Leo Gabriel 
2024-2025 Team: White Bear Lake
Selected: Round 6, Pick 89
USHL Team: Tri-City 

Gabriel was the first goaltender selected who played high school hockey last season. He was picked one round after St. Michael-Albertville native Brady Krey, whose career has taken him to Northstar Christian Academy in Alexandria. 

Gabriel finished the 2024-2025 season with a record of 14-8-3, a goals-against-average of 1.73, a .928 save percentage, and five shutouts. In three seasons as the Bears’ starting goaltender, Gabriel totaled 18 shutouts. Those 18 blank sheets currently rank tied for fourth all-time with former Mahtomedi standout Ben Dardis and former Chanhassen netminder Kam Hendrickson. 

Tri-City rotated through four goaltenders - Michal Pradel, Erick Roest, Kyle Jones, and Adam Dybal - with varying degrees of quality. According to Elite Prospects, Pradel appeared in 14 games and finished his tour of duty with a .899 save percentage, the highest among the four players. 

Blake Dosan 
2024-2025 Team: Bloomington Jefferson
Selected: Round 6, Pick 112
USHL Team: Lincoln 

Blake, the younger brother of former Bloomington Kennedy standouts Joey, Logan, and Luke, has serious upside and has learned the ropes of the hockey business already through multiple lenses. 

According to Elite Prospects, Dosan is listed at 6-foot-3 and nearly 200 pounds, and averaged almost a point pregame in his first season of high school hockey at Bloomington Jefferson. Highlighted by four-point performances against Mound Westonka and St. Paul Highland Park, Dosan finished the season with 14 goals and 24 points. 

Dosan had two goals and three points in three games for Team Blue at this summer’s Boys 17 High Performance Final 54 camp in Plymouth. 

Maceo Phillips 
2024-2025 Team: National Team Development Program Under-18
Selected: Round 7, Pick 119
USHL Team: Green Bay 

Could Phillips be Green Bay’s version of Sam Laurila? 

Laurila was acquired by Fargo last summer and went from a role player on the NTDP U18’s backend to an instant contributor. The North Dakota commit finished the 2024-2025 season with eight goals and 41 points, making him tied for fourth among all USHL defenders in scoring for the regular season. 

Now, Laurila and Phillips have different playing styles. Laurila is a shiftier skater and better puck distributor right now, while Phillips has a distinct size advantage at 6-foot-6 and over 200 pounds. Phillips also plays a more physical game than Laurila, evidenced by his 166 penalty minutes over two seasons with the NTDP. 

That said, the theory is sound - grab a talented but underused player from what is meant to be the best American skaters in that age group, give them more playing time in a different system, and see if the potential catches up to the player. 

Cal Conway 
2024-2025 Team: Stillwater
Selected: Round 13, Pick 211
USHL Team: Waterloo 

After the year he's had, one could imagine Conway is thrilled to be done with high school hockey and eagerly awaiting Waterloo’s camp, where nobody will ask him about transfer paperwork. 

Conway split time for two seasons in Andover with Beau Altman (ironically, a transfer from Buffalo before the 2022-2023 season) and then Cash Cruitt for 2023-2024 before transferring to Stillwater, the process of which took several complicated turns that don’t need rehashing here. 

After the dust settled in the late stages of the 2024-2025 regular season, Conway treated the state to his talent and heroics. During the Section 4AA playoffs and the Class AA State Tournament, Conway was on fire, allowing no more than three goals in a single game until a 7-6 loss to Moorhead in the state championship game. Prior to the Moorhead loss, Conway had stopped 137 of 141 shots, including a spectacular 36-save shutout against St. Thomas Academy in the state semifinals. 

Listed at 6-foot-2 and nearly 180 pounds by Elite Prospects, Conway has the ideal goaltending size in addition to solid fundamentals, a big-game mentality, and experience against high-quality competition before transitioning to junior hockey. 

Bode McConnell
2024-2025 Team: Edina
Selected: Round 15, Pick 243
USHL Team: Madison 

Can Madison work its magic on another under-appreciated Edina forward?

Former Hornet and current Capitol Bobby Cowan went from scoreless in 12 varsity games as a sophomore to finishing his high school career with 83 total points, back-to-back appearances in the Class AA State Tournament championship game, and the 2024 state title. Cowan was also named to the state tourney’s All-Tournament Team twice.

Acquired in a trade with Omaha, who selected Cowan in the fourth round of the 2023 Phase II Draft, Cowan scored 22 goals and totaled 51 points in 57 games with the Capitols during the 2024-2025 season. He is slated to play for the defending national champion Western Michigan when his time in the U-Show is up. 

As a 2008-born player, McConnell was not selected in last year’s Phase I Draft, and waited a dozen rounds this year before getting the call from Madison. Like Cowan, McConnell spent some time with Edina’s Bantam A team as a first-year before bumping up to the AA squad during the 2022-2023 season. 

After two years with Edina’s Bantam AA team, McConnell tallied 16 goals in his first high school hockey season, helping the Hornets to a 22-7-2 record and a third-place finish at the Class AA State Tournament. Those goals weren’t clustered around one or two explosions against lesser competition either - McConnell tallied at least one point in 17 of the team’s 31 games this season. 

To see all USHL Phase II Draft selections, click here.