When it was time for JJ Monteiro to decide on the next step in his hockey career last season, juniors was the obvious choice. The Hudson, Mass., native had become a dominant player for Mount St. Charles’ 16O squad before committing to Providence College.
It just came down to which junior league it would be.
Monteiro, then a 17-year-old, was chosen by the Waterloo Black Hawks in the fifth round of the 2022 USHL Phase 1 Draft. Packing his bags for Waterloo seemed like the logical next step.
But the Black Hawks had nine forwards returning from the 2022-23 roster. There was one 2003-born player, two ’04s, four ’05s and two ’06s. All would look for elevated roles the following season, especially the ’03s, ’04s and ’05s. Not to mention the new players coming in for spots, too.
Monteiro, an ’06, didn’t want to enter juniors and see limited minutes — he wanted a good role. Those years are too important to be spent on the bench.
“You don’t want to get buried in your first year of juniors,” Monteiro said.
The place that offered the best role turned out to be the Salmon Arm Silverbacks in the BCHL.
“They reached out and said that I’d have an opportunity to become a big part of a team,” Monterio said. “And that’s what I wanted — to be a big part of a team.”
Last June, the BCHL moved away from Hockey Canada, which loosened restrictions and created opportunities for players outside of British Columbia to join teams. And yes, of course, the USHL is the premier junior league in the United States.
But one of the biggest reasons for the logjam of players Montero saw on the Waterloo roster have been the changes to the transfer portal and COVID-19 fifth-year seniors that the NCAA has made in recent years.
“Kids are getting pushed back,” Maine assistant coach Alfie Michaud said.
That has its good and bad.
Getting squeezed out
The COVID-19 pandemic wreaked havoc on the 2020-21 men’s college hockey season. As a result, the NCAA granted an extra year of eligibility to players who competed during that campaign.
In 2021, the NCAA adopted a new rule that allowed players to transfer and not have to sit out for one full season.
Just this year, the NCAA eliminated the limits on how much an academically eligible player can transfer during their college career.
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That’s led to the transfer portal becoming college hockey’s version of free agency. Since March 1, 322 players entered, which is a record.
Of those 322, 154 are players with fifth-year eligibility looking for new homes. Pre-COVID, those players wouldn’t be taking up roster spots — those spots would be going to incoming freshman recruits.
Therefore colleges have looked to plug holes in their lineups with fifth-year players from the transfer portal.
“If you look at the guys we brought in this year, we’ve added four fifth-year players,” Providence College assistant Joel Beal said. “And even in years past, we’ve been heavily reliant on going into the transfer portal for fifth-year guys versus adding underclassmen.”
The Friars are far from the only ones doing this. Who wouldn’t?
“If teams get an opportunity to take a fifth-year senior who’s proved themselves at the college level or a freshman who can play another year of junior, they might pick the fifth-year guy over the guy who can go back and play junior,” Monteiro said.
Monteiro knows he needs another year of juniors anyway. He doesn’t know where his next stop will be. But many on his team who were planning on heading to college didn’t know whether or not they were going as late as mid-May.
“A lot of people on our team don’t know if they’re going in or not,” Monteiro said. “They only will know once the transfer portal closes on May 14. It’s kind of hard as a player to just focus on your own game when you don’t know where you’re playing next year.”
The other side of that is players who normally would move from juniors to college have to stay in juniors. That’s had its upsides, especially for the Penticton Vees in the BCHL.
The Vees won the Fred Page Cup in 2021-22. Fred Harbinson, the team’s president, general manager and head coach, has been with the team since 2007. He knows what to typically expect turnover-wise from a team like that — six or seven guys return while the rest move on.
Not that year.
“All of a sudden we had 14 players return from a championship team,” Harbinson said. “Most of it was due to a snowball effect where one or two guys that thought they were going to college were told, ‘Hey, you can come but we’ve got a couple extra fifth-years who’ve decided they’re going to stay,’ or, ‘We picked up a few transfers.’
“So one or two of (our guys) decided they were going to stay (in Penticton). Then, all of a sudden, the other guys said, ‘Well, if you’re going to stay, I’m going to stay.’ ”
The Vees went on to repeat as champions in 2022-23.
“It had a lot to do with all of their college programs saying, ‘Well, you can come, but we’re a little jammed up now,’ ” Harbinson said.
The USHL has seen this trend, too. While some players are staying behind, others who’ve moved on to college are sometimes coming back.
“It’s created a little more instability in that you may lose a guy (to college) because someone (at that college) enters the portal,” Sioux City Musketeers general manager Sean Clark said. “Or you may get a guy back because the team picks somebody up in the portal. I think it goes both ways where you lose a guy or you may get a guy.
“I think more so than anything it’s created a little more instability in our level.”
This is the last year for fifth-year seniors. Once the book closes on the 2024-25 season, no players in college will have played during that 2020-21 campaign. The instability will be gone, leaving college teams without the ability to add veterans.
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“We’re either going to have to kind of adjust how we’ve used the portal and maybe look at adding more underclassmen,” Beal said, “or not look to the transfer portal for as many players because I think there’s going to be a lot less players available.”
While the fifth-year seniors will be gone, one trend is here to stay.
Staying in juniors longer
Junior hockey has evolved. There was a time when New England players went straight from prep school to NCAA Division 1 hockey, while Midwestern prospects were the only ones to suit up for USHL teams. Those days are in the rear view.
Now, junior hockey, whether it’s the USHL, BCHL, NAHL or NCDC, isn’t just a must for players looking to step in and make an impact at the college level — it must be mastered first.
“If you’re not one of the best players on your (junior) team, you’re not going to walk into a college situation and be one of the best players here,” Michigan State associate head coach Jared DeMichiel said. “Most colleges, if you prove it in junior hockey, they’re going to be super excited for you to go into school.
“But if you’re not proving it in junior, you’re not going to come in. You need more time. You haven’t dominated that level. And that’s totally fine.”
When the NCAA granted players a fifth year of eligibility, it created a backlog of players in juniors that stretched four seasons.
But when the NCAA lifted the rule of players having to sit out a full year after transferring, and then recently ruled players could transfer multiple times, colleges have been forced to re-think how they want to bring in recruits.
“I think it’s very hard now as a coaching staff to have players who maybe aren’t in the lineup every game and have players who aren’t seeing the minutes maybe they think they expect,” Beal said. “It’s hard as a coaching staff now to keep those players for multiple years and watch them improve and get better in your system and your structure and then become full-time players as juniors or seniors.”
Players have been impatient in past seasons. They don’t want to waste time watching their school play from the stands. After all, college is only four years. The transfer portal will be calling their name if they’re not getting the playing time they think they deserve.
However, that’s also coincided with players wanting to enter as true freshmen. Nowhere has that been more true than at the U.S. National Team Development Program.
“We deal some players on the NTDP and those kids are good about it, but there’s very much a culture of you’ve got to be a true freshman,” DeMichiel said. “Everyone talks about the first-round draft picks and their success in college hockey. But look at the rest of the players on those NTDP teams that aren’t those high-end draft picks. Most of them are having single-digit point seasons or they’re not playing in every single game.
“Was it really the best thing for your development to rush to college just because your other NTDP teammates are doing that?”
Players recognizing the benefits of staying in juniors longer isn’t anything new. But it got momentum from the trickle-down effects of the NCAA adding the fifth-year eligibility and changing transfer rules.
“It’s been a slow trend,” Waterloo Black Hawks general manager Bryn Chyzyk said. “The fact is slowly and slowly there have been more kids doing it. I think it’s a realization of agents and families that it takes away a lot of the risk of enrolling as a freshman because you know when you’re ready. I’ve seen a trend, but it’s been a slow burn over the past 10 years of people catching on to it and realizing it.”
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That slow trend hasn’t just made its way into players staying in juniors longer. It’s also impacted the mindset of some who don’t mind not playing as much as freshmen once they get to college.
“I was talking to one of my teammates and his view on it is he doesn’t even care about his first year in college,” Monteiro said. “He just wants his last two to be great so he can sign that pro contract.
"I feel like guys nowadays don’t want to be the best when they’re 14 or 15 years old anymore. They want to be the best when they’re 20 and 21 years old — when it really matters and counts.”
So, even when the fifth-year eligible players are gone, college hockey prospects still will stay in junior hockey even longer. That will continue to scatter the talent even more.
“I’ve never seen an overripe hockey player play at our level,” Michaud said. “I’ve definitely seen plenty of underripe ones.”
