What Will Trey Augustine's Freshman Year at Michigan State Look Like?

After an exemplary season with the USNTDP, what should Red Wing fans expect from Trey Augustine's freshman season at Michigan State?

"I talked to [the Red Wings] throughout the year and had good conversations," said 2023 second round goaltender Trey Augustine from the development camp dais earlier this month. "At the end of the day, you don't really know what's gonna happen on draft day, and I'm just really happy it worked out this way."

Most of the Detroit prospects who spoke to the press at development camp wore sweats, slides, gym shorts, and ball caps; Augustine came to the podium in a polo shirt, the Winged Wheel emblazoned on the left breast.He certainly isn't aloof or disrespectful, but he is quiet.  

His pleasure at being one of the eleven newest Red Wings via the previous week's NHL Draft is obvious—"It's like the whole dream of playing in the NHL, playing for your hometown team, getting the opportunity to do that—it's an amazing opportunity," he tells the media—but his words never rise to a volume you'd expect to wake a sleeping baby.  "It's definitely a great opportunity I have to stay next to family," he adds, smiling at the thought of the short drive from his hometown of South Lyon to his professional home-to-be in the crease at Little Caesars Arena.

When asked to describe his triumphant performance in the gold medal game of U-18 Worlds (the capstone to a triumphant two-year run with the U.S. National Team Development Program), Augustine's eyes light up but his words remain muted: "We were down in the game and had to crawl back late in the third. When we tied it up, for me it's just all about making the next save and giving my team a chance to go win the game. We were able to kill the penalty off and scored a couple of minutes later. It means a lot to me."

Though he'd never tell you himself, Augustine is fresh off one of the great goaltending seasons in the history of the NTDP.  His 30 wins last year were the 4th best total ever for an NTDP netminder (Thatcher Demko and Spencer Knight share the record at 32).  His 2.13 goals against average is also 4th best of any NTDP season ever (Demko holds that crown as well at a 2.04).  Augustine's .926 save percentage last year ranked him 2nd only to Jeff Frazee's .932.

At 17, Augustine back-stopped the Americans to a bronze medal at the 2023 World Junior, and he completed his run with the program with that U-18 gold.  His path forward runs through East Lansing, where he will be re-united with Adam Nightingale—a coach of his during his first year with the NTDP—and will tend goal for the Michigan State Spartans.

Nightingale—a Spartan alum—breathed life into a program that had spent about a decade in the wilderness in his first year behind the bench at his alma mater a year ago.  MSU wound up the first team on the outside looking in at the NCAA Tournament, but, under Nightingale's leadership, State won its first ever series (and game) in the Big Ten Tournament and provided Munn Ice Arena with a much needed infusion of energy.

With Augustine as his goaltender, Nightingale will set his sights even higher in 2023-24, but what is reasonable to expect from an 18-year-old netminder, getting his first taste of collegiate hockey?

Once upon a time, the freshman starter between the pipes was no where to be found, but in 2022-23, four freshmen started 30+ games in the NCAA and two more started 20+.

Northern Michigan's Beni Halasz led the freshman goalie pack in wins (19) and gamps played (35).  Colorado College's Kaidan Mbereko topped the pack in save percentage with a .925 in 30 games played for the Tigers.  It was Mbereko whom Augustine beat out last December to earn the starting nod for Team USA at World Juniors.

To zoom out a bit further, Al Montoya (like Augustine, an NTDP product) has the most wins of any freshman goalie since the '99-00 season with 30 victories in 43 games played (and a 2.33 GAA and .911 SV%) for the University of Michigan in 2002-03.

In 2013-14, Thatcher Demko (who wouldn't be drafted until after his freshman season) finished with 16 wins in 24 games for Boston College—posting a 2.24 GAA and .919 SV% along the way.

In 2016-17, just down Commonwealth Avenue, Jake Oettinger (also drafted after his freshman year) played in a whopping 35 games for the Boston University Terriers as a freshman.  He won 21 of them and registered a 2.11 GAA and .927 SV%.  

Three years after that and back the other direction on Comm Ave, in 2019-20, Spencer Knight played 33 games for BC, winning 23 and putting up a 1.97 GAA and .931 SV%.

With these last three names, I'm cherry-picking some of the finest NCAA goaltending prospects in recent memory, but that's the company Augustine has put himself in with his two extraordinary years at the NTDP.

The days of freshman netminders being seen (on the bench) and not heard have come and gone, and his résumé before even playing a game in East Lansing dictates that he will compete for ice time straight away.  And given the state of the Spartans' goaltending room, there's ample reason to believe he succeeds in doing so.

A year ago, in Nightingale's first year back in East Lansing, Dylan St. Cyr handled the vast majority of the goaltending duties.  St. Cyr, the son of the legendary Manon Rheaume, transferred into State for his final year of NCAA eligibility after stops at Notre Dame and Quinnipiac.  

Between being 5-foot-8 and his evident delight at every chance that came his way to handle the puck, St. Cyr had an anti-modern, almost counter-cultural style to his game, but it was undeniably effective.  In 37 games played, he finished with a .915 SV%, 2.77 GAA, and 17 wins.  Without him, the Spartans would likely have been no where near the NCAA Tournament.

However, St. Cyr is out of the picture, and the only other goaltender to appear last year for the Spartans (Pierce Charleson, who featured in three games to the tune of a not-so-good 5.00 GAA and .836 SV%) is in the transfer portal.

In that context, the door is wide open for Augustine to come in not just in a rotation (which he might've shared with St. Cyr last season had he been a year older) but instead as the unquestioned starter.

A "really good relationship with Coach Nightingale made [MSU] an easy decision" for Augustine, as he explained at development camp.  "He's a top-level coach, but he's a great person.  Being able to sit down and have a talk with him is super easy.  [He's] an easy going guy and just made me feel like I was a part of the family and the culture right away."

When he's not tending goal, he intends to enroll in business school at Michigan State, and he will have fellow Red Wing draft selection Red Savage as company.  Savage, Augustine's teammate at last season's WJC, transferred into MSU from Miami Ohio earlier in the offseason.

If 2022-23 was about re-storing the energy to Spartan hockey, 2023-24 will turn up the urgency to get back to the heights the program enjoyed in the nineties and early aughts.  As Nightingale looks to make that happen, one of the most valuable weapons at his disposal will be Augustine, who has a clear path toward a statement freshman season between the pipes.

The road to the NHL for goaltenders, even highly touted ones, is never short.  

Florida took Spencer Knight in the 2019 Draft, and he wouldn't debut in the NHL until 2021, which was altogether blazing by goalie standards.  Dallas drafted Oettinger in 2017, and he wouldn't play his first NHL game until he was called into emergency action in the penultimate round of the 2020 bubble playoffs.  Vancouver took Thatcher Demko in the second round of the 2014 Draft, and he didn't play his first NHL game until March of 2018.

For Augustine, two seasons with Nightingale at State would seem like the natural starting point.  There, he will have the chance to earn ample starts and develop under a coach with whom he feels a clear sense of comfort, and he will be a modest drive west on I-96 from the watchful eye of the Red Wings development staff.

It's after those two seasons where things start to get interesting.  

If Augustine lives up to the lofty standard he set at the NTDP, he might be in line for NHL consideration by that point—as Knight was after his sophomore year at BC.  

When Augustine's sophomore year concludes some time in the spring of 2025, the three-year deal Ville Husso signed last summer will be set to expire at the end of the NHL season and the Red Wings should have greater clarity on Sebastian Cossa's NHL fitness or lack thereof.  Both of those factors will contribute to how Detroit wants to manage Augustine's path forward at that point.  

If Red Wing brass determines the NHL doesn't make sense at that point in Augustine's development journey, they might decide to allow him to acclimate to life in professional hockey with a season or two in the AHL, or they could leave him in East Lansing for further seasoning.

Of course, there's plenty of time for answers to those questions to become clearer, and, for now, what we can say for certain is that Augustine's freshman year at Michigan State will be one for Red Wing fans to keep a close eye on.