Though Jerry York and the Boston College coaching staff are hard at work preparing for Friday night's NCAA tournament game against Harvard, they haven't taken their eye off the ball on the recruiting trail. According to the Boston College Hockey Blog, BC has landed the commitment of Casey Carreau of Thayer Academy, a 1998-born junior who won the ISL MVP award this year with 34 goals and 37 points.
Carreau is expected to arrive on campus in the fall of 2017. Carreau, a 5'10'' forward, led Thayer to a championship this season and will be expected to stand out next year as well. While the prep school ranks aren't necessarily where you'll find the nation's top prospects these days, they produce plenty of high-quality college hockey players - including Miles Wood and Chris Kreider in recent years.
Carreau was drafted by the Drummondville Voltigeurs of the QMJHL in the 14th round of their 2015 draft, but has told his local paper that his "dream is to play college hockey" and is not considered likely to go the junior route.
BC now has a massive group of seven forwards slated to come in the fall of 2017 in what will likely be a rebuilding/reloading year for the program. A few of them might be flight risks to the major junior ranks, but should most/all arrive, it will be a big crop of very talented forwards, several of whom are projected to be high draft picks.
As BCHB pointed out in his post, it's likely that a lot of the forwards on this year's team are gone by then; even if they all stay next year, R. Fitzgerald, Calnan, Gilmour and Cangelosi will all have graduated, and Miles Wood, Colin White, Alex Tuch, Zach Sanford are all flight risks who are not necessarily likely to be around for the 2017-18 season.
Despite the potential for negative recruiting based on questions about how long Jerry York might remain BC's bench boss, it's good to see the program continuing to load up for the next few years.