Aaron Ward has seen the University of Michigan men’s hockey program grow prestigiously since his last games as a Wolverine in 1993. The national championships and Frozen Four appearances. The “Children of Yost” in the stands at their fabled home arena, and their growing number of alumni in the NHL, from Max Pacioretty to Zach Werenski to Quinn Hughes.
What he wants to see now is the program make NHL draft history.
No NCAA team has ever had three current players taken in the first round. With defenseman Owen Power, center Matty Beniers and center Kent Johnson all projected to be top-10 picks, that record will fall to Michigan on Friday night.
“I’m incredibly excited for them. This is catapulting the program to an entirely different level, just based on the draft,” said Ward, who went on to play 839 games in the NHL and won two Stanley Cups. “You equate it to Alabama in football and Kentucky in basketball. If you can get yourself [to Michigan], it will catapult you towards playing in the National Hockey League.”
There’s more history to be made for the Wolverines. If Power and Beniers are drafted first and second overall by the Buffalo Sabres and Seattle Kraken respectively, it will mark the first time since 1969 that the same team produced the first two picks in the draft. It would be the second time in draft history two NCAA players filled the top two picks, the last time being Rick DiPietro and Dany Heatley in 2000.
If either are taken first overall, it would make just the fourth time an NCAA player was selected with the top pick.
When defenseman Luke Hughes, a Michigan recruit, is drafted, it will mark only the third time in draft history that the same NCAA team will have hit the board four times in the first round with current players and recruits.
Needless to say, this class of Michigan hockey prospects is in a class by itself.
“I could see them go one, two, three and four, to tell you the truth,” coach Mel Pearson said. “And any of those guys could be No. 1.”
From 1988 to 2011, Pearson worked as an assistant coach under the legendary Red Berenson.
“It’s the foundation that Red Berenson built there,” Ward said. “He had an identity for the program. He sets out an identity and lives to that identity and he’s very consistent with it. That consistency paid dividends over time.
“The brand is also starting to work for Michigan, in terms of people identifying the program as one that can put players out.”
Pearson left for a head coaching gig at Michigan Tech, but returned to become the head coach of the Wolverines in 2017 after Berenson’s retirement.
When Pearson arrived back in Ann Arbor, Power was already on the program’s recruiting radar.
“We wanted him at Michigan. He was a good young player in Toronto. We’ve already been able to stay in that major junior area and pick some guys off,” recalled Pearson, rattling off names like Mike Cammalleri, Andrew Cogliano and John Madden as Toronto-area recruits.
Power played 26 games for Michigan this season, scoring 16 points. He played 10 games for Canada at the IIHF world championships as well.
“I could sing his praises all day,” said Johnson, Power’s teammate. “Right when I got to Michigan I could see how special he was. I remember watching the first period of the game [at Worlds] and I was like, ‘C’mon, they’ve gotta get this guy out there more.'”
Pearson said one of the unique attributes of this group is regionality.
“It’s interesting, because they’re all from different areas,” he said. “You have Matty Beniers from Boston, Owen right in the middle from Toronto and Kent from British Columbia. One of the things Michigan’s always been known for is not necessarily being regional. We think we have the brand and the name to go and recruit from anywhere.”
That includes last season’s draft class, which saw current Michigan center Brendan Brisson recruited from Manhattan Beach, California. He was selected 29th overall by the Vegas Golden Knights in 2020.
“That was a lot of fun last year at Brendan’s draft. All the guys were there supporting him,” Beniers said. “We didn’t know where he was going. He didn’t know where he was going. So when your name gets called, it’s like, ‘This is awesome.'”
The expectation is that Beniers, a dynamic two-way center, will go at worst second overall behind Power, who is the consensus first overall pick to the Sabres.
Although Beniers isn’t quite ready to concede that.
“He’s definitely a number one pick contender,” Beniers said. “I’m not sure what’s going to happen, but I hope the best for him. I hope he can go as high as he can.”
Beniers, who counts Patrice Bergeron as an inspiration, said he and the other Wolverines in the draft have tried to keep things light during what could be a stressful time. They compare notes about the interview process, talk about teams they like or don’t like.
“A little bit [kidding around]. I don’t think any of us have put too much stress on ourselves around the draft, what everyone is saying and what’s going on,” Beniers said.
Pearson said Beniers was a lucky break for the program. He was committed to play for Harvard, but the Ivy League canceled its season due to the COVID-19 pandemic. So he enrolled at Michigan in August 2020.
“A good break for us, with the Ivy League shutting down,” Pearson said. “He had a feel for Michigan and Ann Arbor. When Harvard decided they weren’t going to play, one of the first schools Matty thought of was Michigan. Not only because of the hockey program, but the academics.”
Johnson had a more non-traditional route to the NCAA. A native of North Vancouver, he’s considered the late bloomer of the bunch.
“One of our former players, Jeff Tambellini, was Kent’s coach in the [British Columbia Hockey League],” Pearson said. “Jeff being a Michigan guy told us he had a guy coming up who was a heck of a hockey player. He was a little bit of a late bloomer — 10th-round pick in the WHL draft. It’s not like he was a phenom.”
The coach called Johnson the Wolverines’ most improved player as a freshman, where he had 27 points in 26 games one year after posting 101 points with the BCHL’s Trail Smoke Eaters.
“I definitely learned some areas I can improve in that I didn’t see as much in the BCHL, because obviously I was dominating every night there,” Johnson said.
Hughes is a legacy. His brother, Quinn Hughes of the Vancouver Canucks, played two seasons at Michigan before making the leap to the NHL.
“We liked Luke, but we had to go through the recruiting process with Luke, too,” Pearson said. “I don’t think he’s just coming to Michigan because Quinn did. But Quinn loved it here. Not just his development on the ice but off the ice.”
Hughes, who could be united with brother Jack Hughes on the New Jersey Devils if they select him fourth overall, said he’s excited to play at Michigan.
“Watching my brother Quinn go through it, and how much he grew as a player, but more as a person — meeting really smart people there and long-time friends. I’m really looking forward to it,” Hughes said.
It doesn’t hurt that he’ll be joining a championship contender.
“I think you guys know, we’re going to have a really good team next season. Hopefully we can try to go pretty far and try to win it all. I’m super excited for my time there,” said Hughes.
While Michigan has produced a robust number of NHL players — 31 made their NHL debuts since 2007-08 — its success in the college ranks in recent years has been inconsistent.
Since joining the Big Ten’s hockey conference, which formed in the 2013-14 season, the Wolverines have made the Frozen Four once, in 2018. They haven’t won a national championship since 1998, when Marty Turco back-stopped them to a 3-2 overtime win over Boston College.
It appeared those fortunes could change in 2021, as Michigan was ranked No. 8 in the nation and No. 2 in the men’s NCAA tournament. But before the Wolverines were able to take on Minnesota Duluth in a Midwest Regional semifinal, the game was ruled a “no contest” and their opponents advanced “due to positive COVID-19 test results within U-M’s Tier I testing group.”
That came after the disappointment in 2019-20, when the Big Ten canceled its postseason tournament due to the pandemic in March 2020.
“They’ve given so much and to get this opportunity taken away from them, it’s hard to swallow,” Pearson said earlier this year. “I know it’s just a game, but it’s extremely important to these young men. It’s two years in a row now we’ve been denied an opportunity to compete in the national championship.”
So as these young hockey stars consider their NHL future as the draft arrives, they’re also thinking about unfinished business in the college ranks.
“I wouldn’t say I’m committed to going back to school,” Power said. “I’m probably leaning towards it right now. But that’s obviously something that I have to talk about with whatever team drafts me.”
But the 6-foot-5 defenseman said, ideally, he’d head back to Michigan to experience student life outside a pandemic, and then turn pro.
“That’s one of the big parts of why I want to go back to school … to experience the true college experience at Michigan, especially at Yost [arena] with the fans there and everything,” Power said. “To go to classes and not do everything online. To be able to do stuff besides go to the rink and then go home.”
It’s a sentiment echoed by the other Michigan players headed to teams in the first round of the NHL draft, and by their coach.
“Playing in Yost Ice Arena … they all experienced it on their recruiting trips, but they haven’t experienced it as a player. Which is an experience in itself,” said Pearson.
“The unfinished business of how the season ended last year … with the team that we had … we felt we were playing as well as anybody. Good players all want to be around good players, and I think they sense this could be a really good year at Michigan if everyone came back and took another kick at the can.”
Pearson takes a moment to picture a Michigan team challenging for a national title with an historic NHL draft class of Power, Beniers, Johnson and Hughes.
“If we all get them back this year … holy cow.”