Alex Tuch Signs With Minnesota, And Now I'm Worried

First and foremost: congratulations to Alex Tuch, who signed his entry-level contract today with the Minnesota Wild:

#mnwild has signed @AlexTuch17 to a three-year entry-level contract: https://t.co/vlX7aie1Xu pic.twitter.com/ineRvosVTz

— Minnesota Wild (@mnwild) April 13, 2016

Tuch had a very good second half of the season after getting off to a slow start in the fall, and became (as expected) a dominant force for the Eagles. His turning pro is not a huge surprise; 2 years is probably what most would have expected from him. He has NHL-quality tools already in his size, speed and shot. I wouldn't be surprised if he contributes right away at the NHL level next season.

Tuch leaving alone is not really a red flag for the BC hockey program, but the week they've had certainly is.

Right now, every other kid who you would have considered borderline to come back (Wood, Santini, Gilmour) has decided to go. The two "locks" to go, Demko and McCoshen, haven't announced yet, but are considered extremely likely to. Really the only potential "win" here at this point is Colin White staying - this is without even considering the disaster scenario of Zach Sanford, Ryan Ftizgerald or Chris Calnan entertaining an NHL offer, which is considered unlikely.

When every borderline flight risk decides to bounce, that's... troubling. It doesn't necessarily mean there's anything wrong within the team or within the locker room; by all accounts this was a tight team and the kids love playing at BC. But it means this roster may not have been constructed with the appropriate balance to be ready for this sort of mass defection. Either that, or the team woefully misjudged how many kids would leave early and which would leave after what year.

To lose this many early departures at once quite simply puts the team in a hole that will be hard to recover from in just one offseason, unless the next Johnny Gaudreau magically lands on their lap this summer. Even if all the freshmen coming in this fall are very good right away, it's going to take them a while to become the kind of veteran core the team needs to supplement the remaining and incoming superstars.

If Colin White returns, this team should still be able to score, but their depth is taking an absolute beating right now. If White does go, we could be in for a tough year.

When recruiting at this level, dealing with this kind of bloodletting may be inevitable, but the hope would be for it to be staggered a bit. Right now, the hits are all coming at once. Not good.