The University of Maine men’s hockey team has added three players from Canada’s Major Junior Hockey Leagues, and two of them are National Hockey League draft choices.
Center Jaden Lipinski was a fourth round draft choice of the Calgary Flames and the 112th overall player selected in 2023, and defenseman Luke Coughlin was a sixth round pick (191st overall) by the Florida Panthers — also in 2023.
The other addition is defenseman Simon Motew.
The upcoming season will be the first in which players from Canada’s three Major Leagues will be eligible to play U.S. college hockey.
Players from the Quebec Maritimes Junior Hockey League, the Ontario Hockey League and the Western Hockey League had previously been deemed professionals in the eyes of the NCAA because they received monetary stipends. That disqualified them from playing U.S. college hockey.
But now all NCAA student-athletes are allowed to earn money from the addition of Name, Image, Likeness deals and, under a recent settlement, schools will be allowed to pay them directly.
Lipinski, Coughlin and Motew give the Black Bears a current total of six incoming Major Junior players as they join defensemen Jeremy Langlois and Loic Usereau and left winger Will Gerrior. And there could be more additions.
The 6-foot-4, 209-pound Lipinski registered 17 goals and 41 assists in 59 regular season games for the Vancouver Giants of the Western Hockey League this past season and added two goals and three assists in five playoff games.
The 20-year-old from Scottsdale, Arizona, appeared in 260 career games for the Giants and notched 68 goals and 124 assists.
According to the Elite Prospects 2023 NHL draft guide, Lipinski is a center with “mobility, point production and flashes of skill.”
The Elite Prospects guide says Lipinski “has a deep bag of skating skills, surveying the perimeter with heel-to-heel skating and separating from opponents with powerful cutbacks” and that he “combines handling and passing skill to hook pucks back into space or pulls pucks closer to his feet before releasing.”
Coughlin had four goals and 20 assists in 54 regular season games this season for Rimouski Oceanic in the QMJHL and had 15 goals and 68 assists in 188 career regular season games with the team.
According to the Elite Prospects guide, “with his loose hips and flexibility, Coughlin can easily shift his weight to launch himself around opponents and open up his skates to walk the blue line while facing his options.”
The draft guide describes him as a “fluid mover at the offensive blue line and a deceptive one, too. He uses his hip pocket handling and fake shots to keep defenders at bay and move the puck or find good lanes to fire in.”
Hip pocket handling is a technique which sees a player hold the puck close to their side, near their hip, which allows them to quickly pass, shoot or skate away with the puck.
The 22-year-old Motew, a native of Highland Park, Illinois, played Canadian college hockey for St. Francis Xavier this past season after his 212-game Ontario Hockey League career with the Kitchener Rangers.
The 6-foot, 183-pound Motew had three goals and 12 assists in 25 games for the Nova Scotia school after tallying 21 goals and 66 assists in his career for Kitchener.
The 2021 Elite Prospects NHL draft guide said Motew’s “hands and skating are very clean” and that he “explodes into gaps and is transitioning constantly” and “defends one-on-one situations relatively well, especially off the rush where he matches the speed of attackers and forces them to dump the puck before the blue line.”
UMaine went 24-8-6 this past season and won the Hockey East tournament for the first time since 2004. The Black Bears also qualified for the NCAA Tournament for the second consecutive season but were upset in the first round by regional host Penn State 5-1.
It was the first time since the 2005-06 and 06-07 seasons that UMaine earned back-to-back NCAA tournament appearances. UMaine has gone 47-20-8 during those two seasons.
They wound up seventh in the country in the final USA Hockey poll and eighth in the United States College Hockey Online poll.
UMaine will have to replace four of its top 11 scorers including outstanding veteran centers Harrison Scott, Nolan Renwick and Lynden Breen, along with two of its top six defensemen and its backup goalie.
