The NHL Draft is less than two weeks away.
It figures to be a good one for UND.
Anywhere between five and 10 UND players or recruits could be selected at the two-day event in Vancouver.
The program record for a single year is nine in 1984. The second-most is seven in 2010, 2005 and 1982.
UND head coach Brad Berry will be in Vancouver watching his future players get selected. He'll be happy for the players who get picked, but he won't put too much stock into their draft position.
ADVERTISEMENT
"We're really excited about watching where they could get potentially drafted to and which teams," Berry said. "But the biggest thing we look at is that the draft is a measure of a point in time in someone's career. It's something every player wants to be a part of, but there's a lot of work that goes on after the draft. There are a lot of great stories at the draft -- people going high, people going lower -- but you can't get too caught up in it.
"You can control your own destiny in terms of what happens after the draft. Drake Caggiula is a good example. Troy Stecher, too. You can use that as motivation."
Caggiula and Stecher, key pieces on UND's 2016 NCAA national championship team, were both undrafted in all three years of their draft eligibility. They signed free-agent NHL deals after winning the national title in Tampa and are both currently in the NHL. Stecher plays in Vancouver's Rogers Arena, which is hosting the draft.
The 10 players who will be in the mix to get drafted are forward Shane Pinto, forward Harrison Blaisdell, forward Judd Caulfield, goaltender Cameron Rowe, goaltender Adam Scheel, defenseman Cooper Moore, defenseman Ethan Frisch, defenseman Luke Bast, forward Massimo Rizzo and forward Brendan Budy.
Scheel will be a sophomore at UND. PInto, Blaisdell, Caulfield and Frisch will be rookies in the fall. Rowe, Moore, Bast, Rizzo and Budy are expected to come in the fall of 2020.
"Each player has a little something different with their game and what they'll bring to the table for us," Berry said.
