Penn State
has announced that four new recruits have joined Jake Friedman and Tim Carr in the class of 2011: forwards Chris "Creek" Lewis, Forrest Dell and Dan Meiselman, as well as defenseman Peter Sweetland.
Since I haven't figured out the best way to cover recruiting yet, let's just stick with the
"toss everything I can find against a wall" approach, first used with Carr and Friedman. No YouTube this time, which I suppose means that these four all have well-adjusted parents. Take the good with the bad.
Peter
Sweetland
Defenseman
Green Mountain Glades (EJHL)
6'2", 205 pounds
Newtown, PA
EJHL Player Page
Sweetland's 24 points (3-21), were tops among Glades defensemen as the team advanced to the EJHL playoffs, where they fell in the first round to Friedman's South Shore Kings. On December 9th, he had a season-high three points (1-2) in a 4-3 defeat at the hands of those same Kings. We probably could have used him on the power play last season, as exactly half of his points (1-11) came with the man advantage.
Back in October 2009, Sweetland
was named EJHL rookie of the week by HockeyBarn.com. Here's what his blurb says:
Pete had back to back two-assist games for the Stars this past weekend in their split with Apple Core. After being All-League last year in the Empire League, Pete is starting to really understand the intricacies of the game at the EJHL level. Three of his assists this weekend were highlight-reel back door feeds. Pete is a solid student with a 3.5 GPA and continues to get better every week. His grades and upside are attracting significant interest from Division One schools.
Can't wait to see how he's developed since then.
Dan
Meiselman
Forward
Capital District Selects (EJHL)
6'2", 205 pounds
Winnetka, IL
EJHL Player Page
Meiselman was the Selects' leading scorer this season, with 36 points (23-13). What makes this especially impressive is that he did it in 34 games with the team after starting the season with the New York Apple Core. The Illinois native also knows a thing or two about how to finish a season, as he scored in 12 of CD's last 14 games (14 total goals), despite the fact that the team had little to play for, missing the playoffs with a last-place 6-36-2-1 record. And he has a pretty flattering write-up from USA Junior Hockey Magazine to his credit:
Meiselman started the year with the New York Apple Core, scoring two points in six games for Henry Lazar’s crew.
“They had just too many players there, and Danny came up and scored six points in nine games,” said Salfi.
Meiselman, a 1990-born forward from Winnetka, Ill., is a good student, scoring over 2000 on his SAT.
“I’m not sure what he wants to be, but at one time I thought it was an engineer,” said Salfi. “He was out visiting Penn State, which will be Division 1 in the future, but regardless it’s a great school, academically. Dan is one of those kids where you look at the scoresheet after the game and there’s his name [for a goal or assist].”
Offense is certainly the name of the game where Meiselman is concerned.
“He’s always been a guy who can find the net,” said Salfi. “He likes to shoot the puck, and that’s one of the hardest things to do today – to get kids to shoot the puck. He’s not a smooth skater. I believe he started hockey later [than most of his teammates], but he works all summer on it.”
Guess I should have known about him back in December, when that was published. Time to tweak the Google Alerts.
Forrest
Dell
Forward
New York Apple Core (EJHL)
5'11", 185 pounds
Evergreen, CO
EJHL Player Page
Between Friedman, Meiselman and Dell, Penn State has recruited three of the top 50 EJHL scorers from this past season. Dell held up his part of that statement with his 39 points (17-22) in 36 games, good for second on the Apple Core. Prior to his EJHL career, Dell played some Canadian Junior A, spending time in both the Saskatchewan and Manitoba Junior Hockey Leagues.
Season Team Lge GP G A Pts PIM
-------------------------------------------------------------
2008-09 Weyburn Red Wings SJHL 5 0 4 4 2
2008-09 Winkler Flyers MJHL 31 8 7 15 16
2009-10 Weyburn Red Wings SJHL 58 14 21 35 61
I did a Google Image search for each of these players, hoping for a solid action shot. Instead, I got an invite to the gun show.
 |
| It's not stalking if you get it from Google - standard operating procedure for these posts - and not straight from his Facebook page. That's the rule that I just made up. Wait, is that even him? |
Also, you don't run in hockey, you skate. First person to drop a "Run Forrest!" is persona non grata with me.
Chris "Creek"
Lewis
Forward
Boston Bulldogs (AtlJHL)
6'0", 215 pounds
Fort Covington, NY
AtlJHL Player Page
I think there's one question on everyone's mind here: is "Creek" one of those nicknames to be used in place of his first name, or is it just sort of a second-option type of thing? If I was a legitimate member of the media, that would be my first question for him. Whatever you want to call him, Lewis just finished a second straight stellar season with the Bulldogs, posting 92 (34-58) points in 44 games to follow up his 82 (32-50) in 2009-2010. His second-in-the-league 2010-2011 point total included back-to-back five-point games against the Laconia Leafs on December 19th and January 9th.
The Icers have a pretty extensive relationship with both the Bulldogs and the Atlantic League - Eric Steinour and
Josh Hand both played for highly-respected coach Mike Addesa. In fact, Steinour
captained the 2008-2009 Bulldogs, while Lewis
played 37 games for the team that season.
A couple thoughts on a big-picture level are in order. First of all, I like the fact that we've taken the "eastern" recruiting approach so far, although I'm sure it's just a result of Scott Balboni and Josh Hand both being eastern guys - the to-be-determined head coach will ultimately take things in his direction, of course. Regardless, I hope we can maintain a strong presence in the east to differentiate ourselves from the rest of the Big Ten, which slants towards the setting sun (in hockey terms). Turns out, the whole "we're on the Big Ten Network" thing isn't a valid recruiting pitch against Wisconsin.
Also, while a lot is made of the potential of current Icers to make the NCAA team, here's something a little more immediate to keep in mind: Penn State's departures following this past season were four forwards (Tim O'Brien, Marek Polidor, Chris Pronchik, Taylor Cera), a defenseman (Carey Bell) and two goalies (Teddy Hume and John Jay). In this 2011 class, we've now recruited four forwards (Friedman, Dell, Lewis, Meiselman), a defenseman (Sweetland) and a goalie (Carr). You don't have to be an RPI grad to do that math - there's going to be a squeeze on roster and lineup spots for 2011-2012 if we get any more recruits, and we probably will.
