Pavel Buchnevich
"Pavel Buchnevich The Fake"
Didn't see it would be this Fall.Potter accelerated his education to graduate HS a year early, he presumably wanted to play NCAA in his DY, Michigan State wouldn't bring him in this fall, Arizona State would.
That's kind of understandable from MSU's perspective. They have LVV waiting an extra year and he's a year older. But at the same time, losing out on Potter is big loss for them though. That's a true likely early pick. Bringing in someone like Vansaghi just because he's a few months older and bigger is stupid. Potter is two times the hockey player.
I don't know if this is beneficial for Potter. He's small and was only just starting to finally adjust to junior hockey towards the end of last season. NCAA will likely also be a big adjustment. He's very talented and I suspect at ASU he'll be fed top 6 and PP, but he could struggle his draft year. There haven't been that many playing their U18 season in the NCAA. Celebrini, Toews, Woods, Hanifin, Werenski, Poehling, Yan Kuznetov. Those are basically the only names I recognize since the turn of the century. His family is going to be paying a hefty buyout also to the NTDP, which is likely why we haven't seen this more over the years from some NTDP'ers. At the same time, if he puts up 1PPG or close to it in the NCAA, it'd put him right there for a top 5 selection, so high risk/high reward.
This is a big blow to the 2007's at the NTDP. I wonder if they'll bring in a big name who wasn't there this year to replace him. Potentially Simpson or Kevan, someone like that. Or they'll promote someone like Berchild early in the season. Because this team already wasn't a big "star power" team, and then lost probably their best offensive weapon.