Thanks for the opening JB, I hope you don't regret teeing me up. Here I go...
Guité's commitment made me wonder about UNH's recent recruiting. It sure seems that a higher caliber of player has been committed over the last two classes (in spite of a slow start for last season's first years) and I wanted to know if statistics would back up that perception. I'm sure my research has its flaws, but here is what I found when comparing forward recruits and their point totals in their final seasons of junior/prep ahead of UNH matriculation...
UNH Forward Recruits, 2025-26:
If Guité begins his UNH career this fall, he would be the 12th forward recruit to join the Wildcats in the past two off-seasons. In other words, he would be the 12th forward to commit in the new 'CHL eligibility' era...
Ten of those 12 recruits (transfers included) played their final 'junior' season in a premier North American league. With another (Svartstrom) playing in the BCHL (Tier 2/Tier 1b) and one (Johnson) playing in the NAHL (Tier 3). That's 83.3 percent of recruits finishing their junior hockey in tier one.
Eight of the forwards in this era posted at least 0.90 points per game in the final junior season, with a ninth (Gagnon) scoring 0.93 points per game in his second to last junior season. Hyles & Zebeski each scored a hair over 0.70 ppg, while Van Tassell was the lowest scorer in his final junior season at 0.60 ppg. That's 75% of forward recruits notching a season of 0.90 ppg or better in their junior hockey career.
As a group, UNH forward recruits over the past two classes combined for 393 goals, 354 assists and 747 points in 790 games over their seasons directly preceding their UNH careers. That's an average of 0.95 points per game.
Notes:
* As UNH production and records fell, Watcher used to annually lament the lack of Top-50 USHL point scorers to choose UNH. Player's from these past two recruiting classes combined for 13 Top-50 junior scoring seasons - eight in the QMJHL, two in the USHL and one each in the BCHL, the NAHL and USports. Guite, Gagnon & Oliver each have TWO Top-50 scoring seasons in the Q...
* This season saw Tournas (16th) and Guite (28th) post Top-50 QMJHL seasons, while Romeo (18th) and Hyles (50th) were Top-50 USHLers...
* Svartstrom was 5th in BCHL scoring during the 2024-25 season...
Now, here's where it gets interesting...
UNH Forward Recruits, 2018-2024:
This group includes all FORTY-SIX forward recruits during Mike Souza's first seven season's as head coach. For simplicities' sake, I'm not diving into which player's were recruited when. Undoubtedly, some players in this group would have been recruited before Souza's assistant tenure in Durham began. I believe Patrick Grasso (0.72 PPG / USHL) is one example that skews the numbers a bit, but its not THAT serious...
This collection of recruits includes 18 USHLers (39.1%), 11 BCHLers and 1 SHL U20 alum (26.1%), and 16 players who finished their pre-UNH careers in the NCDC, NAHL, EHL, AJHL or a US High School (34.8%). So under 40% from an elite junior circuit, though to be fair the BCHL was better then...
Just 16 of these 46 players posted pre-UNH seasons of 0.90 points per game or higher. Only two of those player's played in the USHL, while five played in the BCHL. The rest played tier three juniors or US High School hockey. The top three were all HS players and totaled at least 1.80 ppg, led by Ryan Black, who scored 2.25 points per game in his final season at the Winchendon School before heading to Babson. Only 34.8 percent of the forwards recruited in this era reached 0.90 ppg...
The 46 forward recruits over this seven-year span combined for 875 goals, 1180 assists and 2055 points in 2501 games. That's an average of 0.82 points per game...
Notes:
* The 0.82 PPG average likely skews high due to production in weaker leagues, as only 7 of 16 USHLers even managed to crack 0.60 points per game...
* Eight of these 46 players finished their college career with 80 points or more. Five of whom scored more than 0.90 in their final junior season, while three did not...
* Liam Devlin scored more than 80 points as a Wildcat, despite scoring at a rate of just 0.45 ppg in his final USHL season...
* Just two of these 46 players scored 100 career points or better (Can anyone tell me what they have in common?)...
* Removing the three high school PPG totals (Black, Richels, Pierson) drops the overall PPG for this group to 0.77...
UNH Forward Recruits, 2014-2018:
Now let's look at the recruits from the four seasons prior to Souza's head coaching tenure. Though he was an assistant during the last three years of this sample, he recruited very few, if any, of these 17 forwards himself. Most would have been recruited by now MC head coach Scott Borek.
Nine of the 17 forwards in this sample played in the USHL or for the US NTDP (52.9%), three played in the BCHL (17.7), while three played in the EJHL and two played prep hockey (29.4%). Once again, the BCHL was a better league the further back one researches, so let's say anywhere between 52.9 and 70.6 percent of recruits played high level juniors...
Seven of 17, including two BCHLers and one USHLer scored at least 0.90 PPG. The remaining high scorers include three EJHLers and a CAN High Schooler. That makes 42.1 percent reaching the 0.90 PPG plateau...
This group combined for 421 goals, 519 assists and 940 points in 991 games, scoring at a rate of 0.95 PPG in their final seasons of junior hockey...
Notes:
* This group scored an identical PPG rate to the last two classes, but the number was skewed a bit by prep-schooler Warren Foegele's 2.06 PPG at St. Andrew's...
* Ironically, Tyler Kelleher DID NOT reach 0.90 PPG in his final junior season. He posted 41-43--84 in 100 US NTDP games played (0.84 PPG)...
* Michael McNicholas (BCHL) and Matt Willows (EJHL) each scored more than 80 career points for the Wildcats...
* Kelleher (USNTDP) and Grayson Downing (BCHL) each topped 100 career points...
* Andrew Poturalski (USHL) scored 81 career points and would have blown past 100, and I'd wager Foegele (17 UNH points) would have cracked the century mark too, had either played four years collegiately...
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So, all that said, what do we see in the numbers?
It sure looks like recent UNH forward recruits are FAR more productive than their counterparts from the bulk of Souza's recruiting career, and far more in line with players committed at the end of Borek's tenure. Many more player's in the current group have done their scoring in a top junior league - certainly relative to Souza's previous targets, and perhaps even when compared to Borek's. So there is certainly a reason for optimism, but questions remain...
1) Will UNH's better recruiting results translate to the college level OR are all NCAA Hockey programs benefiting from a larger player pool? Has productivity changed relative to the competition or just to their predecessors?
2) How does the QMJHL - where UNH has found most of its newest recruits - compare to the OHL, WHL or previous iterations of the USHL? The Q is often cited as the weakest of the Canadian Junior Leagues? Is that stereotype or fact? Or variable? Is the CHL simply a higher scoring brand of hockey?
3) What do we make of last season's newcomer production? Many expected more scoring on the whole, and certainly from specific players. Yet, several of UNH's highest scoring forwards did not produce at a high level in their FR seasons. Even Jason Krog managed just 4 goals and 20 points as a frosh. Paul Thompson had 21 points over his first two seasons in Durham. Perhaps even 20 year old CHL freshman need learning curves?
4) Do the results of the last 8-12 seasons indicate the coaching staff has suffered from developmental issues or from lesser raw talent? Will more talent make them better coaches? Or, to paraphrase Dennis Green, are they who we thought they are?
5) The current recruiting sample is the only one of the three to combine for more goals than assists in their final junior season. Does UNH lack playmaking forwards? Are quality finishers potentially wasted by an inability to move pucks?
6) How will the defense and goaltending groups support what has - at least on paper - the potential to be the most dangerous group of forwards UNH has had in a long while?
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tldr - UNH's recent forward recruits are scoring more in better leagues than those in previous classes...
And...post!
