Tony Ferrari

Everyone else had questions, whether it was Smiths being this unknown factor.

Could Chase Reed round out his game a little bit more?

Could a guy like Ryan Lynn or Carson Carrolls truly rise up to that level?

And you're seeing a lot of those guys do that.

So it's a little bit of both.

I think that's the other thing, too, is this is a kid who played an entire NCAA season as a 17-year-old in arguably the best NCAA competition we've seen in years.

for everyone talking about all the, the CHL has gotten a little bit better and a little bit deeper because they've got kids that would never have gone to the CHL because now they can go to the NCAA.

Right.

The NCAA got a lot of infusion of talent from not only the CHL kids that could leave early, but a lot of the kids that were kind of aging out of the CHL jumped into the NCAA and just made every team so deep and so strong.

So I think it was a tough year for the 17 year olds at times in the NCAA.

I mean, McKenna had his own struggles at times, but,

This is a good defenseman.

I think he's going to be a player that kind of has a really strong sophomore year and everyone's going, ah, maybe he should have been the first defenseman off the board, even though, in my opinion, he's not necessarily the first defenseman on my board either.

I think the biggest name is Malte Gustafson.

He was a kid that everyone came into the year and they were like, this kid's skilled, but he's inconsistent.

He's got a great motor when he wants to.

He can throw some hits.

He's got decent enough size.

Like this is a kid that can pull off Michigan on one play and the next he's able to go and lay a guy out on his own entry.

So he's a really interesting player.