As I noted on Twitter Friday thanks to a tip from Dave Lundey, one of the top 1995 born players in the country Will Butcher was added to the Dubuque Fighting Saints (USHL) roster. Butcher is a kid that's been talked about many times on this site and is a Sun Prairie native. He's been playing with the Madison Capitols and would be a 2013 recruit.Admittedly having no inside knowledge of the situation on this kid, It's safe to assume that he's a priority target for Mike Eaves and company. Eaves has slowed his recruiting approach a bit lately after taking a lot of criticism for over-recruiting in the past. At this point we have no recruits committed for the 2013 season yet (Tim Davison is for 2012 or 2013). Butcher would be a great start to that class.
I'm not sure if Butcher has joined Dubuque for the rest of the season or if it was just for the weekend but he was plus 3 on Friday night and had an assist. There are rumors floating around that Butcher has been offered a NTDP spot already for next year and has accepted and that's why he didn't play with Sioux City of the USHL who drafted him but who knows how credible those reports are at this point. Would be interesting to see if he plays the rest of the season in the USHL if he would move to the NTDP next year or not.
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Interestingly enough, another 1995 born Wisconsin defenseman made his USHL debut this weekend as well. Ian McCoshen (pictured), who is from Hudson played for Waterloo this weekend. McCoshen has been playing at Shattuck St. Mary's the past few seasons and was with on the Shattuck Bantam team last season.
I was becoming a bit concerned about what was going on with McCoshen. Waterloo has had him on the roster all season but he didn't play in any games. When Shattuck released their rosters this fall and he wasn't there, no one know what was going on. With McCoshen playing this weekend I guess we've finally located the young man and I'm almost positive McCoshen will be with Waterloo for the rest of the season.
As an August birthday, I'm not sure if McCoshen is going to end up as a 2013 or a 2014 recruit but like Butcher, McCoshen needs to be considered a top priority for the Badgers, and I'm sure he is.
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Theres been some speculation as to who would be signing letters of intent this week when the fall signing period opens. According to Andy Baggot Wisconsin will send letters of intent to all seven players currently committed for next season. They are: goaltender Joel Rumpel from Penticton (BCHL), defenseman Jake McCabe from the USA NTDP, defenseman Troy Hesketh from Chicago (USHL), and forwards Matt Paape (Sioux City, USHL), Tyler Lapic (Chicago, USHL), Brendan Woods (Muskegon, USHL), and Cody Strang (Youngstown, USHL).
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Practice for Wisconsin high school hockey starts tomorrow and the odds on favorite to win this seasons Mr. Hockey award Brad Navin from Waupaca might not be there. I just noticed that Sioux City of the USHL has him on their roster.
He has not played a game yet for them so let's pump the brakes because being rostered doesn't necessarily mean that hes going to the USHL for sure. He played the fall season with Team Wisconsin (and was awesome) and played this past weekend in the season ending Bauer NIT tournament.
Navin finished third this fall in the Upper Midwest High School Elite League scoring race, and led the state of Wisconsin in scoring last season at Waupaca and I have to assume that their schedule didn't get that much better for this season. If he is indeed making the move to Sioux City, I think he would please the NHL scouts that are trying to evaluate him for the upcoming draft as well as the potential colleges who are recruiting him.
Wisconsin has been identified as one of a host of schools who are currently courting the 6'2, 192 pound forward.
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Another interesting note from the weekend is that 2011 Badger recruit Jake McCabe returned to the team and played a game over the weekend against Muskegon on Saturday night. McCabe if you remember, had a stress fracture in his L-5 vertebrae and was scheduled to miss 8-12 weeks with the injury. It looks like it's just past the 8 week mark so that is a great sign.
McCabe will be going overseas to Sweden with his USA Hockey teammates to participate in the four nations cup which starts on Monday.
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