Recruiting Season, Part 2

Wait and Mittelstadt to the Gophers, more commitments

For my second recruiting column, I’ve decided to take a look at some of the biggest commitments out of the State of Hockey this fall.

Starting with the Gophers, who picked up two top talents. One is Garrett Wait, a gifted Edina native who I highlighted in my first column and currently leads the Hornets varsity squad in scoring. While Wait is a playmaker who can bury, the Gophers also landed an elite finisher from that ’98 age group in one of Wait’s rivals: Eden Prairie sophomore forward Casey Mittelstadt.

The reigning Bantam of the Year award-winner, Mittelstadt absolutely torched Minnesota’s bantam loop as a late-1998 and has more than proven his ability to get the puck to the back of the net. He has a quick, dangerous release and adds another talented scorer to the Gophers loaded pipeline.

Minnesota State landed my personal pick for Elite League MVP, Elk River’s Jake Jaremko, a hard-working forward who unveiled a serious skillset this fall. The staff at Mankato has continued to prove that they are shrewd recruiters who can win over talented prospects within the state’s borders.

Last season, it was clear Jaremko could produce — he was constantly plugging away and a natural at finding soft spots in the zone offensively — but he really broke out this fall. Exuding confidence, Jaremko is light on his feet and dances around the zone to find opportunities to pass or bury it himself. He may be on track for next fall or could be bound for junior.

Hill-Murray stand-out defenseman Jake Olson, who had previously committed to Michigan Tech, flipped to Harvard early this fall which makes sense in a lot of ways. For one, Olson had emerged as a very high-profile skater as he moved into his draft year, and there is a dearth of talent that are eligible to play in the Ivy League on defense. The 6’3 private school product was a logical target for the Crimson and should be a stellar defensive force in the ECAC in the years to come.

Connecticut worked the Benilde-St. Margaret’s pipeline in picking up one of the fastest-rising sophomores in the country when they landed a commitment from Benilde puck-mover Connor Mayer. The 5’9 sophomore came up from JV last year (BSM had a deep d-corps), made it to New York for Select 15s this summer — acknowledged as one of the top in his age group — and has four points on the year through four games for Benilde, tying him for fifth on the team.

A confident, fleet-footed skater with great passing ability and good shot selection, Mayer likely recognized that Benilde stars Johnny Austin and Spencer Naas have been leaned on heavily for UConn this year — both, as freshmen, are top five in scoring straight out of senior year — and opted to follow in their footsteps. It was a huge get for the Huskies, who are clearly focusing efforts on Minnesota and landed a player who likely will get a lot of interest over the coming years.

Mayer is a left shot who can play the right side extremely well and has excellent vision, and with his current size projects to be a player who will have a long college career. He has a good stick defensively and competes in the hard areas.

Just days before UConn secured a commitment from Mayer, another Hockey East program made in-roads with a top Minnesotan in Omaha AAA product Baron Thompson, a Lakeville native. At 6’4, 225 lbs, Thompson is a physical beast on the ice at the U16 level with a bullet of a shot and a mean streak. To call him intimidating would be an understatement. He was selected earlier this year by the WHL’s Victoria Royals and had a lot of people in the scouting fraternity assuming he would head that route, as usually teams won’t pick a player high in the draft if they don’t have much confidence in him coming.

In addition to that, let’s tell it like it is: at 6’4 with no shortage of sandpaper to his game, the 15-year-old forward has a game tailor-made for junior hockey and specifically, the Western league. So it seems pretty huge that the Black Bears have landed Thompson. Red Gendron’s staff in Orono also have a verbal commitment from Shattuck bantam stand-out Oliver Wahlstrom, a relentless offensive talent from Maine who is considered one of the best players in all of America.

To finish up, I’ll touch on a few of the names worth keeping a close eye on this winter. While Minnesota State landed Jake Jaremko, his offensive counterpart for the Elks (and this fall) is scorer Reggie Lutz, who is a talent in his own right and remains uncommitted. He had an injury-hampered year last season and is showing what he can do at 100% now.

Shattuck prep forward Grant Mismash, an Edina native who I highlighted before, and Luverne star forward Jaxon Nelson, who I also noted in that first column, both remain uncommitted and have been off to great starts this year offensively. Nelson is going to be a closely-watched WHL draft target this winter.

Some other names that will be well-known WHL prospects this season are big Minnetonka high school forward K’Andre Miller (who can also play defense), Mounds View bantam defenseman Peter Harrington (of Irondale), as well as Grand Rapids bantam forwards Blake McLaughlin and Gavin Hain.

There’s a strong group of uncommitted defensemen in-state, highlighted by big, athletic Blake defenseman Myles Cunningham and highly mobile forward-turned-defenseman Clayton Phillips, who is skating for Edina’s varsity as a sophomore. Three towering defensemen with great upside include Lakeville South sophomore Nate Knoepke, Duluth East freshman Luke LaMaster, and draft-eligible Warroad senior Luke Jaycox. They all compare favorably to many of the remaining uncommitted prospects across the country.