Canucks prospects: Anthony Romani leaving OHL's Barrie for NCAA's Michigan State
Vancouver Canucks forward prospect Anthony Romani is giving up a year of junior hockey eligibility and leaving the OHL's Barrie Colts to join the Michigan State University Spartans next season.
A Canuck spokesperson confirmed the move Sunday afternoon. The school nor the Colts have yet to announce anything.
The NCAA is opening up scholarship opportunities to players from Canada's three Major Junior leagues this coming fall for the first time.
Romani turns 20 in July and would be eligible to return to Barrie as one of their three overage players next season. The 6-foot-1, 190-pound right-handed shooting Romani was a sixth-round pick of the Canucks in last summer's draft.
He is coming off a stellar playoffs with Barrie. He had 12 goals and 24 points in 16 post-season games. Barrie were the No. 2 seeds in the Eastern Conference and were swept in the best-of-seven Eastern final by the No. 4 Oshawa Generals.
Romani started the regular season with the North Bay Battalion but suffered a broken clavicle six games into the year. He was traded to Barrie while he was rehabbing. He finished with 21 goals and 36 points in 35 regular season games.
He had 58 goals and 111 points in 68 regular season games with North Bay in 2023-24. He has 223 regular season OHL games on his resume.
He's part of a growing list of NHL draft picks giving up junior eligibility to go to the NCAA. That includes Swift Current Broncos forward Clarke Caswell, 19, a Seattle Kraken 2024 fourth rounder who is slated to join Denver, and Sudbury Wolves defenceman Henry Mews, 19, a 2024 Calgary Flames third rounder who has committed to Michigan.
Elite Prospects offered up this scouting report on Romani ahead of last year's draft: 'Most of Romani's offence comes off the rush. He's an ice-stretching playmaker, hitting teammates with long-bomb cross-ice passes. This season, he carried the puck move, creating offence with his weaving rushes and give-and-goes. Either way, he's constantly shifting the defence around with his east-west movement, creating space for him or his linemates to slip away from the defence.'
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