Of all the stories YHH posts during the past year, NHL draft stories are the most interesting to write.  It forces us to draw upon memories and experiences created by tracking Minnesota players from peewee on up.  For us and hopefully our readers, Minnesota players making great plays on the ice to predict the Top 10 players from Minnesota most likely to be selected in the NHL’s Entry Draft each year.  Last year’s post fared well with six of the eleven players listed as potential selections selected in the 2014 NHL Entry Draft including one few people had on their lists (goalie Chris Perry/Andover)

But none of the 15 Minnesota players last year were selected in the first round.  That was the second straight year that happened.  The last Minnesota player taken in the first round was Brady Skjei/Lakeville in 2012.  For many who tout potential top NHL Paul Bittner/Crookston is considered the top Minnesota player to go in the draft.  Bittner is a late born 1996 player and first time eligible for the 2015 NHL Entry Draft.  He has spent the last three seasons (since playing as a ninth grader for the Crookston Varsity) playing for the Portland Winterhawks in the WHL.  But Bittner, now a 6’4” 200lb forward, is in a Minnesota race of sorts with two Minnesota players who played high school and USHL hockey in the past two years, Brock Boeser/Burnsville and Tommy Novak/St. Thomas Academy.

The Top Three Battle

Unfortunately for the three players, the NHL teams in the first round historically draft 50% plus Canadian players and 12% USA players.  In other words, 15-18 Canadians will likely get picked and off the remaining first round picks, five or six Americans are likely to be chosen.  With USA players like Jack Eichel/Boston U and Noah Hanifin/Boston College ranked ahead of the three, it is most likely one or two of the three could be a first round pick.  Boeser, Novak, and Bittner are all highly ranked by NHL scouts, but not in the top five forwards or defense.

 All three players are likely to go high, but the choice here is Brock Boeser gets the first call.  There is one singular strong memory of Boeser among many good memories that set him apart.  The play happened in 2013 UMHSEL  when his TCF Bank team was struggling and in danger of losing control of the game, Boeser led his line to a dominant shift that changed the game momentum.  Novak is the second choice and then Bittner.  Boeser and Novak had great seasons in the USHL leading Waterloo in scoring and near the top among USHL scoring leaders.  Bittner also had a great season in the WHL, but picked here to go third in the draft of all Minnesota players taken.

What Being Picked in the draft means?

Statistically, the percentage of USA players in the NHL has steadily increased over the past thirty years.  When the USA won the gold medal in 1980, 10.4% of the players in the NHL were USA Nationals; in 1993, the last year the North Stars played, 18.2% of the NHL players were USA Nationals; and this past 2014-2015 season, 24.7% of the NHL players were Americans.  But for some reason, the Canadian juniors are still the most first round favorites.

Each NHL team rosters 25 players at any one time; but adding transactions, about 950 players will don a NHL jersey each season.  Most players picked in the first round of the draft will play at least one or two games in the NHL in the three years following the draft.  How quickly they play in the NHL is an individual thing.  Some like Nick Bjugstad/Blaine, a 2010 first round draft pick, sign a big contract four years later.  Bjugstad is an exception, most will just be starting their NHL careers three years after being drafted and have normal NHL careers.

The average NHL salary is $2.4 million each year-that is more than the NFL ($1.9m) and less than MLB ($3.2m) or the NBA ($5.15m).  That $2.4 million includes the big money player salaries.  The average NHL player will more likely earn a median salary (the salary earned by most players).  In the NHL, the median salary is $1.1 million, still behind the NBA ($2.3 million) and MLB ($1.15 million), but ahead of the NFL ($770,000).  And don’t forget the agent’s and Uncle Sam’s cuts.  The average career for an NHL player is 5-6 years with total earning around $18 million, but taxes and agent salaries take a large bite.  Remember, each player is taxed by the state and/or city in where the game is played.

Prior Minnesota First Round Picks

A total of 5 Minnesota players were picked in the first round of last 5 NHL drafts.  Three were picked in the 2010 draft, one in the 2012 draft, and one in the 2013 draft (he went #31 but that is close enough).  

Ian McCoshen started life in Faribault MN and played out of Hudson WI for the Wisconsin Fire and joined Shattuck-St. Mary’s bantam team for the 2009-2010 season.  A 1995 born player, McCoshen was drafted #31 in the 2013 Draft and has played the last two seasons for Boston College.  McCoshen is likely to return to Boston College for a third year.  Brady Skjei/Lakeville North was drafted #28 by the New York Rangers in the 2012 after playing two years in USA Hockey’s NTDP.  Skjei has skated three years for the Minnesota Gophers and is likely to start the 2015-2016 season playing for the Rangers in the NHL.

Three players from Minnesota were taken in the 2010 NHL Draft (Nick Bjugstad/Blaine, Jarred Tinordi/Burnsville, and Brock Nelson/Warroad).  The most successful has been Bjugstad.  He was drafted #19 by Florida after graduating a year early from Blaine by taking accelerated classes..  He was named Minnesota’s Mr Hockey in 2010.  Bjugstad played three years at Minnesota, joined the Panthers at the end of 2012-2013, led Florida in scoring the past two seasons, and has signed a six year contract worth $24.6 million this past season.  In 2014, Bjugstad went back to Minnesota and got his college degree and seems to have a plan and goals for what he wants to accomplish while playing hockey.  Jarred Tinordi was drafted #22 in the 2010 draft by Montreal.  He was born in 1992, the last season the Minnesota North Stars played in Minnesota.  His father Mark was the last captain of the North Stars before they moved to Dallas.  Tinordi played some youth hockey in Minnesota, but ended up playing hockey in the Washington DC area after his father was traded to the Washington Capitals.  Tindori spent two years in USA’s NTDP before being drafted in 2010.  In the 2010-2011 and 2011-2012 seasons, Tinordi skated for the London Knights in the OHL.  He signed a three year contract with Montreal at the start of the 2011 season.  Last season his contract was slightly under $1 million including bonuses For the past three seasons Tinordi has alternated play between Montreal in the NHL and Hamilton in the AHL.  Brock Nelson/Warroad was drafted #30 by the New York Islanders in the NHL’s 2010 draft.  His grandfather, Bill Christian, played on the 1960 USA Gold Medal team and his uncle Dave Christian played on the 1980 USA Gold Medal team.  In his third and last season for the Warroad varsity, Nelson scored the winning goal in the Warriors 5-4 triple overtime win over Mahtomedi to take third place in the Class A tourney at the Xcel.  Nelson skated two years at North Dakota and skated one season at Bridgeport in the AHL before joining the Islanders for the 2013-2014 season.  Nelson has signed two single year contracts with the Islanders.  Each contract has a base value of $900,000, a $90,000 signing bonus, and another $1.9 million in incentives.  Nelson has played on the USA Hockey team in World Cup tourney’s the past two years.

2015 Top 10 Minnesota Picks   

1.Brock Boeser-Boeser is a product of the Burnsville Association’s program.  He skated squirts, two years on  Burnsville’s peewee A teams, and two years on Burnsville’s bantam A/AA teams.  Every other year he skated with Tyler Sheehy and Sam Dockery, who are a year older.  Every year he skated with Jack Ahcan and at least one or sometimes both of the Bochardts (Cole or Cade).  One year for the association, he skated with Zach Risteau.  He played two years on the high school varsity team, passed on his last year of playing for the Blaze, and spent his senior year leading the USHL’s Waterloo Blackhawks in scoring (68 points/35 goals in 57 games).  He, again, skated with Sheehy on the Waterloo team.  Boeser will be joining North Dakota and skating for the Sioux this fall.  He was always has been the solid player behind the talent of others, that all started to change playing for the TCF Bankers in the UMHSEL’s 2013 fall league.  He skated on the Bankers with Sheehy and Novak and found (or grew) strength in the late season starting to take control of the play on ice.  Now, like the race horse coming from behind at the top of the stretch, Boeser has grabbed the lead in Minnesota player development and he is positioned to finish well.      

2. Tommy Novak-Novak is from River Falls, WI just north and east of Hastings MN.  He skated three years for St. Thomas Academy and, combined with Tyler Sheehy to lead the 2013 UMHSEL league in scoring.  Both played for the Bankers along with Boeser (who finished 34th in the league in scoring).  Novak (and Sheehy) played for Waterloo last season before Sheehy was traded late in the season to Youngstown as the first place Phantoms made a yearend push to win the USHL playoffs.  Novak (and Sheehy) will be playing for the Gophers this fall.  Novak is a good sized forward that has the knack for scoring.  He finished second at Waterloo last season behind Boeser in points scored.   

3. Paul Bittner-Bittner skated one season as a ninth grader for the Crookston Pirates varsity.  Paul, a 6’4” forward, left Crookston to play for the Portland Winterhawks and has skated the past two years with Keegan Iverson/St. Louis Park MN.  Iverson joined the Winterhawks a year before Bittner and, like Bittner, left Breck after his freshman year.   Keegan was drafted #85 in the 2014 draft by the New York Rangers.  Players skating in the WHL lose their college eligible because the WHL pays each player some money.  The demands of each WHL team prevent players from holding jobs.  Now the NCAA is faced with the same problem and is starting to figure out how to pay their players.  Iverson, after being drafted, spent last season, his fourth, with the Winterhawks.  He will likely make a move to the AHL in the coming year.  Bittner, after being drafted this year, will likely play his fourth season with the Winterhawks.  Unfortunately for college hockey, especially Big 10 hockey that is suffering from lack of interest, both players will go directly to the pros.

4. Jacob Jaremko-YHH readers saw this coming when we started reporting Jaremko’s outstanding play for Elk River in the 2014 high school summer tourneys.  Jaremko continued that play in the fall UMHSEL and ended up leading the league in scoring.  He played well as a senior for the Elks last winter falling short of the state tourney trip to the Xcel in March by a single goal overtime loss to Duluth East in the Section 7AA finals.  Jaremko will likely skate for the Chicago Steel in the USHL next season before joining Minnesota State for the 2016-2017 season.  The Mavericks got the “college commitment steel” for the 16-17 season.  Jaremko was first draft eligible for the 2014, but only by three weeks.  He (like Tyler Sheehy have the similar late August birthdates) was not drafted in 2014.  His fast rise in Minnesota Hockey makes him a player that should go in the first part of the draft.  After watching Jaremko play from peewees till last year, he was always a good player.  After watching him play last year, he has become a fun player to watch, just a talented all-around skater.

5. Alec Baer-In the 2012 spring, in early phase of the HP-15 program, this corner of YHH covered a pre-festival game between District 3 and District 2 where Baer scored amazing “through his skates” goal.  But here it was credited in the next day post to Rem Pitlick only to be corrected by our readership that the actual scorer was Alec Baer.  Baer, an eighth grader and former 97 Fire player (skated with Will Garin, Tommy Novak, Peter Tufto, and Chase Ellingson), was the #3 scorer for St. Louis Park high school in 2011-2012.  That fall, Baer switched to Benilde-St. Margaret’s varsity just as Ryan Collins (last year’s NHL top Minnesota pick) left the Knights for USA Hockey’s NTDP program.  The Red Knights has just won the Class AA tourney and, as a ninth grader, Baer was having a good season.  In January 2013, Baer took a trip visiting the Vancouver Giants in the WHL and never returned to Benilde.  Indications were that Baer wanted to play for the Knights, but Benilde didn’t want him.  Benilde-St. Margaret’s lost to Wayzata in the Section 6AA playoffs a month after Baer left and has not been back to the Xcel since.  Baer joined Vancouver for the 2013-2014 season and has been playing in the WHL since.  In the past two seasons he has posted 48 points/22 goals in 133 games.  Like Bittner and Keegan, Baer is a late August born player first eligible for this year’s draft.  Not physically mature yet, reports on Baer is that he is the fastest, quickest and sharpest on the ice among his peers.  The bet here is that one team will pick him as a late round steal. 

6. Jack Sadek-Sadek is ranked by Central Scouting #79 among North American forwards and should go by the third or fourth round in this year’s draft.  Some would be surprised by that, but at YHH the reaction is “it is about time!”  After watching Sadek play in the Minnesota Hockey’s HP program over the past years, he seemed to always be overlooked.  Sadek has been a strong steady performer at defense for Lakeville North for the past three seasons as the Panthers went from contender to Class AA champions and he has always skated with Nick and Jack Poehling plus other Panther stars from peewee to bantam.    

7. Matt Freytag-A Wayzata Association product, Freytag played in the 2013 Class AA State Tourney and passed on his senior year at Wayzata to play for the Tri-City Storm in the USHL.  He had a good season and is ranked #132 by Central Scouting, a high enough ranking to be picked in this year’s draft.  As peewee A’s in the Wayzata Association’s program, Freytag was wing to Rem Pitlick’s center.  Max Zimmer led the second line out and Vaughan Ahrens (now with the Minnesota Magicians) was their goalie.  Freytag will skate next season at Wisconsin joining junior Grant Besse who preceded Freytag on the Wayzata peewee A team and who was drafted in the fifth round by Anaheim in last year’s draft.  Freytag is likely to go in the fifth round this year.   

8. Jack Becker-Becker had a great CCM-NIT tourney this spring.  Paired with Alex Adams/Grand Rapids, in the HP-18 Festival run-up, both players were taken on the Minnesota U18 team and paired again.  The U18’s went on to win the tourney.  Together, the two provided strong play on their line that would control play for periods of time in and around their opponent’s net.  The CCM-NIT championship win ended a good 2014-2015 season for Becker.  It started with a solid performance playing in the UMHSEL in the fall.  The 6’3” forward scored 9 goals (13 points) in 17 games for the Msp-St. Paul Magaziners and followed that posting 47 points/22 goals in leading Mahtomedi to a 21-2-2 regular season record and the Class A state tourney at the Xcel.  But Becker’s solid performance in the HP-18 Festival and CCM-NIT put his year over the top.  He is now ranked #164 among all North American forwards and has a good chance of being drafted.  Adams, another strong player, is not eligible for the draft until next year.  He is three months younger than Becker with September 15 in the middle of those three months.

9. Mason Bergh-In Bergh’s junior and senior years at Eden Prairie, he was their #3 scorer behind Steve Spinner and Luc Snuggerud.  Spinner was rated #96 by the scouts prior to the 2014 draft and drafted #159 by the Washington Capitals; Snuggerud was rated #42 and was drafted 141 by the Chicago Blackhawks.  The 6’ Bergh has spent the last two seasons playing for the Chicago Steel.  He has a good first season, but last season, combined with Fredrik Olofsson (60 points) to lead the Steel offense.  Bergh posted 61 points/21 goals in 54 games.  Olofsson was drafted in 2014 by the Chicago Blackhawks.  Bergh, the ninth leading scorer in the USHL last year, will be playing for Colorado College next fall.

10. Karson Kuhlman-In 2010-2011 and 2011-2012 seasons, his freshman and sophomore seasons,  Kuhlman was the #2 and #1 scorer for the Cloquet-Esko-Carlton’ varsity team.   He left Cloquet to play the 2012-2013 season for Dubuque after being drafted by the Dubuque in the fourth round of the USHL’s Phase I draft.  He struggled his first season at Dubuque, but had a solid second season in 2013-2014.  Last year, Kuhlman scored 18 points/8 goals for UMD playing Division I hockey.  Kuhlman, a 1995 born, will likely go in in his second eligible draft (he was first eligible for the 2014 draft missing the 2013 draft cutoff by 10 days).  Kuhlman should be stronger and more mature in his sophomore season at UMD next fall.

Sentimental Pick

Tyler Sheehy-The fortunes of players as they develop swing up and down.  Sheehy passed on his senior year at Burnsville and joined the USHL Waterloo Blackhawks for the 2013-2014 season.  He skated the past two seasons in the USHL and posted 104 points/39 goals in 118 games playing mostly for the Blackhawks.  He was traded at the end of last season to Youngstown.  If he had finished this past season with Waterloo, he would likely have led the Blackhawks in scoring.  Tyler was always a top goal scorer.  He led the UMHSEL in scoring in 2013.  Sheehy is especially proficient around the net.  Sheehy, like Boeser, is a product of Minnesota Hockey and the Burnsville Association.  Both were coached by the same bantam A/AA and peewee A/AA coaches at Burnsville (Pat Madigan/Bantam and Brandon Steege/peewee).  Somewhere in the past two years, Sheehy’s ability has been cast totally differently by scouts.  Instead of being a skilled player, he has determination.  At YHH we have seen his ability over and over again through his development at Burnsville and don’t agree.  At YHH, we think he could be a sleeper in this year’s draft.  Sheehy will play for Minnesota next fall.  He will join fellow recruits, forwards Jack Ramsey (Pentiction Vees), Tommy Novak, Ryan Norman (Shattuck-St. Mary’s), and Brent Gates (USHL/Green Bay).  The Gophers will graduate six forwards off their current roster leaving 4-5 openings in their offensive.  Sheehy will have his opportunities playing for the Gophers.