole unsigned to date recruit…One of his former NAHL coaches told me he is a great kid with a strong work ethic..that said, he also has never played at the USHL level. Unless he surprises, he’s most likely a 4th line or practice player. He is enrolled at MSU for the fall, but hasn’t been signed which indicates Nightengale is working on another possible higher skilled forward.
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I'm sure he's a great kid, but there are plenty of great kids/hard workers with those stats who are never recruited to D1 and go on to have nice D3 careers. If he wants to be a practice player at the expense of getting ice time on a decent D3 team, I suppose that's his choice. My guess is Nightingale is making that abundantly clear to him, and if that's the case he's earned a lot of my respect for making another hard decision. Much like he had to do regarding switching out Cole's Cornell G recruit.
 
Puckstopper467 said:
Good pick up for 1 year, however no recruiting process in place and losing out on players that could actually give you 4 years.. Portal is not the answer for a rebuild
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It's too late to get high-caliber four-year guys to commit for 2022. All of MSU's portal pickups at this stage are better than last-minute scraps from the NAHL.

Looking toward next season, I thought we were a legitimate 30-loss team at the end of last season. I still think next year will be really bad, but at least now MSU has some parts to be competitive in games.
 
Just because a player does not play in the USHL really does not matter as that league caters more to the younger player with higher perception and there is the MSU fan base problem. Watch how many teams recruit from the BCHL, NAHL, and AJ and do better. and do not say there are not 4 year players still out there, watch the commits' over the last month and still more to come.. Where is MSU??? Get over getting the NHL draft types and build like Duluth and Minnesota State does.. MSU fans still try too hard to be elite and your not. look around how many Michigan kids are going to the other instate schools with PPG+ averages coming out of juniors. You talk USHL oh WOW, why was MSU not able to get a top 15 scorer in the NAHL or BCHL? Oh you are still waiting on the NTDP kids.. funny
 
Puckstopper467 said:
Just because a player does not play in the USHL really does not matter as that league caters more to the younger player with higher perception and there is the MSU fan base problem. Watch how many teams recruit from the BCHL, NAHL, and AJ and do better. and do not say there are not 4 year players still out there, watch the commits' over the last month and still more to come.. Where is MSU??? Get over getting the NHL draft types and build like Duluth and Minnesota State does.. MSU fans still try too hard to be elite and your not. look around how many Michigan kids are going to the other instate schools with PPG+ averages coming out of juniors. You talk USHL oh WOW, why was MSU not able to get a top 15 scorer in the NAHL or BCHL? Oh you are still waiting on the NTDP kids.. funny
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In modern-day college hockey, recruiting high-caliber kids from any junior league is a three or four-year process. Want that super-awesome kid from league X who tore it up this season? Well, unless you started to recruit that kid when he was 14 or 15, you're too late. Either that kid has already made up his mind, or the coaches who have already built relationships with him over the past three or four years are trying to close the deal.

That's why any rebuild is a three or four-year process. Any new coach that was hired for 2022 probably isn't recruiting for 2022, he's recruiting for 2025 or 2026. That's the risk when you suck and fire someone. You are committing to starting from scratch. The fear of starting from scratch is why you get guys like Jim Culhane hanging around for a decade at Western, or why guys like Jamie Russell get eight years at Tech. That same fear is why a minority of MSU fans were fine with Cole getting one final year to try to turn it around when it looked like he wasn't going to get fired this offseason.

MSU had gaping holes in its roster that needed to get filled immediately. When you're in that situation, you have two options: Portal, or the kids in juniors who essentially weren't recruited by anyone.
 
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Puckstopper467 said:
Just because a player does not play in the USHL really does not matter as that league caters more to the younger player with higher perception and there is the MSU fan base problem. Watch how many teams recruit from the BCHL, NAHL, and AJ and do better. and do not say there are not 4 year players still out there, watch the commits' over the last month and still more to come.. Where is MSU??? Get over getting the NHL draft types and build like Duluth and Minnesota State does.. MSU fans still try too hard to be elite and your not. look around how many Michigan kids are going to the other instate schools with PPG+ averages coming out of juniors. You talk USHL oh WOW, why was MSU not able to get a top 15 scorer in the NAHL or BCHL? Oh you are still waiting on the NTDP kids.. funny
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First, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to think that MSU could attract one NTDP player every, or at the very least, every other year given its relationships with and proximity to the Program.

Second, I tend to disagree with your assessment of the NAHL: other than Goalies, I don’t see many players finishing their juniors careers at the NAHL level who go on to be impact players at the D1 level. Admittedly there are more exceptions at the BCHL and AJHL levels (Hirose and Makar, respectively, being some examples). But checking the rosters of your examples, UMD and the other MSU, the great majority of impact scorers come from the USHL. Point being, the USHL is the holy grail recruiting ground for D1 impact scorers and for anyone to think differently is unrealistic.

As for the MSU NAHL age-out F recruit in question, he’s a 3.25 star with mediocre stats and should never have been committed by Cole.
 
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In the past would agree, however COVID changed the landscape as many players did not travel back across the border to the BCHL and AJ. 02's, and 03's chose to play in the NAHL and NCDC versus less roles in the USHL. Take the top 2 BCHL/NAHL teams and they beat the Clark Cup Champion.
 
Puckstopper467 said:
In the past would agree, however COVID changed the landscape as many players did not travel back across the border to the BCHL and AJ. 02's, and 03's chose to play in the NAHL and NCDC versus less roles in the USHL. Take the top 2 BCHL/NAHL teams and they beat the Clark Cup Champion.
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I understand what you’re saying but, with all due respect, until one of those COVID restricted 02s or 03s comes directly from the NAHL and scores a PPG in a decent D1 conference (not talking amongst AHA competition), then I don’t think it applies. Elite scorers’ ceilings are simply not the NAHL. That’s because D1 coaches may recognize the talent early and commit at the NAHL level, but then refer to the USHL for a year or two of seasoning. What I and other posters are referring to are NAHL age-outs who never play above Tier 2. Very few of them other than goalies make an impact at a decent D1 level. So to recruit those players for the upcoming season and potentially have them around for four unremarkable seasons is not necessarily better than taking an experienced portal player for a year or two. In the absence of a robust transfer portal at the time, Cole recruited out of the NAHL his first season with lackluster results (won’t name names). However, a cutthroat coach like Ben Barr at UMaine would’ve shed the deadweight and upgraded after a season. Every team is searching for elite scorers, not just MSU. So why not us?
 
I’m not really opposed to recruiting out of the NAHL or AJHL but I do not think we’re going to overhaul this roster by pulling currently uncommitted players for next year. Unless they’re the diamond in the rough of the century there is no way they are an upgrade to any middling talent player we’ve had for the last 10+ years. That goes for guys in the USHL as well.

Nightingale needs to prop up the current roster with all the bubblegum and duct tape he can until he can pull in some real building material.
 
he needs to gain respect into the program. I am in Blaine for the Robertson Cup and was talking with a NAHL official today that told me some high end recruits committed recently and passed on MSU. Reading the thread here seems like the NAHL player is not the appetite for MSU base and still the NAHL player is passing on the program.. so lots of work to do by Nightingale to rebuild the attraction factor in the program
 
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