Carson Carels' commitment indicates a brand-new development path standardizing.
The new development path for high-end talent solidified this week.
Carson Carels, a left-shot defenseman from the WHL’s Prince George Cougars, announced he’d be joining North Dakota next year. Carels is a projected top-15 pick, with THN’s Ryan Kennedy ranking him sixth overall in January. He’s a strong two-way player and an excellent skater who will be a stud on an already-stacked blueline with Keaton Verhoeff, E.J. Emery and Ethan MacKenzie.
But what Carels’ commitment to the Fighting Hawks illustrated wasn’t that North Dakota is going to be stacked next year (although the rest of the NCAA would be wise to watch out). What it showed is that Carels is only walking the path of last year’s CHL players, in the footsteps of Verhoeff, his soon-to-be-teammate. One to two years in the CHL, then into the NCAA for a year or two at Boston University, North Dakota, Michigan, Michigan State, etc.
What comes after that, no one knows. Verhoeff and Penn State’s Gavin McKenna were the first to pursue this path after the CHL-NCAA agreement, and neither has been drafted yet. McKenna is not expected to return to the Nittany Lions, but Verhoeff is predicted to return to North Dakota, partly because defenseman take longer to develop. The likely outcome is that many of the top-end players who follow this model will jump straight into the NHL, perhaps with a brief stop in the AHL.
But players have jumped straight from the CHL into the NHL plenty of times. It’s somewhat rarer when players have gone from the USHL to the NCAA (with the exception of players like Adam Fantilli and Macklin Celebrini, the elite talents). Most of those players typically need time in the AHL.
So the question is always: why spend time in the NCAA? Why not stay in the CHL, with its NHL schedule, its enforcers, its realistic recreation of the game the way the big leagues play? Why go to the league where there are half as many games, points are harder to come by, no fighting is allowed, opponents are regularly 23 years old, the arenas aren’t as full and you have to go to class? The CHL is superior.
CHL loyalists can continue asking these questions until the sun explodes, and I’m sure many of them will. But top CHL players have already realized that the natural progression when they’ve hit a ceiling in CHL is the NCAA because of the older players.
More importantly, the NCAA gives players a chance to build muscle because of the reduced gameload. NCAA staffs are able to work with prospects in the offseason and during the year doing weight training because they don’t have to play a game every other night. More games in the CHL won’t have the same effect. When you need to be ready to play against men, a league which lets you maximize muscle gain is an excellent choice.
It’s an big next step. Carels feels he’s ready to take it. Whether or not he actually plays a game in Grand Forks will be highly contingent on where he is drafted and the opportunities that team has available for him, and there’s a good chance he jumps straight to the Show. But if he sticks with the NCAA, he’ll get the opportunity to build out his big frame even more — and follow what is rapidly developing into a standardized path.