Of the 23 players chosen for next year’s Under-17 team, eight of the selected players hail from Minnesota, including five forwards, two defensemen, and a goaltender. 

Forwards, Mikey Berchild and Parker Trottier will trek to Plymouth, Mich., from Shattuck-St. Mary’s. Defensemen AJ Francisco and Logan Lutner move on from the Minnesota high school varsity, and Wyatt Cullen and Sammy Nelson will make the leap to international hockey from Minnesota Bantams. 

Hermantown native Victor Plante has played for Tier I Chicago Mission the last two seasons after his father, Derek, was named a Chicago Blackhawks assistant coach, and Luke Carrithers tended goal for Tier I Sioux Falls Power after honing his craft in the Osseo-Maple Grove youth association.

Minnesota’s eight representatives lead the nation, followed by Illinois (4) and California (2).  

Three players who will skate for Team USA next season will come from Canadian AAA programs. Goaltender Brady Knowling is a native of Chicago, but the 6-foot-4, 190-pound Knowling played for the Toronto Nationals U15 team during the 2022-2023 season before moving on to the North York Rangers U16 squad this past season.

According to the NTDP roster, Dayne Beuker’s hometown is Portland, Oregon, but he has played the bulk of his hockey in Saskatchewan. Beuker played in the Humboldt Broncos’ youth organization before spending last season with the Saskatoon Blazers’ U17 team, where he scored 48 goals and totaled 95 points in 54 games. 

Sam Wathier rounds out the trio. The Des Moines native played for the Eastern Ontario Wild in the province’s Hockey East Ontario league for the past two seasons. Wathier is a 6-foot-2 defenseman and the son of former Dallas Stars player Francis Wathier. 

Fresh off a national championship, three Chicago Mission 15-Only team members will venture from the Chicagoland area to Michigan next season. 

Forwards Victor Plante, Aurelio Gracia, and defenseman Abe Barnett will swap vibrant green for classic red, white, and blue. Plante tied for the scoring lead during last week’s 15-O nationals with four goals and 10 points, while Garcia tied for second with five goals and nine points. Barnett finished with four assists and five points during Mission’s run to the title. 

Former Mission player and current Shattuck-St. Mary’s Sabre Lukas Zajic was also named to the NTDP roster. Zajic scored two goals and four points as SSM lost in the 15-O national semifinals. 

Michigan and Massachusetts have been hockey hotbeds and fertile ground for the NTDP in past years, with each state regularly contributing multiple players to the program in the past few birth years. 

Next season, one Michigan native and one Massachusetts native will be on the U17 roster. Detroit Honeybaked’s Tyler Martyniuk will represent Michigan, and the Massachusetts rep is Casey Mutryn of St. Sebastian’s/Boston Jr. Eagles. Logan Stuart skated for Detroit Little Caesars this season, but is originally from Manhattan Beach, California. 

This coming season, Michigan and Massachusetts will have as many native players on the NTDP U17 roster as Iowa, North Carolina, and Texas.