Overshadowed?
How and why college hockey is losing its brightest stars early and often to the NHL

By Fiona Quick • photos by jim rosvold

The last high-round NHL draft pick to finish all four years of college at the University of Minnesota was Jordan Leopold. Since then, Paul Martin, Keith Ballard, Thomas Vanek, Phil Kessel, Ryan Potulny, Danny Irmen, Kris Chucko, Jim O’Brien, Alex Goligoski, Erik Johnson and now Kyle Okposo have left school with eligibility remaining, all rushing toward their goal of playing in the National Hockey League.  And they are not alone in that fast lane toward success.

Top NHL prospects leaving school early isn’t a new trend, however. It has happened to the Minnesota Gophers for several years. 

What is new, however, is the frequency of the departures, and how early players are leaving. The University of Minnesota isn’t the only school affected — WCHA teams have lost over 30 players to early departures over the last two years — but the recent midseason departure of Gopher forward Kyle Okposo has shone a brighter spotlight on the issue, especially at Minnesota, which can boast five top-round draft picks.

Today’s elite hockey player seems to be in quite a hurry to get to the next level and they are leaving college hockey in their dust.

“Everyone does seem to be in more of a rush,” said Scott Sandelin, head coach at the University of Minnesota, Duluth. “That is certainly happening not just at (the college) level, but you can see it in some of the youth programs, too.” 

USHL Chicago Steel assistant coach and former Gopher Jon Waibel agrees. “Kids are in a hurry; (but) to go where? That’s what I don’t understand.”

“Kids are in a bigger hurry than they were just a few years ago,” said University of Minnesota head coach Don Lucia.

So what are the factors contributing to the acceleration of a player through the hockey system and out of college so early?

One of the most significant impacts has been the growth of USA Hockey over the last decade. One of the catalysts for that accelerated growth can be attributed greatly to the brainchild of a college coach, Notre Dame head coach Jeff Jackson, who, with others, helped create the National Team Development Program in Ann Arbor, Michigan, in 1996.

Players like John-Michael Liles, Jordan Leopold, Keith Ballard and Rick DiPietro were among the early members of the USNTDP in Ann Arbor and were also amongst the first increased wave of U.S. players drafted by the NHL in higher rounds. 

In the last ten years the number of American-born players selected in the first two rounds of the NHL Entry Draft has grown 320%. There have been 141 players from the NTDP drafted by NHL teams since its inception, and almost two-thirds of the players selected in the last two NHL entry drafts have been American-born players. 

Those American players generally play for American colleges, and a large percentage of those players are Minnesotans. In 2007, eleven players selected in the first round of the NHL Entry Draft were college players or had committed to play in the NCAA, including Minnesota Gophers Patrick White, Jim O’Brien and Minnesotan Ryan McDonagh. 

“(The NTDP) has had a huge impact,” said Lucia, whose program has lost four players who had been products of the NTDP, to early departure in the past year. 

“The Development program was intended to help USA Hockey have better success at the World Junior Level.  They have had much greater success.  But what it also has done is accelerate the process of skipping grades, and players trying to move on to the next level maybe much more quickly than they would have, and it may have even created some internal competition (players thinking),  ‘how quickly can I get better?’,  ‘how quickly can I get into a school?’. 

“They’ve done what they set out to do and that is making the American player better,” he said. “But I don’t know that anyone anticipated the byproducts of it.”

A rule change in the NHL Entry Draft that allows players to now be drafted at age 18 rather than having to opt into the draft has also seemed to reduce the number of years a top NHL prospect stays in college.

“You used to have to opt in (to the NHL draft), and if you opted in you were ineligible for college. They changed that, and it became an 18-year-old draft, so kids are getting drafted before they get to college now. I think that is having an impact,” said Lucia.

The new Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) between the NHL and NHLPA signed following the lockout of 2005 is also having a significant impact on why college players are not staying to complete their college eligibility.


Ben Hankinson is a former University of Minnesota defenseman who is now a prominent sports agent with Octagon Worldwide.  He explained why the new CBA is affecting early departures so greatly.

“Number one, NHL teams want to get their prospects in their systems faster because free agency is younger.  Free agency is at age 27, or seven years pro service. In the past they’d have these guys until they were 31 years old. Now, when (NHL teams) only have a player until they are 27, they want to get them into their system. 

“The other part is now college players can become free agents after their four years in school,” continued Hankinson. “So going into that senior year, if he doesn’t turn pro and goes back to college, the NHL team has until August 16th until he’s free. For college players, NHL teams don’t want them going back for their senior years, or even close to it, when the players would have the leverage to become free agents.” 

The influence of an NHL team on a drafted player is also becoming a major factor in whether a player remains in school or leaves early as there are some NHL teams that are more friendly to college hockey programs than others.

NHL teams want college players to learn an NHL-style of play and learn their systems earlier. And while some elite players like Paul Martin, Zach Parise, Jonathan Toews and Erik Johnson have been able to make an immediate transition into the NHL ranks, for many it is necessary to spend a year or two in the American Hockey League for seasoning. 

NHL teams are more prepared to accelerate entrance into the professional ranks by easing players through the minor league system first and then into the NHL because it is still cost effective for them to do so. That step between NCAA hockey and the professional ranks of the AHL is a significant one, and necessary by most accounts. 
Don Lucia differed, “To give up college to play in the ECHL or AHL — for me it doesn’t make much sense when you can continue to work on your degree and improve as a player.”  

But the prevailing opinion is that the AHL is a necessary step for all but the very elite player in order to play successfully in the NHL.

Said former Gopher Keith Ballard, who is now a starting defenseman for the Phoenix Coyotes, “The biggest adjustment I had was from college to the AHL. The season is longer, players are bigger, stronger, faster and smarter.”

Matt Koalska, who played four years at the University of Minnesota before he signed professionally with the New York Islanders, said the transition was immense for him.

“For me it was a huge wakeup call. In college there are good players; four or five top-end forwards and then it drops down. Guys are so much bigger and faster in the AHL,” said Koalska. “There are guys in the American League that have played there for up to 10 years. It’s a huge step.”

Former first-round draft pick Tom Chorske said that while the level of play may not be as big of a jump, the adjustment to professional life in the AHL is a requirement for most players. “I think they can handle the level of play,” he said. “It’s playing your best every single day, every single practice, because it’s now your job, it’s your career. In professional hockey they evaluate and hold you to a high standard every day,” said the former NHLer.

So instead of having the luxury of being patient and waiting a year or two for a young player to finish school after they are drafted, top prospects are being offered contracts to sign professionally earlier to speed up their professional development, or being told their drafting teams want them to develop outside their college system, creating a void of elite upperclassmen in college programs in Minnesota. 

Most agree that both the school and the player are losing out when so many players leave early. And the early departures can be disruptive to the team.

“You have kids that are torn away and you’ve lost some of your future captains and leaders on your team, and that has an impact,” said Lucia.

While Minnesota colleges are seeing the impact of the early departures, they are not the only ones feeling the pain.

“It’s a trickle-down effect, there’s no question,” said Coach Sandelin. “If we lose players early, then we have to go and take players earlier out of Juniors and then the Juniors have to get more players for their rosters out of high school. It’s kind of where we’re at right now.”

Lucia echoed the same sentiment: “The pros take from college, college takes from the USHL, and the USHL takes from high school.”

The WCHA has taken steps to address the issue, forming a committee to determine whether additional rule changes are necessary regarding a player’s eligibility, and perhaps attempting to lobby the NHL to revise some of the current terms of the CBA as they pertain to college players. 

But despite any rule changes, no one sees the trend of acceleration slowing anytime soon, and none see it as a positive for hockey.

“Unfortunately it’s evolving, and it will probably get worse before it gets better,” said Hankinson. “The coaches in college hockey want to win championships but kids are looking at colleges (in terms of) whether they are turning out NHL players. Because like it or not, kids are now seeing colleges as stepping stones to the NHL. I don’t think anyone plans on playing four years anymore.  It’s just a change in the times. The Jordan Leopolds are not going to come around as often.”

Lucia hopes that there will be a pendulum shift once this group of players drafted under the terms of the new Collective Bargaining Agreement has fulfilled their first contracts. “I do hope that it’s going to swing back a little in the coming years,” he said. “We’re waiting for the first cycle of all these early signings to see what is going to happen to these kids after their initial contract is up.  It will be interesting to see that in the next few years, if we can keep finding that support for the kids who are leaving that perhaps would have been better served by staying.”

For now it seems that Minnesota’s top players will continue to leave home early to play in the USHL or for the U.S. National Development Team and will continue to be drafted in the higher rounds of the NHL Entry Draft, and those players are likely to leave college with at least some eligibility remaining.  And if the trend continues, the number of those players will continue to increase.

Sandelin agrees. “The best line I ever heard was that some kids don’t enjoy the journey; they’re worried about the destination. To me that’s what it’s all about when you’re playing hockey, or anything. You’ve got to enjoy the journey, and the destination will be there whenever.  But everyone seems to want to get to the destination without enjoying the journey.”