PuckPreps rates BC hockey’s next recruiting class #1 in the country

While this year’s BC men’s hockey season is opening up with tempered expectations, with the Eagles not ranked in the preseason USCHO poll, talent evaluators are very high on the group of players Greg Brown has coming in to bolster the Eagles’ ranks in the coming years.

PuckPreps, one of the leading services ranking college/junior hockey recruits, has the Eagles’ recruiting class for the 2005 birth year ranked #1 in the nation. 2005 birth year players will be 18 next fall (that’s horrifying!) so the best of them will be starting their college hockey careers in 2023.

Not only is BC’s class as a whole highly regarded, but they also have PuckPreps’ top two North American skaters coming in - Will Smith and Aram Minnetian.

Neutral Zone is one of the other big recruiting aggregator sites for college hockey; they have BC’s class for next year ranked #7, but the average star rating (4.19*) is the highest of any team; other teams have a larger number of commits, contributing to the overall ranking.

Will Smith and Ryan Leonard are highly touted forwards coming in next year, both of whom are part of the national team program currently. Aram Minnetian is the highest-rated American defenseman in his birth year by Neutral Zone.

Will Vote and Drew Fortescue are also USNTDP prospects expected to join the Eagles next season.

The story is similar for the 2024 recruiting class so far, where the Eagles are #3 in average rating by Neutral Zone, with four commits currently: Teddy Stiga and Matthew Frost, two of the top 2006-born prospects; along with Landan Resendes of Cushing Academy, and Justin Solovey, a forward who will be moving up from New Jersey prep hockey to the USHL this season with the Muskegon Lumberjacks.

Recruiting rankings aren’t always destiny, particularly in college hockey, but it’s great to see that Jerry York’s retirement hasn’t slowed the pipeline of highly talented hockey players who want to come to the Heights.