2013 goalie commit Eamon McAdam, a Perkasie, PA native currently with the USHL's Waterloo Black Hawks, has been named to the inaugural CCM/USA All-American Hockey Prospects Game. The game, designed to showcase 40 American players eligible for the 2013 NHL Entry Draft, will be played September 29th at the First Niagara Center in Buffalo, NY.
McAdam was one of 28 NCAA Division I commits selected, so this game will definitely be a nice glimpse of how a future Penn Stater stacks up with commits to programs like Boston College (four commits selected), Denver (four), North Dakota (two) and Cornell (one). Big Ten rivals will be well represented, led by five from Michigan: G Jared Rutledge, D Mike Downing, F Evan Allen, F J.T. Compher and F Tyler Motte (of course, the way things go for them, only one of those guys will actually make it to Ann Arbor). Minnesota adds F Taylor Cammarata, a teammate of McAdam's with Waterloo.
Tickets for the game range from $15-20 and are available here.
McAdam, a big goalie that combines an 81" wingspan with good skating ability, was 11-7-0 with the Black Hawks last year, mostly in spot-start duty. The Team Comcast product committed to Penn State last July despite interest from Boston University and Ohio State and despite his being selected by the London Knights in the fourth round of the 2010 OHL draft. He becomes the third PSU commit to participate in a major draft showcase game, following D Mark Yanis and F Zach Saar, who played in the USHL/NHL Top Prospects Game in January.
The prospects game will actually be the culmination of an even busier than normal off-season for McAdam, who will enter this season as the Black Hawks' starter. Waterloo is set to participate in the second-ever Junior World Cup from August 18th through 26th in Omsk, Russia, meaning, of course, that chances to watch McAdam play against top competition will not be in short supply over the next two months.
Chris Peters, who is on top of anything having to do with USA Hockey, offered this analysis of the game's larger context:
A lot will change over the course of the season as many of these players will rise and fall throughout the year, but by being selected to this game, the players participating will have a great opportunity to make an early statement in their all-important draft-eligible season.As someone who is eagerly awaiting that first NHL draft pick of a Penn Stater while committed to or playing for Penn State (with all due respect to Max Gardiner), that's music to my ears.
I hate to be "that guy," but I have to mention that Mike McCarron decommitted from Michigan State and committed to Cornell. John McCarron, Mike's brother, plays for Cornell and the two wanted to play two years of college hockey together and after watching Cornell beat Michigan (with John opening scoring against the flagship university of their home state), Mike decided that he wanted to play for the Big Red. Mike McCarron tweeted about it (I cannot find that right now), but here is Heisenberg's listing that has Mike McCarron listed as a Cornell commit: https://spreadsheets0.google.com/a/cornell.edu/spreadsheet/pub?hl=en&key=0AoPLTHefMmmTdGloMlVHTFFGNldvRHR3aG9naW82cEE&hl=en&gid=4
ReplyDeleteI tweeted USA Hockey, but they have not updated it yet. I am excited that there are both Cornell and Penn State prospects on the teams.
You never have to apologize for being "that guy" with me! I thought I remembered seeing McCarron's name in the news lately, I thought maybe a major junior defection, but I trusted the press release. It'll be fixed in the post about 30 seconds after this goes up.
DeleteIt just seemed pedantic. Yeah, I am not sure how I feel about the whole decommittment thing, but within one season Cornell will have three McCarrons (John and Mike, and an unrelated Patrick). That should be fun. John made a lot of college hockey world news during the press conferences before the 2012 Midwest Regional because the Michigan-based media would ask him how it felt to play against UM being a Michigan resident, and he said that it was fine by him because his family was more fond of Sparty. Michigan State under Anastos is becoming one of my favorite programs that I am not affiliated with directly.
DeleteI think it is a good sign for GG's recruiting skills when Penn State is tied in its early recruiting classes with the number of prospects who represent Minnesota and has more than Michigan State and Wisconsin. Sure, Michigan has the most with five, but how many will they get to don maize and blue? Michigan makes a habit of losing recruits to the OHL. That's why I am not sure how good Rutledge is from the stats I have examined from his international play but I feel that after the Campbell fiasco, it seems that they are afraid to go after goalie prospects that are "too good" out of fear of getting burned. Do you think that GG will be able to screen out those players so that he knows that a commitment is a real commitment to play?
There's no doubt that we're getting a whiff of prestige a little earlier than most people probably expected. Guys like McAdam, Kerr, Marsh and Yanis have been USAH Selects invites, Kerr was considered for the NTDP, obviously I just mentioned that McAdam, Saar and Yanis have played/will play in major showcase games, Thompson was a Flyers development camp invitee, Loik and Milley have won RBC Cups, while Glen won a couple of AJHL titles. I also put a lot of stock in guys like Juha and Skoff, who were committed to major-conference programs, which is a few steps above "interest from" a few AHAs and maybe one other. Several guys have been drafted reasonably high by the CHL. It's nice knowing that you have guys who could have played somewhere else (besides DIII or similar, of course). I'm not sure how much of that I expected before our first DI game, but it was probably something less than all of that. I suppose two of the last remaining milestones are "lose a commit to the CHL" and "drafted by the NHL while associated with PSU." Like I said in the post, no disrespect meant to Max Gardiner, I just think the way we pulled our first NHL pick was anticlimactic. I want to see a guy I've already been following called in late June.
DeleteI really do think there's a lot to be said for "recruit well, but not TOO well." Chuck Schwartz, who writes about Wisconsin for their SB Nation blog, always bellyaches about how sick his team would be if they kept people for four years. I've seen NoDak do the same. I'm not sure I want to be in that position - I think there's a legitimate argument to be made that four-year "B" guys are preferable to having to reload your "A" guys every single year. Really, that probably does explain a lot of Wisconsin's inconsistency, and I'm not sure that more than four or five programs can see consistent success that way. Michigan and Minnesota are probably the only Big Tens that can get away with that.
What will Gadowsky do? Tough to say, because he's never really been in a position to attract the top, top guys before, either because of program prestige, academic standards, or both when talking about Princeton. My guess is that he sticks with what he knows, and hopefully the improved talent level he's able to pull at PSU vs. Princeton is enough to compete with the high-end programs eventually.
I've said this before, but the thing that blows my mind with the whole Jacob Trouba saga: even if he goes to Michigan, he probably never plays against Penn State. I'm just not sure that's a recipe for success unless you're a program that's been to 20+ NCAA tournaments in a row.
Love Michigan State. Classy, accessible coach, good program on their way up. I know they'll always have "big brother" foremost on their minds, but hopefully we can develop a friendly "rivalry" with them. I feel horrible about ripping the Anastos hire on here at the time, but it would be intellectually dishonest to delete the post haha.
Take down the Paterno quote. Show some class.
ReplyDeleteSomeday I hope to have as much class as you, anonymous blog commenter who implicitly calls people he or she doesn't know classless. Unfortunately, today is not that day.
DeleteThe university removed his statue because they felt it was the right thing to do. I didn't say you were classless, I said it would show some class. Let's both let it go, I expressed my opinion, and you yours. I'm a Pen State Hockey fan, regardless, and that's what your blog is about - and you do a great job.
ReplyDeleteYou said "show some class" and take it down, which to me is a clear implication that by not doing so, I'm being classless on some level. I don't think that's an invalid interpretation, but thanks for clarifying.
DeleteThe university has their take on things, you have your take on things, and I have mine. All are valid, since it's pretty much a matter of opinion/interpretation (and yes, I do realize my opinion is in the clear minority). I'll leave it there, because I do this largely as an escape from all that and I don't really wish to discuss that stuff when I don't "have" to in the form of a hockey tie-in. Suffice it to say that I'm not taking it down. If I'm ever subverting my feelings to public pressure - either about this or about a more innocuous issue like my opinion of a player or something along those lines - I'd rather not do this blog, simple as that. It's a hobby (granted, a pretty involved one), and if I can't be completely honest about how I feel, I don't really see the point in doing it.
Regardless, I certainly respect your opinion, and as I said, you're certainly not alone in feeling that way. Thanks for the compliment on the blog, always appreciated!