‘There was just no precedent:’ The inside stories behind the start of the USNTDP
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Ryan S. Clark, NHL reporter
There was infighting within USA Hockey. There was a heated physical altercation over recruiting a player. There was the agent who got fired for buying kegs and hiring exotic dancers to recruit teenagers.
There were parents who signed guardianship of their sons over to people they had never met. There was a boxing ring. There was a trip to Russia, where political protesters and armed soldiers surrounded a game’s rink.
Then there was the legacy that came from all those events.
The United States National Team Development Program has become well known among hockey fans. The NTDP, as it’s more commonly known, has become the proving ground for some of America’s top underage male talents before they reached the NHL.
In total, 91 first-round picks and 380 NHL draft picks have come through the NTDP since the program started in 1996 and began play in 1997. Those NHL players include Jack, Luke and Quinn Hughes; Patrick Kane; Auston Matthews; Seth Jones; Brady and Matthew Tkachuk; Tage Thompson; James van Riemsdyk; Trevor Zegras.
While those players and the program that helped foster their development have become familiar, the origin story behind the NTDP itself isn’t well known.
ESPN spoke with more than 20 people, including the NTDP’s creators, its first coaching staff and the players from the first class about the beginnings of a program that forever changed the face of men’s hockey in America.
“Even now, and it’s more than 20 years later, I have a 14-year-old son who plays with a phenom and I know that kid’s goal is to get invited to the NTDP,” said former NHL defenseman Jordan Leopold, who was part of the NTDP’s first class. “That was nice to hear and it validates what the program is supposed to be. If you want to get there and take advantage of the opportunity, you can do a lot.”
AN OVERALL LACK of international success forced USA Hockey to confront why it was struggling to even reach the podium, let alone win tournaments. The U.S. combined for three podium appearances between the IIHF U20 World Junior Championships and the IIHF Men’s World Championships from 1981 to 1996.
Ron DeGregorio, a former USA Hockey president who was involved with USA Hockey in numerous roles for more than 40 years, said they wanted to find a national team coach to work with high-performing players and accelerate their development.
That coach would oversee the national junior team, the men’s national senior team and be an assistant for the men’s Olympic team for the 1998 Games, the first year the NHL allowed professionals to play at the Olympics.
They hired Lake Superior State University head coach Jeff Jackson.
Jackson was an assistant who took control of the Lake Superior State program at the start of the 1990-91 season and turned it into a national powerhouse. The Lakers reached six straight NCAA tournaments, advanced to three national title games and won two championships.
Jackson said he wasn’t looking to leave LSSU. But he was drawn to the new job due to USA Hockey’s need to improve upon its poor results at international competitions.
He knew from personal experience, having coached the USA at the 1995 World Juniors, where the team struggled due to a lack of continuity between players. Jackson described it as “one of the most disheartening experiences” of his career.
DeGregorio said Jackson came up with the concept that became the NTDP. Jackson presented USA Hockey with a plan: They would take the strongest American male talents between 16 and 18 years old and develop them into players who could excel at the next level.
Jackson said doing “it the right way” meant hiring a staff that could recruit players, find billet families (local families who players live with) and enroll the teenagers in high school. It also meant refurbishing the Ann Arbor Ice Cube. The Cube, which was the home of the NTDP until 2015, was already established, but the arena and USA Hockey worked together to add more space for the NTDP.
Jackson hired Michigan Tech head coach Bob Mancini and University of Maine interim coach Greg Cronin. He also hired Lake Superior assistant athletic director Scott Monaghan to be the program manager.
Jackson said the biggest unknown they faced in creating the NTDP was the number of people who spoke out against the program.
“Someone said to me that no one knew what we were doing. That’s not true,” said Mancini, who is now USA Hockey’s assistant executive director of hockey development. “It’s not that we didn’t know what we were doing. There was just no precedent.”
Jackson and his staff heard how the program should be a six-week summer course. Jackson said the only way to make change was if the NTDP were a year-round program with two teams separated by age in the form of a U-17 and a U-18 squad.
Jackson said there was infighting among different factions of USA Hockey, high school hockey and those at USA Hockey’s headquarters who were against doing a year-round program. There were states that held meetings with their high school associations about the NTDP. Herb Brooks, coach of the legendary 1980 U.S. Olympic Team, urged Jackson to not go through with the NTDP.
Leopold said he remembers going on a Minneapolis radio show and having one of the guest panelists criticize him for joining the NTDP.
“I was like, ‘Oh my gosh. What did I get myself into?'” Leopold said.
“We were fighting against it those first two or three years,” Jackson said. “When I left, I was almost broken at that time. It was that intense and negative. The kids never saw it and that was a positive.”
Being in Ann Arbor was also an issue. Mancini said the logic for using Ann Arbor as the home base is that it was centrally located. But he said there were college coaches who felt like the NTDP being in Ann Arbor was a recruiting tool for schools like Michigan and Michigan State.
The NTDP also threatened the traditional American development model. Cronin explained how, traditionally, a player stayed in one community until it was time to go to college. Even then, they could still be close to home by choosing a nearby school.
That approach provided a sense of community pride for those local programs. They saw the NTDP as a deviation from that.
“We were looked at like pirates and the bounty was the player,” Cronin said. “You spin it as, ‘It’s good for the country. It’s good for the kid and their development.’ They knew that. But it was also like, ‘We’ve had this kid in our program for 13 years and now you are going to take him?!'”
The caliber of player the NTDP recruited for the first U-18 and U-17 class included future NHL first-round picks Rick DiPietro, Ron Hainsey, Barrett Heisten and David Tanabe, along with players taken in the later rounds who reached the NHL such as John-Michael Liles, Brad Winchester and Leopold.
Mancini said his first real inkling that the NTDP had its detractors came when he had an altercation with an assistant coach of a Triple A hockey team.
“I was physically assaulted. I’ll never forget it was Andy Hilbert’s father, Scott, who had to come in and stand between us,” Mancini said. “He had to come and stop what was going on. That assistant coach saw me, walked around the rink and tried to physically remove me from the building.”
Hilbert joined the NTDP, became a second-round pick and played in more than 500 professional games between the NHL and AHL.
Jackson said recruiting players came with the challenge of competing against agents, major junior teams or even some colleges that may have wanted a player to develop elsewhere before coming to their school.
He remembers when a low-level agent held a party for 16-year-old players at an airport hotel where there were kegs and exotic dancers.
“The one positive thing for me with that airport hotel story is we had a young man, his name was Joe Goodenow on the U-18 team,” Jackson said. “His dad was the executive director of the NHLPA and all it took was one phone call and that agent got fired. But there are multiple stories like that. Some are funny and some are not so funny.”
AN ALL-CONSUMING ENVIRONMENT with daily practices, off-ice conditioning, strength training with the promise of playing better, older and more physically mature competition over the span of more than 80 games, all while meeting the grade-point average standards to remain eligible.
These were the main points pitched by the NTDP to recruit players.
“I played 100 games my senior year or something like that,” said Liles, a former NHL defenseman who played on the first U-17 team. “You’re playing junior, you’re playing out of your comfort zone. … You go from playing 45 games at prep school to anywhere between 80 to 95 games and playing against amazing competition.”
Enter Daniel and Henrik Sedin.
Leopold said Minnesota high school hockey had good competition. But it was nothing like facing the Sedins at international tournaments. Brett Henning recalled receiving specific instructions about what to do against the Sedins on a faceoff — only to have the plan fall apart.
“There were eight seconds left on a D-zone draw and Jeff said, ‘Whatever you do, don’t let them win the draw,'” said Henning, who was drafted by the New York Islanders. “I don’t remember all the details but I remember [Henrik] tapped it through my legs and they scored. Jeff said to me, ‘That was the exact opposite of what I wanted you to do.'”
Watching the Sedins left Liles thinking, “That’s some amazing talent!” Tanabe asked himself, “How am I going to close that gap?” only to have Mancini tell him during his recruitment that he was not as far along as he should be.
Tanabe saw that as motivation.
“You’re thinking, ‘How much better were they than us?’ They were so far in front of us,” said Tanabe, who became an NHL defenseman. “They were producing in the Swedish professional league and I feel like they were playing in the pro league at 16 and then producing at 16 and 17. That’s a wake-up call when you are a 17-year-old kid and excelling in a pro league.”
Coming to the NTDP also meant leaving home, leaving family and friends behind while also attending a new high school. Every player needed their parents to sign a power of attorney letter transferring limited guardianship over to their sons’ billet parents.
In order for the NTDP to provide an official local address so their players could attend school in Ann Arbor, they needed to be compliant with Michigan state law. That’s why billet parents had to be granted limited guardianship.
Monaghan said the NTDP still follows that process to this day.
“If you are doing junior hockey and are creating a program, you are going to need to find a place to house kids,” Monaghan said. “You can never be far enough ahead on housing. You are asking someone to take someone else’s teenage son into their house, be their guardian and take care of them.”
The NTDP’s first class arrived in Ann Arbor to a facility that was still under construction. They were limited to mainly doing off-ice workouts before construction was finished, which allowed them to finally see what Jackson and his staff had planned for them.
“I didn’t realize how hard it was going to be,” Leopold said. “We practiced almost every day or did something. You try to have a social life, but you don’t have much of one.”
Among the skills they learned in the first year at the NTDP was boxing.
While today’s game has become more about skill, fighting played a major role in the sport back when the NTDP began. Cronin said the NTDP’s schedule saw them play Ontario Hockey League (OHL) teams, which meant they’d be facing older competition with more size and strength who were also looking to fight if necessary.
Henning said those OHL teams thought the NTDP players were “entitled” and the games were “pretty nasty” in nature.
“Our first meeting was at the end of August and there were 60-something kids in the room,” Cronin said. “I asked, ‘How many of you guys have been in a street fight before?’ Two guys put their hands up and I was like, ‘Uh oh.'”
Liles explained how Cronin’s boxing class went well beyond players learning self-defense.
“Cro was huge on body language,” Liles said. “It was always, ‘Johnny, your body language is terrible!’ with his South Boston accent. Looking back, it made a difference in who I was and who I became and the confidence I had going forward.”
Another item that left an impression on the first class was playing in the Six Nations Tournament in Russia.
Henning said they traveled for “36 straight hours,” a trip that involved flying to Moscow before driving what Leopold said felt like three hours to Yaroslavl. Monaghan said the team stayed at an old training center for one of the nation’s former military teams.
“There were German Shepherds, armed guards and it was creepy,” Leopold said. “We had one phone in the whole place to call home every night. … It was really eye-opening with where we were in society.”
Leopold said they drank bottled water because they were told to not drink the tap water. Henning and Tanabe said the team ate the same meal every day, but didn’t agree on what it was. Henning said it was peanut butter and jelly sandwiches while Tanabe said it was pickled fish.
Political protesters met players at the game and held signs that read, “Get out of Iraq” and “Go home Americans. Our eyes are on you.” And there were more armed guards surrounding the rink.
“I remember playing in front of 10,000 people dressed in black clothing, smoking cigarettes with armed guards,” Tanabe said. “That’s the type of stuff being in Russia, where you are getting pushed psychologically and emotionally to perform well in a hostile environment.”
Monaghan said the NTDP lost every game at the tournament.
“We got our tails handed to us,” he said. “Two of the guys we played against were the Sedin brothers. We ran into them again and they used us as a turnstile on the way to a European junior championship.”
THE NTDP’S ORIGINAL coaching staff was together for two years. Cronin left first as he was hired to be an NHL assistant. Jackson left after three years to coach in the OHL with Mancini leaving after four seasons to become an NHL scout.
Even after its first staff left, the NTDP continued to face skepticism. But it also started to see results.
In 1999, Tanabe made history by being the first NTDP player to be drafted when he went in the first round, while DiPietro went No. 1 a year later. Altogether, the NTDP had 29 players drafted from that first class over a two-year cycle.
Soon first-round picks and large draft classes became common. In 2006, Erik Johnson went No. 1 to lead a class with six first-rounders. A year later, Kane and van Riemsdyk went first and second in a class with five first-rounders.
As of Nov. 1 this season, all but two NHL teams had at least one NTDP alum on their active rosters.
Even with the NTDP’s success, Monaghan said people may not fully understand what it took for the program to get there. He pointed out the work done by the NTDP’s first coaching staff, DeGregorio, former USA Hockey executive director Dave Ogrean and the late Jim Johannson, who was the assistant director of USA Hockey and also helped pave the way.
“Those people can never get enough credit,” Monaghan said. “I have to remind people here when I bring them on board that if Jeff Jackson is going to be here watching a game, they need to take care of him. He is the father of the program.”
The NTDP still has its critics. It also had converts, like that radio show guest panelist who criticized Leopold for leaving Minnesota high school hockey to attend the NTDP.
That man was former NHL forward Dave Snuggerud. His son, Jimmy, went to the NTDP and was a first-round pick of the St. Louis Blues in 2022. Snuggerud said he was critical of the NTDP because he was a Minnesota high school hockey coach at the time and felt like what was being done in Minnesota needed to be protected.
Snuggerud said he reached a stage when he decided to find out more about the NTDP and after learning more about the program, he began telling more of the young players he worked with about it because he wanted them to have opportunities. Snuggerud said he respected how the NTDP had its players taking high school classes while also teaching character development.
“The last piece was the hockey development,” said Snuggerud, the co-founder of Breakaway Academy, a hockey school that has had players go to the NTDP. “They do a fantastic job-building skill work and they are more interested, and still are to this day, in developing the athletes as being highly skilled and being a good teammate.”
Jackson returned to college hockey in 2005 and has been the head coach of Notre Dame since then. Cronin is a first-time NHL head coach as he was hired by the Anaheim Ducks in 2023 to oversee a roster featuring NTDP alumni Cam Fowler, John Gibson, Troy Terry and Trevor Zegras. Mancini returned to USA Hockey and is the assistant executive director of hockey development.
Leopold, Liles and Tanabe all made it to the NHL. Leopold now helps his wife run their family business, an event center for corporate gatherings and weddings in the Twin Cities. Liles is a television studio analyst for the Colorado Avalanche, while Tanabe, whose career was cut short by a concussion, is an attorney in the Twin Cities.
While Henning didn’t play in the NHL, he is the director of professional scouting for the Vancouver Canucks, where he works with the Sedin twins.
“To wear that jersey for me and everyone else on the team, it was something to be prideful about,” Henning said. “It meant something. The program being new could have gone the other way if the Minnesota kids had stayed or the East Coast kids had stayed. It was never said out loud, but everyone understood we were lighting a torch and we had to pass it on.”
Leopold said playing in the NHL didn’t feel like a realistic option until the NTDP. He grew up in Minnesota at a time when he felt there weren’t a lot of Americans in the NHL, and the North Stars had left for Dallas. Going to the NTDP gave Leopold more than just a place to develop. It gave him a place to get exposed to experiences that let him know the NHL was possible.
“When we got there, it was the second month, Billy Guerin was in a contract holdout with the New Jersey Devils,” Leopold said. “He practiced with us for a week or two. I was like, ‘Who the hell is this guy?’ I didn’t really follow hockey outside of Minnesota. But you look at the guy who put USA Hockey on the map. It’s him. It’s [Brett] Hull, [Chris] Chelios, [Mike] Modano and [Doug] Weight.”
Tanabe said another under-discussed aspect of the NTDP is the life experiences and structure it can provide. He said he had an appreciation for the billet families who take in players, along with the international competitions, which give teenagers who may have never left the country a chance to see what life is like elsewhere.
It’s why he said he’s forever grateful to Jackson, Mancini and Cronin for telling players to be mindful of how they represent the USA.
“We’ve heard clichés about ‘the ugly American’ or ‘the arrogant American.’ That is a lasting thing,” Tanabe said. “To this day, it still sticks with me to represent your country well and show respect for other cultures. Those things are lasting positives I learned from being at the NTDP. From how you behave at airports to how you behave at restaurants to when you are interacting with citizens from foreign nations.”
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David Schoenfield
The first half of the MLB season is in the books. Well actually, we’ve played nearly 60% of the schedule, but everyone still denotes the first and second halves of the season around the All-Star break.
So, now that the All-Star festivities are behind us, let’s look back at the storylines that dominated the first half and how they might play out the rest of the season.
Before we begin, let’s hand out some honorable mentions that didn’t make our list of the top 10 storylines: the Baltimore Orioles and Atlanta Braves’ disappointing seasons; the Houston Astros rolling to a lead in the AL West despite Yordan Alvarez‘s injury, losing Alex Bregman and trading Kyle Tucker; Jacob Wilson‘s .332 average as a rookie; Matthew Boyd‘s incredible year for the Chicago Cubs; Jacob deGrom‘s comeback; Eugenio Suarez‘s four-homer game; and Denzel Clarke‘s dazzling catches in center field for the Athletics.
OK, now let’s dig into the top 10 storylines of the 2025 season so far.
1. Chaos in the American League East
The AL East has gone through enough plot twists this season to fill a whole series of David Baldacci novels — and we haven’t even reached August.
The New York Yankees looked as if they would run away with the division early, building a seven-game lead in late May, but they’ve gone 11-18 since June 13 and have dropped to second place, creating a panic among their fans. The Toronto Blue Jays, on the other hand, won 10 in a row in late June and early July to surge into first. The Tampa Bay Rays, playing in a spring training facility, went 33-22 in May and June — a period in which they were second in the majors in runs scored — but have gone 3-9 in July to fall into fourth place. The Baltimore Orioles? They fired their manager and might trade half the team at the trade deadline.
But the Boston Red Sox have been the biggest melodrama of all. The Rafael Devers saga, which began in spring training, included complaints about his DH role, a terrible start at the plate, some hot hitting, a refusal to play first base and then concluded with the shocking trade to the San Francisco Giants, which came hours after Boston had just completed a three-game sweep of the Yankees. A six-game losing streak soon followed as the Red Sox organization was dripping with bad karma.
But this is baseball, where the narrative can flip in a hurry: The Red Sox won their final 10 games heading into the All-Star break, have climbed into a wild-card position, are only three games out of first place and just got Bregman back from the injured list.
“I do think there’s a real chance that at the end of the season, we’re looking back and we’ve won more games than we otherwise would’ve,” chief baseball officer Craig Breslow told reporters after the Devers trade. He might be right — at least if the pitching can deliver the way it did in that 10-game winning streak, when the staff had a 1.90 ERA.
Will it remain a storyline? Absolutely. Sure, the expanded wild-card race makes division races less important than they once were, but teams still want to win the division and avoid that best-of-three wild-card round. Plus, the potential of a four-team race makes the AL East the most exciting race to follow in the second half. Though all four teams could still make the playoffs, that’s no guarantee as the Seattle Mariners currently hold one of the wild-card spots ahead of the Rays.
2. The suddenly very interesting NL Central
The Cubs have a powerhouse lineup with MVP candidate Pete Crow-Armstrong, fellow All-Star starter Tucker, the scorching-hot Michael Busch, who is fifth in the majors in OPS, and Seiya Suzuki, who has 25 home runs and 77 RBIs. They have an All-Star pitcher in Boyd, Shota Imanaga has a 2.65 ERA and the bullpen has been very good. And that’s not even mentioning their catchers, who have 20 home runs, 65 RBIs and the second-highest OPS in the majors.
Despite all of that, the Milwaukee Brewers are only one game back.
How is that possible? They find ways to score runs without relying on the long ball; they’re 23rd in the majors in home runs but seventh in runs scored, with their speed and aggressiveness on the bases helping there. As always, they somehow find enough pitching, and the anonymous-but-hard-throwing bullpen threesome of Trevor Megill, Abner Uribe and Jared Koenig has turned into one of the most imposing late-game trios.
Will it remain a storyline? Yes, the Brewers are absolutely the real deal, running off seven wins in a row before the All-Star break. They do begin the second half with a tough trip against the Los Angeles Dodgers and Mariners, with a home series against the Cubs after that to close out July, but there’s a reason the Brewers have made the playoffs in six of the past seven seasons: This team knows how to win.
They’ve also recently added two key players in Brandon Woodruff, finally back from shoulder surgery, and rookie flamethrower Jacob Misiorowski, who is 4-1 with a 2.65 ERA in five starts, dominating with his fastball that averages 99.3 mph. Indeed, Misiorowski looms as one of the most important players the rest of the way: If he keeps this going and with Woodruff looking like his pre-injury form — 18 strikeouts and no walks in his two starts — the trio of Freddy Peralta, Woodruff and Misiorowski will be a scary rotation to face in October.
We all know the details of this one:
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Behind curtain No. 1: Cal Raleigh, on pace for an AL-record 64 home runs (he currently has 38) and putting together perhaps the greatest offensive season ever for a catcher.
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Behind curtain No. 2: Aaron Judge, on pace for 11.8 WAR and putting together one of the greatest offensive seasons in the sport’s history.
It’s hard to believe a catcher might hit 50-something home runs — or more — and not win the MVP award, but that’s what might happen. Voters are WAR-focused these days, and Judge has a chance for only the sixth 12-WAR season by a position player (three of the previous five are by Babe Ruth). That probably makes Judge the favorite, especially since he’s not far behind Raleigh with 35 home runs and is probably one of his patented hot streaks away from getting back on pace for another 60-homer season.
Will it remain a storyline? Let’s hope so. Remember, we were in a similar situation a year ago with an epic three-player race between Judge, Bobby Witt Jr. and Gunnar Henderson, only to see Judge pull away to an eventual unanimous selection over Witt. It’s hard to imagine Raleigh keeping it going at this rate, especially given his heavy workload behind the plate (he’s third in the majors in innings caught), and he has been a little one dimensional in July (he has only five hits, all of them home runs). Judge is the heavy betting favorite at -600 to +325 for Raleigh, according to ESPN BET.
4. Pete Crow-Armstrong leads the National League MVP race
As a rookie in 2024, Crow-Armstrong hit .237/.286/.384 with 10 home runs in 123 games — not exactly numbers that would have projected him as an MVP candidate the following year. But he has emerged as not only one of the most exciting players in the majors, but one of the most valuable as well. With 25 home runs and 27 stolen bases, he’s on pace for a 40/40 season, and with help from some superlative defensive metrics, he leads the NL in both Baseball-Reference WAR (5.2) and FanGraphs WAR. (4.9), beating James Wood (4.4) in the former and Shohei Ohtani (4.3) in the latter.
Crow-Armstrong would certainly be one of the most surprising MVP winners ever, and one of the most distinctive. His .302 OBP would be the lowest for an MVP position player, beating Zoilo Versalles’ .319 mark from 1965. Only 10 MVP winners have had an OBP below .350. He’d also be the first center fielder to win NL MVP since Andrew McCutchen in 2013.
Will it remain a storyline? Yes. With Crow-Armstrong’s ultra-aggressive approach at the plate (he has the highest chase rate in the majors among qualified batters), it figured pitchers would eventually figure out how to exploit that. But they haven’t so far and PCA, while not possessing huge raw power, continues to barrel up baseballs. Looming in his rearview mirror in the MVP race: Ohtani, who has now added pitching to his repertoire and is slowly working up to a starter’s workload. He leads the NL in home runs, slugging, runs scored, OPS and total bases. ESPN BET has made him the favorite at -700, with Crow-Armstrong at +750. Keep your eye on Juan Soto and Kyle Tucker as well.
5. The Dodgers are unbeatable … no, they’re just very good … actually, they’re mediocre
That 8-0 start, following the offseason additions of Blake Snell, Roki Sasaki and Tanner Scott, created talk that the Dodgers might be one of the greatest teams of all time. Well, they aren’t.
Despite an inconsistent first half, one full of more pitching injuries and some subpar performances from the likes of Mookie Betts and Michael Conforto, the Dodgers are still on pace for 97 wins. A 2-7 slump heading into the break highlighted some of their issues: Betts has a sub-.700 OPS, Freddie Freeman is hitting .197 with one home run over his past 32 games, Scott has seven blown saves, the rotation ranks just 20th in the majors in ERA (and last in innings pitched) and the bullpen ranks 24th in ERA. Oh, and the Dodgers have churned through 35 pitchers this season.
Will it remain a storyline? Check back in October, when the Dodgers will try to become the first team since the 2000 Yankees to repeat as World Series champs.
6. The Detroit Tigers have the best record in baseball
As good as the Tigers have looked, having the best record (59-38) in the majors at the All-Star break was still unexpected: They were 18th in our preseason Power Rankings, with a projected record of 83-79, and only 11 of our 28 voters picked Detroit to win the division. Tarik Skubal has been great, as expected, but nobody had Javier Baez and Zach McKinstry making the All-Star team on their bingo card. Gleyber Torres, with a .387 OBP, has been one of the best offseason signings, and former No. 1 picks Spencer Torkelson and Casey Mize are having their best seasons.
Will it remain a storyline? The Tigers should remain in the race for best record the rest of the way. But their final series before the break exposed a potential weakness. The Mariners swept the three-game series in Detroit, scoring 35 runs — 23 of which came against the bullpen. Tommy Kahnle, part of the late-game duo with Will Vest, gave up four runs Saturday and three Sunday. Vest blew a 4-3 lead in the eighth Sunday, before Kahnle gave up back-to-back homers in the ninth. The Tigers will no doubt be looking for some relief help at the trade deadline.
7. Tarik Skubal, Paul Skenes and an incredible season for pitchers
Skubal and Skenes started the All-Star Game — and that pair has been leading the way in what has been a stellar season for starting pitchers. At the break, we had 19 qualified pitchers with an ERA under 3.00, which would match 2022 as the most since 2014 (when there were 21). There are another five pitchers, who aren’t currently qualified, with at least 80 innings and an ERA under 3.00, so the total could climb by the end of the season. Four of those pitchers also had an imposing strikeout rate above 30%: Skubal (33.4%), Zack Wheeler (33.0%), Garrett Crochet (31.2%) and Hunter Brown (31.1%). MacKenzie Gore, with a 3.02 ERA, is also above the 30% mark.
Skenes has been the bad-luck pitcher of the season, maybe of the century: He is 4-8 despite an MLB-best 2.01 ERA, but he might still be the Cy Young favorite. He could become the first Cy Young winner with a losing record (Jacob deGrom went 10-9 with the Mets in 2018 and Felix Hernandez went 13-12 with the Mariners in 2010).
Will it remain a storyline? Sure. With so many pitchers having great seasons, Skubal and Skenes hardly have the Cy Young Awards wrapped up, with Crochet and Wheeler essentially in a statistical deadlock with them. Brown was in the AL mix before giving up 10 runs in his final two starts before the break. Keep an eye on DeGrom, who is 9-2 with a 2.32 ERA and has already pitched his most innings since 2019.
In his first month with the Mets, Soto hit .241/.368/.384 with only three home runs. Then he hit .219 in May. But the Mets were winning, and the statistical evidence showed that Soto was hitting the ball hard and taking his walks — meaning, it was really the same old Soto, except the hits just weren’t falling. Since June 1, he has hit .311/.455/.659 with 14 home runs and now ranks among the league leaders in many categories. Despite the slow start, he’s on pace for 6.5 WAR, which isn’t quite what he did with the Yankees last season (7.9) but is right in line with his career average per 162 games (6.3). In other words, he’s the same Juan Soto, except his best hitting has come as the Mets have scuffled after their hot start.
Will it remain a storyline? With the Mets battling for the NL East title with the Philadelphia Phillies, you bet. One thing to watch: While the overall offensive numbers are creeping back into typical Soto territory, he has hit only .183/.330/.390 with runners in scoring position and .176/.337/.340 with men on base. According to Baseball-Reference, he has a .783 OPS in high-leverage situations, .773 in medium leverage and 1.053 in low leverage. The Mets are paying Soto a lot of money to produce in those high-leverage moments, so if they are to beat out the Phillies, he will need to pick it up in those situations.
9. Young sluggers burst onto the scene
We saw James Wood and Junior Caminero in the Home Run Derby, and both are having outstanding first full seasons in the majors. Wood has 24 home runs and ranks eighth in the majors in OPS. Caminero has 23 home runs, but not the overall offensive numbers that Wood has. A year ago, Nick Kurtz had just been drafted in the first round by the Athletics out of Wake Forest and now he has mashed 17 home runs in 58 games after beginning the season in Triple-A. Over his past 26 games, he has hit .295/.385/.737 with 12 home runs and looks as if he’s developing into one of the best power hitters in the game.
Still looking to get on track is Jac Caglianone, also in his first year out of college. He reached the majors with more hype than Kurtz but has struggled with a .140 average and four home runs through 35 games, although he flashed his light-tower power with one blast of 466 feet. These players are all 22 years old. The game is in good hands.
Will it remain a storyline? Yes and no. Caminero’s Rays are the only team in the playoff hunt right now, though Caglianone’s Kansas City Royals are close enough to potentially get back into the wild-card chase. Wood’s season has sort of flown under the radar playing for the Washington Nationals, but he has an OPS+ of 160. In the wild-card era since 1995, only five players in their age-22 season have reached that mark: Mike Trout (2014), Bryce Harper (2015), and Juan Soto, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Fernando Tatis Jr. all in 2021. That’s not bad company to be part of.
10. How many games will the Colorado Rockies lose?
After a 9-50 start left them on pace to lose 137 games, it looked as if the Rockies might shatter the Chicago White Sox‘s modern record of 121 losses from last season. The Rockies won three in a row at that point and had another four-game winning streak later in June, but then went 4-14 in their final 18 games before the break. That left them with a 22-74 record, still on pace to finish 37-125. They have played a little better: They had a minus-77 run differential in March/April and minus-106 in May but were minus-38 in June. They’re back to minus-32 in July, with losses of 10-2, 10-2, 10-3 and 9-3 this month. It’s impossible to know which direction this will go the rest of the way.
Will it remain a storyline? It appears so. It might come down to the wire, and the Rockies finish the season with trips to Seattle and San Francisco.
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Greg Wyshynski
When Gavin McKenna is selected first in the 2026 NHL draft, which is the consensus projection for the 17-year-old phenom, it’ll be significant on several levels.
He’s a ladder out of the abyss for some moribund team that’s lucky enough to win the NHL draft lottery. He’s another young offensive star for the NHL to market, having amassed 129 points in 56 games with the Medicine Hat Tigers of the Western Hockey League last season, while drawing comparisons to wingers like Patrick Kane and Nikita Kucherov.
He’s hope. He’s the future. But presently, Gavin McKenna represents something else entirely in hockey: He embodies the dramatic changes between the NCAA, Canadian Hockey League and the NHL that have altered the path for NHL prospects.
McKenna shocked the hockey world by opting to leave Canadian junior hockey for Penn State University’s men’s hockey program. He could have remained in the CHL for another dominant season. Instead, he’ll be an 18-year-old freshman battling in the Big Ten against bigger, stronger and more experienced players.
“It was a super tough decision. There are a lot of really great options out there. But me, my family and everyone in my circle decided that the best spot for me next year is Penn State,” he said, announcing his decision on “SportsCenter.”
McKenna’s big move comes at a time of radical changes for NHL prospects. Last November, the NCAA ruled that Canadian junior players were now eligible to play on Division I teams, ending a decades-old policy that made young athletes choose between the CHL and college hockey. The new rules go into effect in August, making McKenna one of the first Canadian junior players to make the jump to the NCAA — and easily the most significant one.
“Gavin’s elite. He’s dominated junior hockey like very few have in the past,” TSN prospects analyst Craig Button said.
That historic decision by the NCAA arrived just as college hockey programs were now flush with name, image and likeness (NIL) financial enticements for players. McKenna’s NIL money for attending Penn State is “in the ballpark” of $700,000, a source tells ESPN. Michigan State, the runner-up for McKenna’s commitment, had an NIL offer of around $200,000 to $300,000, according to College Hockey Insider.
The Nittany Lions men’s hockey program joined Division I in 2012, playing for one season as an independent until construction was completed on its new arena, funded primarily by Penn State alum Terry Pegula, owner of the Buffalo Sabres and Buffalo Bills. Penn State joined the Big Ten in 2013-14 when that conference began sponsoring hockey.
The progress has been steady for Penn State hockey. In 2015, its first alum made his NHL debut, as Casey Bailey suited up for the Toronto Maple Leafs. Penn State won the Big Ten tournament in 2017 and the regular-season title in 2020. The Nittany Lions made the Frozen Four for the first time this past season, losing to Boston University in the semifinals. All the while, they had a state-of-the-art new building and a boisterous home-ice advantage thanks to their raucous student section.
“It’s a good program. Penn State’s got a nice setup,” said Tony Granato, who coached Wisconsin in the Big Ten from 2016 to 2023. “They’re starting to carve out a little niche for themselves that differentiates them from Michigan or Michigan State or Wisconsin.”
Now it has a star whose name could become synonymous with Penn State hockey.
The Nittany Lions have had eight players drafted by NHL teams. Last month, defenseman Jackson Smith technically became the first Penn State player taken in the first round, the No. 14 pick by the Columbus Blue Jackets, although he’s an incoming freshman.
But the idea that the program could produce a No. 1 pick in the NHL draft was outlandish, even in the NIL era. Not anymore. Penn State coach Guy Gadowsky gives all the credit to McKenna for taking that leap of faith with his program.
“I think when you talk about Penn State specifically, I think he has a bit of a pioneering mindset. He wants to be the first, and I think he’s very comfortable with that pressure,” Gadowsky said.
Agent Pat Brisson has worked with other NHL draft phenoms who were selected first overall: Sidney Crosby (2005, Pittsburgh Penguins), John Tavares (2009, New York Islanders) and Nathan MacKinnon (2013, Colorado Avalanche). Now he’s working with McKenna, along with Matt Williams, a rising star at CAA.
“From the get-go, [Penn State] is where he wanted to go. It was something in his mind that he wanted,” Brisson told ESPN. “I’ve learned one thing about some of these young, special ones: They have that special chip in them. They have these goals in mind that they are special for a reason. I sit with Gavin and I can see in his eyes how the brain is working. It’s just unique. It’s hard to explain.”
Even harder to explain: what the path McKenna and other Canadian junior hockey stars are taking will mean for the sport in the years to come.
THE SUPREME COURT’S 2021 decision in NCAA v. Alston allowed for non-scholarship earned income across every division. That’s what helped create NIL allowances in college sports, in which athletes were no longer prohibited from making deals to profit off their name, image and likeness while competing in the NCAA.
Last month, the NIL landscape shifted dramatically when three separate federal antitrust lawsuits were ended through a $2.8 billion settlement that allowed colleges, going forward, to directly pay student-athletes up to a certain limit. The annual cap is expected to start at roughly $20.5 million per school in 2025-26.
Brisson said the NIL money didn’t fuel the decision by McKenna and his family. “The NIL obviously comes into play, but it’s not the primary decision of why he decided to go to college,” he said. “It’s all about the next step. We viewed this, along with the family, as an opportunity to continue to grow as a player more than anything else.”
Granato also believed the NIL money was part of McKenna’s decision but not the driving force. The former Wisconsin coach played 13 seasons in the NHL. Granato knows what’s awaiting McKenna after next year’s draft, and hence doesn’t believe NIL money could have been the determining factor here.
“Gavin McKenna is going to make more money than he could ever need in a real short period of time. So I don’t think it was down to the dollars and cents,” he said. “I think it was down to the respect and to the approach that Penn State laid out for him. Obviously, the money was to say how badly they wanted him, but I think that they made a big commitment to try to get their program to be a top team in the country.”
Granato said the benefits for Penn State go beyond what happens on the ice next season.
“If Gavin McKenna’s going to be on TV and in the Stanley Cup playoffs for the next 20 years, and he’s going to have a Penn State logo next to him through all the things he’s going to accomplish? The value he would bring to the university? I’d say that $700,000 or whatever is probably a pretty cheap investment,” he said.
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Gavin McKenna scores sensational solo goal in the WHL
Top 2026 NHL draft-eligible prospect Gavin McKenna scores a goal-of-the-year candidate in Game 2 of the second-round series between the Medicine Hat Tigers and Prince Albert Raiders.
McKenna’s decision to go to the NCAA would have been a much more complicated one in the past. The NCAA had deemed anyone who played in the CHL ineligible because there are players who have signed professional contracts with NHL teams playing in those leagues that comprise it: the Ontario Hockey League, Western Hockey League and Quebec Maritimes Junior Hockey League. CHL players are also paid a monthly stipend that is capped at $250.
But in November 2024, the NCAA Division I council voted to make CHL players eligible for NCAA Division I hockey beginning in 2025. The council ruled that players can compete in the CHL without jeopardizing their NCAA Division I hockey eligibility, provided they aren’t “paid more than actual and necessary expenses as part of that participation.”
At the time, Western Hockey League commissioner Dan Near put out a statement supporting the NCAA rules changes as a way to “relieve the tension” for young players and their families who had to decide between junior hockey and NCAA eligibility.
“We stand by that. Just because we’re disappointed that Gavin won’t play in our league next year doesn’t mean that we have this whole different point of view on it,” Near told ESPN. “We wish Gavin the best. They had an incredible team in Medicine Hat. He did a lot for the community and the league. I hope he’s hugely successful.”
Near cautioned against drawing conclusions based on McKenna’s chosen path to the NHL.
“Gavin McKenna moving on early from the WHL or the CHL is not the same as all of the other changes going on,” he said. “It’s a notable cog in the wheel for sure. But this is such a giant, complicated environment that we live in right now that’s so rapidly changing. I think almost everybody would acknowledge that it’s going to take some time to see what happens.”
But McKenna’s decision has codified what many believe could be a new prospect pipeline in hockey: players starting in the CHL and then moving to the NCAA right before they’re drafted in the NHL — or immediately afterward.
BUTTON BELIEVES THAT McKenna’s path is the new pipeline. He played 16 games with Medicine Hat in 2022-23, followed by 61 games in 2023-24 — scoring 97 points — and then 56 games last season before packing up for Penn State.
“Now you can go, ‘What’s best for my development at 15? Or 16? Or 17?’ There’s going to be a lot of players who play in the CHL because the level of play and the coaching is good. But now they don’t have to forgo that opportunity to play in the NCAA,” he said.
There are differences between the two paths. The CHL has players competing in significantly more games in preparation for an NHL-like grind. The NCAA plays fewer games, leaving players more time to develop and train between them. The CHL offers players a chance to compete against those around their own development curve, while the NCAA has 18-year-olds battling against 23-year-olds. The CHL is billet life. The NCAA is college life.
Button is an optimist about the changing landscape. “I really, really love the idea that more doors open and present options for the players to look at their development in a different way,” he said.
He also doesn’t see this as a serious blow to the CHL. He points to NHL stars like Kane and Matthew Tkachuk that selected Canadian juniors over the NCAA. He notes that the current top prospects that do end up in the NCAA will likely do so after spending significant time in Canadian juniors. McKenna played 2½ seasons at Medicine Hat before making the leap to Penn State, leading the team to a conference championship and a Memorial Cup appearance last season.
“I know the CHL doesn’t want to lose 19-year-old kids to the NCAA, but they’re also going to get players that they weren’t going to get at 16 and 17,” Button said.
But Near doesn’t believe this is necessarily a new talent pipeline for NHL prospects.
“I have no problem with people experimenting or trying things out. I have no problem with other leagues that might be envious of the success that we’ve had — or wish to be declared as our equal — trying to suggest that we should be a development league for the NCAA, which in turn would be a development league for the NHL,” Near said.
“But that’s not what we are.”
The WHL commissioner notes the CHL has the better track record for player development, one that stretches back 50 years. He points to the 2025 NHL draft, in which 21 of the first round’s 32 picks came from Canadian junior hockey, while five picks were credited to U.S. college programs.
“The idea of someone going to the NCAA before their draft year will be occasional,” Near said. “This isn’t just about money. It’s also about what environment is going to put a player in the best situation to further his hockey development.”
He points to the billet environment. “Having a mother figure and a father figure around you to support you, help you with meals and help teach you how to do laundry and be independent,” he said.
He points to the CHL schedule and the number of games in which players will appear during a typical season, noting that the former junior players who get their professional start in the American Hockey League have said the CHL best prepared them for that grind.
Near isn’t looking to have the WHL rest on its reputation. He has a survey out to players this offseason to hear about what works and what doesn’t for them. “We’re not crossing our arms and saying we do it better. We’re spending a lot of time assessing what we can do better, how we can enhance the player experience and environment,” he said.
That includes thinking about CHL players that might find their way back to junior hockey after moving over to the NCAA. It’s a trend several sources anticipated happening in the new paradigm.
Factors behind that reversal could range from a lack of ice time to the realization that they’re not ready to face older competition to the fact that not every 18-year-old “walking onto a college campus, jumping onto the first power play and making the most NIL money” will be welcomed with open arms by older teammates with their own NHL aspirations, as one NHL source framed it.
“NCAA hockey is hard for a lot of 18- and 19-year-olds,” said Button, who sees the option to go back to juniors like a part of the transfer portal.
“There’s a transfer portal in the NCAA athletics right now. Maybe not as much ice time. Maybe there’s a depth chart where I don’t fit in. Maybe I’m not getting as much. So now you have the transfer portal in between schools, and there’s going to be a transfer portal back to the CHL. That’s going to be reality,” he said.
Another potential wrinkle for Canadians coming to the NCAA: rapidly changing immigration policies that could impact student visa statuses. It’s a topic Big Ten schools like Oregon have openly discussed since NIL started.
“I’m not rooting for anything to go poorly, but we are setting up our operations so that if a player has regrets that we’re going to welcome them back,” Near said.
“I think that there’s a possibility some guys swing back to our league. I think people will maybe develop a greater appreciation for all the things we do to create a player development experience. I wish it would come faster, because it’s a stressful time. But we’re watching closely and we’re acting where we think it makes sense.”
While times are stressful for Canadian junior hockey, Button doesn’t believe changes to the prospect pipeline are a net negative for the CHL.
“You have some people saying that everything is going to hell in a handbasket. No, it isn’t,” he said. “Doors are opening for the CHL teams with getting good younger players into their program. The NCAA is getting more talent from the players that have been drafted, who now see college hockey as an option. NHL teams have more options open to them with respect to being sure about who they’re signing. I think that’s great.”
AS IF THE PROSPECT LANDSCAPE hadn’t undergone enough change, the NHL and the NHLPA further shifted it themselves in their new collective bargaining agreement, which begins in the 2026-27 season.
One major change concerns 19-year-old players that were drafted by NHL teams from Canadian juniors. The NHL-CHL transfer agreement dictates that they either have to make an NHL roster or be returned to their junior team. Currently, CHL players can’t play in the American Hockey League until they turn 20 or complete four seasons in the CHL.
In the new CBA, the NHL will reopen its agreement with the CHL to seek to eliminate the mandatory return rule. “NHL will seek to limit NHL Clubs to Loaning no more than one (1) 19-year-old player per year to the AHL without the requirement of first offering such player to his junior club,” reads the new amendment.
Perhaps more importantly for the NHL draft, the new CBA states that players selected at age 18 will have their rights retained until “the fourth June 1 after they were drafted.” For 19-year-old draft picks, their rights will be retained “until the third June 1 after they were drafted.”
Button sees this as a significant new development window for teams and players that will impact juniors and the NCAA.
“The team has your rights for four years. It used to be in the CHL that you had to sign the player two years after you drafted him,” he said. “In the past, you might have to make a signing decision. Now, if a 20-year-old player might not be ready, a team can send him to the NCAA to get another year under his belt while retaining his rights.”
This practice could become one of the most significant developments in the post-NCAA eligibility world: that NHL teams could use the NCAA as a preparatory league for former Canadian junior players before bringing them to the pro level.
“I think that because of that fact, you are going to get more high-profile players in college hockey,” Gadowsky said. “NHL teams are going to support going to college hockey because of that. There are a lot of great players that have had a lot of success in junior hockey and are looking for the next step, but that may not be ready to reach the NHL. I think college hockey is an attractive option for many NHL teams.”
This trend is already happening. The Calgary Flames took center Cole Reschny from the WHL Victoria Royals at No. 18 in last month’s draft. Reschny is headed to North Dakota next season. (His Royals teammate Keaton Verhoeff, a highly touted defenseman, will join him at NoDak as the rare 17-year-old NCAA player.) The New York Rangers drafted winger Malcolm Spence from the OHL Erie Otters at No. 43. He’ll play at the University of Michigan next season.
“The CHL and the USHL teams have resources. They spend a lot of time on development, but it’s different at an NCAA school, especially a major power,” Button said. “It’s going to be really interesting for the kids at 18 who aren’t NHL-ready to go back to junior, and then at 19 you’re like ‘You’re either in the NHL or you’re back in junior.’ Well, now there’s the NCAA as the next step in terms of their development. You have to be a student-athlete and you have to commit to that. But I think the NHL benefits from this, too.”
MCKENNA WILL LIKELY head straight to the NHL after next summer’s draft, as almost every No. 1 pick has done for decades. He’ll do so after facing older, larger players for a season before joining the NHL, like Macklin Celebrini did with Boston University and Auston Matthews did with Zurich SC in the Swiss league.
“The guys that have confidence and are ready for that next challenge, that’s not going to scare them. They don’t care about dropping in the draft. They care about getting better,” Granato said. “If they’re going to get better by going to play against older and bigger and stronger players in a better league, they’re going to do it. That’s just their mentality.”
McKenna would be just the fourth winger in the past 15 drafts to be selected first overall, after Nail Yakupov (Edmonton Oilers, 2012), Alexis Lafreniere (New York Rangers, 2020) and Juraj Slafkovsky (Montreal Canadiens, 2022). None of these players had the early buzz that McKenna has generated, which is usually reserved for a franchise-level center among offensive players, like Connor McDavid or Matthews.
Button doesn’t see McKenna on McDavid’s level, and doesn’t see him as the goal scorer that Matthews has become. On the recent NHL first overall pick scale, he would slot McKenna in between Celebrini (San Jose, 2024) and Connor Bedard (Chicago, 2023).
But Button said the NHL comparables for McKenna — should he reach the potential of his trajectory — are a pair of former Hart Trophy winners: Patrick Kane and Nikita Kucherov. Both players can score goals, as Kane is sixth (492) and Kucherov is 22nd (357) among active players. But it’s their playmaking ability on the wing that reminds Button of McKenna, who was a Kane fan (and a Blackhawks fan) growing up in Whitehorse, Yukon.
“The way he can control the game, take over games. I think we play similar styles. Smart hockey players that can slow down the game but speed it up when we want,” McKenna said.
Gadowsky said McKenna’s ability to slow things down and create at his pace is indicative of an elite player that thinks the game differently. Gadowsky grew up watching Wayne Gretzky. While he’s not about to make a direct comparison between “The Great One” and “The Nittany One,” the way they both process hockey is something no one can teach them. It’s inherent.
“There’s no way that I or anybody else on our staff thinks like Gavin does. He is a very, very special athlete,” he said. “By no means am I ever going to talk to him about how his mind creates. That’s all him, and it’s going to be really fun to watch.”
That Penn State fans will be the ones watching him is still a bit surreal for Gadowsky, the only coach the program has known as part of the Big Ten. The Nittany Lions have been a slow-building success. Getting McKenna to commit is one giant leap forward for the program — and for college hockey.
“There’s a ton of great Penn State supporters that are really, really excited to watch him play and see what he does in the future,” Gadowsky said. “I mean, they’re going to love him. They’re going to absolutely love him and we’re thrilled that someone of his stature is going to be attached to Penn State.”
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