This is the second in a series of periodic looks behind the scenes of the Denver hockey program. Special thanks to assistant coaches David Carle and Tavis MacMillan, as well as former coach Jim Montgomery, for their insight and assistance.

 

What does a prototypical Denver hockey recruit look like?

Six-foot-3? Skates like the wind? Hard, accurate shot? Otherworldy vision and hands? In other words, NHL first-round draft pick material?

It’s nice to think about a team full of Henrik Borgstroms, but that’s not how it works in the college hockey recruiting world.

What Denver values most is …

“First and foremost for us is hockey sense and compete level,” DU assistant coach Tavis MacMillan said. “You’re not always going to hit a home run. Sometimes you have to give a little to get a little. Size and skating are sometimes overvalued in the scouting fraternity.”

MacMillan, who joined the Pioneers before the 2015-16 season, is in an excellent position to know. He spent nearly a decade scouting for the Atlanta Thrashers/Winnipeg Jets franchise. That was after 10 years on the coaching staff at Alaska-Fairbanks, including three as head coach.

His tag-team partner on the recruiting path has been fellow assistant coach David Carle, who joined former coach Jim Montgomery’s staff midway through the 2013-14 season.

“The first thing we look at is on-ice play and how their hockey sense is,” Carle said. “It’s not all size and skating. And that holds true for all positions.

“Evan Janssen wasn’t a beautiful player, but he played fast because he’s smart. (Jake Durflinger) Durf isn’t a great skater but he’s going to do well because of how he sees the game and he’s ultra-competitive. On the other hand, Adam Plant’s a beautiful skater and Dylan Gambrell is a good skater. Schools were after them. A lot of teams didn’t recruit Durf or Janny, but we saw how they could fit.

“It just shows you everyone recruits differently.”

The off-ice dynamic stands just as important as what a potential Pioneer can bring on game nights.

“I think it starts with the type of kids we recruit and the families they come from,” Carle said. “If (families) hold their sons accountable, they’re going to succeed in our environment. We’re trying to find like-minded families and individuals who can continue to drive our culture in a sustaining way.”

MORE: Go inside the Pioneers on a weekend during the season

Winning doesn’t hurt

DU has been on quite a heater over the past five seasons, advancing one round further in the NCAA tournament every year from 2014-17 – culminating with winning the whole enchilada in 2017 – and reaching the elite eight for the fourth season in a row this year. Has all the winning helped?

“Winning has certainly helped,” Carle said. “Our first two years it was more challenging, but recruiting right now is in a great spot.

“Winning and the addition of Tavis. His ability to build relationships is incredible.”

What MacMillan found, however, was a different animal than what he encountered during his NHL-focused travels.

“It’s given me a better understanding in projecting, but it’s different,” he said.  “In the pros you’re scouting 17-year-olds and trying to foresee what they’ll be at 23 or 24. Now I could be recruiting an 18-year-old to play next year.

“In the NHL I had no other influence other than writing a report. In this job, you’re coaching and recruiting on a daily basis. It’s not as similar as you would think it is. Both jobs are different in different ways and rewarding in different ways.”

The Pioneers diverge from some top NCAA Division I programs in that they recruit players at all stages of their development, not just mid-teen phenoms, a projection that would be somewhat similar in duration to what an NHL scout might be looking at. Nearly all of DU’s prospects in the pipeline are playing junior hockey right now, according to an analysis of DU’s current recruits, or at least what is known about them via College Hockey Inc.’s recruit list and various media and social media reports.

“We’ve had a lot of success recruiting guys the fall before they were going to college – (Cole) Guttman (a 2018 commit), (Danton) Heinen, (Tanner) Jaillet, (Tariq) Hammond, and Borgstrom,” Carle said. “You have to have a balance and the flexibility to add guys who can help right away. Those are all guys who popped in their 19-year-old or 20-year-old year of junior hockey.

“We balance that with recruiting high-end young talent – Dylan Gambrell and Troy Terry were recruited some time before they came to DU. We don’t want to just do one or the other. We like the flexibility of doing both. That’s how you build the best teams.”

Added MacMillan, “We’re not just looking at Bantams (14 and under players), and we’re not just looking at juniors. We’re looking anywhere. There are players everywhere, you just have to look.”

The high-end recruits still have a place at DU. Just look further down the road to the fall 2020 and 2021 classes. The Pioneers have at least five known verbal commits to the 2020 class (they are 15 years old) and one to 2021 (he’s 14).

“Last year’s championship team only had three true freshman (who started school at 17 or 18) – Will Butcher, Evan Cowley and Troy Terry. Everyone else had played junior hockey,” Carle said. “If all you do is recruit young, we don’t think that’s a recipe for ultimate success. We like to surround them with older, more mature players. You need Colin Staubs, Evan Janssens and Matt Marcinews who can help the Butchers and Terrys.”

Carle and MacMillan do quite a bit of the heavy lifting on the road, traveling to games, tournaments, camps and showcases year round. They also man the phones day and night.

As MacMillan said, “Recruiting never sleeps.”

Where are they?

Although players can be found everywhere, the Pioneers shade strongly to the West, a fertile territory for players and one where they have a strong and lengthy imprint.

“It has more to do with Denver’s history than mine in Western Canada,” said MacMillan, an Alberta native who has spent virtually his entire career in the West. “DU has a rich history in B.C. and Alberta, and I’m talking the past 50 years. Geography plays a huge part in it. If we ran through names we’d be here all day.”

One look at the composition of the 2017-18 season roster bears out how heavily geography influences recruiting.

Ten players come from British Columbia or Alberta, five from Colorado and another four are from California. Add in a notable prospect from Washington state (Gambrell), and you have 20 of 27 players from the Pacific and Mountain time zones. The other seven hail from Finland (two), Illinois (one), Minnesota (three) and Missouri (one).

“We want to be strong in those areas,” Carle said. “It’s what Denver always has been. It’s not like we’re trying to re-invent the wheel. It’s not like we’re smarter than previous people. The blueprint was in place.”

What is the process?

Executing the plan starts with locating the players, and while the regions are familiar, this is an ever-changing talent pool we’re talking about.

“There are a multitude of ways we find players,” MacMillan said. “It could be one simple viewing, word of mouth, festivals, camps, the Internet. There are all kinds of powerful resources.

“Once you’ve created a network, you’re hearing about kids. And there is so much online it’s hard to miss out. But at the end of the day you have to go see these players.

“Nothing replaces a butt in the seat.”

Not all viewings might be equal, however.

“We start to identify and evaluate a new crop in the summer,” Carle said. “It allows you the opportunity to be watching hockey without the season going on. But ultimately it’s summer hockey, and to make a major decision in the summer is a risky proposition.

“We like to watch kids play with their teams, whether it’s junior, midget or high school.”

NCAA rules limit the timing and amount of contact schools can have with younger players, so the players’ coaches often become the first point of contact. This is where MacMillan’s experience and Carle’s growing resume – he’s been at DU on and off since 2008 and spent a year and a half in between as a USHL assistant – are particularly valuable. They know – and are known by – coaches. It was the same with Montgomery, who was a long time college assistant before he helped resurrect Dubuque’s USHL franchise into an annual Clark Cup threat.

“Usually we start off dealing with their coaches,” MacMillan said. “Then you’re starting the process – seeing them play, creating relationships. Depending on the interest level the process takes the next step or it doesn’t. But the core is relationship building, getting to know them as people as much as possible.

“Honesty is the easiest way to deal with things. Being personable up front. I don’t think it’s a secret. Maybe having a similar background helps, but I’ve done it long enough I’ve got an idea what works and what doesn’t. My own kids are about this age, so that helps, too.”

What sort of contact the program can have with a prospect is defined by NCAA rules. Once a home visit is allowed, that’s usually part of the equation.

“That depends on their age,” Carle said. “Ultimately, we’d like them to visit the campus, show them what Denver has to offer, how they fit in and how they can help us.”

And closing the deal?

“It’s so different player to player and family to family,” Carle added. “Everyone’s timeline is different. We’ve had some commit during a visit, some six months later.”

Once a player has committed to DU and even signed his NLI, the process continues.

“For our staff it’s maintaining relationships with the kids and communicating with them about their game and with them as people,” Carle said. “I think Tavis talked to Bill Mitchell (father of defenseman Ian) once a week. Once a kid commits, we don’t stop talking to them. In today’s world you have to communicate and build that trust so they know what they’re getting.”

Tales from the road

Sometimes a prospect falls into your lap, sometimes you find out about him through a chance encounter and other times you have to convince a player the time is right to go to college. Here are three examples of players who committed long after history now tells us they should have.

In June of 2015 Colin Staub was one day away from beginning basic training at the Air Force Academy when an eye exam revealed he had keratoconus, a degenerative eye disease. Falcons coach Frank Serratore worked every connection he could think of in his massive Rolodex, finally finding a solution just up Interstate 25 in Denver.

“He came to us in July, and we knew we were getting a great kid,” MacMillan said. “The player we’ve gotten has exceeded our expectations. He’s turned into a great college hockey player and is a big reason we’ve won a national championship.”

Also that June Carle was sitting on a flight to Chicago to watch his older brother Matt, a Hobey Baker Award winner for the Pioneers, play for Tampa Bay in the Stanley Cup Final in 2015. As it happened, David Carle sate next to family friends of the Borgstroms.

“They told me, ‘There’s some great Finnish players you have to come and watch,’“ Carle recalled. “I said, ‘Absolutely. I’d love to.’

“Tavis had seen Henrik play that summer for about 10 minutes and then he got hurt. … I went over that fall and watched Henrik play twice and talked with him and his father. And we stayed on him; the communication never stopped. It came down to us and BU (Boston University). In April (of 2016), Henrik decided to come to Denver.

“I was in Finland (earlier this season) and I stayed at his family’s house. They are really good people, and Henrik reflects that. If there are little kids practicing (at the Joy Burns rink) he will stay on the ice an extra half hour to shoot with them. When he gets home, he’ll go to his dad’s ice rink and play pickup hockey with anyone. He loves the game and he loves people.”

Added MacMillan, “We knew he was good, but did we think he was going to be as special as he’s been? We didn’t have the familiarity.

“(Fellow Fin) Jaakko (Heikkinen) is such a high character kid who plays the game the right way. He’s made a great adjustment to college hockey in part because Nicky (Borgstrom) has been helping him.”

Then there was Danton Heinen, who didn’t want to come to DU in 2014 – not because he didn’t want to honor his commitment, but because the now Boston Bruin wasn’t sure he was ready.

“We had to convince him he would be in situations where he would have success,” Carle said. “He wanted to go back to the BCHL.”

Suffice to say, he was ready. Heinen burst on the scene with 45 points in 40 games as a freshman and won the NCHC Rookie of the Year award.

“We knew Danton would be good, but I didn’t think Danton would be as good as he was two weeks into the season,” Carle said. “If you recruit kids who are smart hockey players and compete, they can usually assimilate themselves to any level of hockey.

“You can hide some of the other stuff that other people see if they’re smart and they compete. People were worried about Will Butcher’s skating. He can play in the NHL because he has an elite hockey brain. We knew Danton had a special brain.

“These guys are special players, but they’re special people. We’re thrilled they’re doing well in the NHL. And of course it reflects well that Will came here and stayed all four years.”

That’s why it pays to be persistent and play until the whistle in the recruiting game. You never know if you’ve got the next locker room leader, a Hobey Baker Award winner or an every night NHL player on your hands.

It also illustrates why DU is back to being one of the nation’s top college hockey destinations.

©First Line Editorial 2017-18