Year 2 of CHL players brings college hockey it's largest talent boom ever
· Yahoo Sports
Oct. 2—GRAND FORKS — Last year, 18 NHL first-round picks played college hockey, the most ever.
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This year, there are 30.
That's more than the entirety of the 1990s.
College hockey has been reshaped significantly since it lifted the ban on Tier-I Canadian junior hockey players a little more than a year ago.
NHL prospects have flowed into college hockey like never before.
Two years ago, 233 NHL Draft picks played college hockey. Last year, college hockey set a record with 258.
This season, there are 326.
"I'm not sure on the exact percentage," UND coach Dane Jackson said, "but I think college hockey is one-third better, the level, than it was just a few years ago. The depth, the high-end, the overall competition is outstanding."
Rosters across the country are so loaded, one coach theorized that more than a dozen teams will enter the season believing this is the best squad they've ever had.
"It's going to make the margins even tighter and increase attention to detail, coaching, how certain players rise or fall in big moments," Denver coach David Carle said.
Schools with all sorts of different profiles are benefiting.
Michigan State, a Big Ten program with a massive athletic department, has nine NHL first-round draft picks on its roster, the most of any team in college hockey history.
Colorado College, a tradition-rich National Collegiate Hockey Conference program with a Division-III athletic department, has the highest number of NHL picks on its roster in program history (11).
The most recent NCAA national champions — Denver, Western Michigan and Quinnipiac — also have a program-record number of NHL picks on their rosters.
Lake Superior State, a Central Collegiate Hockey Association program with a small, Division-II athletic department, is bringing in five NHL picks this season — the highest number for an incoming class in program history.
"It's not just the blue bloods," said Sean Hogan, the executive director of College Hockey Inc. "It's across the board. Every team has gotten better. That's a good thing."
Forty-six programs have at least one NHL pick on their roster.
"As the Serratore brothers told us in Florida, if the CHL rule change occurs, it's going to give everybody a deeper access to players," Carle said, referring to Bemidji State coach Tom Serratore and Air Force coach Frank Serratore. "Parity is going to go up."
Carle pointed to last year's NCAA tournament, when Dartmouth made its first appearance since 1980 as a No. 2 seed while traditional powerhouse programs Minnesota, Boston University and Boston College missed the tournament.
"You're going to see more of that going into Years 2, 3 and 4," Carle said.
NCAA teams were more aggressive in recruiting Canadian Hockey League players in Year 2.
In 2025, 33.9% of the freshman class came from one of the three Canadian major junior leagues that make up the CHL — the Western Hockey League, Ontario Hockey League and Quebec Maritimes Junior Hockey League.
This fall, 46.8% of the freshman class is from the CHL.
NCAA schools pulled in more NHL prospects, too.
A year ago, 46 NHL picks went from the CHL to the NCAA. This fall, that number ballooned to 76.
"The natural path to the NHL is now through college hockey," Hogan said. "It makes sense based on what's offered. The athletes are older, bigger, stronger, faster. There are world-class coaches, world-class facilities. The student-athlete experience is like nothing in the world. There's no place like it."
NCAA teams also recruited younger players this summer.
Last year, 13.2% of the incoming CHL players had multiple years of junior hockey left. This year, 22.8% did.
The CHL boom has led to fewer American players in college hockey.
Americans make up 51.9% of Division-I men's rosters this season. It's the lowest number since 1973-74, around the time when the NCAA began phasing out Tier-I Canadian players.
There are several notable examples.
Omaha has just one American-born player on its roster.
Boston University has an all-Canadian freshman class for the first time in school history.
Bowling Green has as many Europeans as Americans.
"Everyone's trying to find their niche in this world," Minnesota Duluth coach Scott Sandelin said. "For our school, I don't think we're changing a whole lot. We're still in the process of trying to recruit kids who really want to play here, that really fit into what we're doing here."