03-05-2025
Ryan Warsofsky, Team USA coach at World Championship, has a message for his Marshfield High coach: Thank you
'I loved playing for him and I think he doesn't get recognized enough in the state of Massachusetts,' said Warsofsky, reached prior to boarding a flight in San Francisco for Denmark, with a stop first in Germany. 'I think he's one of the great coaches … there was that year we won … and I'll give Dan great credit, as far as developing leadership skills, he really helped me. He let me be me, let me lead in my own way, didn't micro-manage me.
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'I wear my heart on my sleeve, get very passionate, get fired up at times and I was like that as a player. He helped me through those emotions and helped guide me through being a leader in different ways. I really have to give a lot of credit to him in helping to mold me into the kind of leader I am today.'
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By Connolly's recollection, there wasn't a lot of tailoring involved with the future Team USA coach. Warsofsky, said Connolly, was ever prepared, intense and engaged and already had the playing and leadership skills to be the Rams captain upon joining the varsity as a sophomore.
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'Everyone looked up to him,' said Connolly, who recently completed his 26th year as Marshfield's bench boss. 'Because he did things the right way. The old cliche, he did everything the right way — every single thing was 100 percent. He was focused, made sure everyone was ready, prepared. His details were great in every single thing he did. Like having another coach out there, really.'
Now in charge of Uncle Sam's stick carriers, Warsofsky will be faced with trying to lead the USA to its first World gold medal since 1933.
'I mean, it's almost laughable that it's been that long,' said Warsofsky, who wasn't laughing as he said it. 'As a group, we'll be very focused on that.'
The win, in the thick of the Great Depression, came in Prague, the USA represented by a team known as the Massachusetts Rangers. Canada, represented by the Toronto National Sea Fleas, won the prior six Worlds, dating to the tournament's inception in 1920, and finished with the silver medal. The Canucks were coached by
Harold Ballard
, who became the colorful and cantankerous owner of the Toronto Maple Leafs.
Late this past week, Team USA was still adding to its roster. Prior to the start of the Stanley Cup playoffs, Bruins
Jeremy Swayman
,
Mason Lohrei
and
Andrew Peeke
were named to the squad.
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Swayman and North Andover's
Joey Daccord
(Seattle Kraken) will be the two headliners in net. Lexington's
Will Smith
, who was part of Warsofsky's young cast in San Jose this season, was among the late adds to the USA roster, along with ex-BU defenseman
Lane Hutson
(favored to win NHL Rookie of the Year after his superb season with the Canadiens).
Five more names have been added to the 2025 U.S. Men's National Team!
Details and Full Roster:
— USA Hockey (@usahockey)
For the elite hockey countries involved each year — Canada, Czechia, Sweden, Finland and the United States — roster building is tricky because tournament dates (May 9-25) conflict with the Stanley Cup playoffs. Team USA GM and ex-BU defenseman
Jeff Kealty
worked with Warsofsky in cobbling together the best available talent, not only with an eye on trying to win this tournament but also help USA Hockey bosses get a better handle on candidates for February's Olympics in Italy.
'A lot of eyes on USA Hockey right now,' said Warsofsky. 'That is exciting and very humbling … and right now I am preparing for it, but when it's all said and done I'll look back at this as a special moment.'
The World Championship action can be followed on the internet. Connolly will be among the dedicated streaming customers. Unless there was a conflict with the Marshfield hockey schedule, said Connolly, he watched every game the Sharks played this season.
'A lot of late nights, I'll tell ya,' lamented Connolly, 'and too many games went to OT.'
Connolly watched becuse of the pride he felt in watching his old Rams captain, but also to see if he could pick up any coaching tips from his old Rams captain. The teacher-student equation has been flipped.
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'That's 100 percent true,' said Connolly with a slight chuckle. 'I reach out to him all the time. It's amazing. He's always willing to spend time with whatever … to talk about a drill, or penalty killing … as a coach his penalty kills have always been phenomenal.'
Warsofsky played a year post-grad at Cushing Academy before playing at both Sacred Heart and then Curry College. After a brief twirl in the minor pros, he launched his coaching career as an assistant at Curry (2012-13), followed by two years at ECHL South Carolina, two more at AHL Charlotte, and another two at AHL Chicago before joining
David Quinn's
staff as an assistant in San Jose. He moved up to the top job last summer, replacing Quinn.
'You don't always have to rush to the next best thing,' said Warsofsky, asked the overall value of his Mass. high school experience. 'I took that from playing to coach. There were times I could have left the American League a little earlier and gone on to be an NHL assistant. I never really reached and coached for another job. I just let that next job come to me — and I give Dan Connolly and my time at Marshfield High School for helping me with that.'
Marshfield's Ryan Warsofsky, coach of the San Jose Sharks, will be the head coach for Team USA at the world championship.
Jeff Chiu/Associated Press
Zellers leads way
Bruins prospect tops in USHL
Will Zellers
, largely unknown to Bruins fans until he was acquired in
Zellers grew up outside Minneapolis (Minnesotans have become a trending theme for the Black and Gold) and will begin his freshman year at North Dakota in the fall. A downsized left winger (5 feet, 10 inches/170 pounds), he led the USHL in goals (44) and ranked third in points (71) this season.
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Originally an Avalanche pick (No. 76 in 2024), Zellers separated himself from the pack this season with that goal-scoring acumen.
'When he has the biscuit, there aren't many better — he can finish,' said
Kirk Luedeke
, the Green Bay Gamblers assistant GM. 'We would have been dead in the water this season without him.'
Will power 💪
New B's prospect Will Zellers is the
— Boston Bruins (@NHLBruins)
Sioux City forward
Giacomo Martino
, headed to Northeastern in September, topped the USHL scoring chart (32-42—74). Teammate
Landen Gunderson
, from Plymouth, Minn., was second in league scoring (28-45—73). He'll suit up for Ohio State in 2025. Not drafted by NHL teams, they're positioned to turn pro as unrestricted free agents if they can keep up their offensive beat in college.
Zellers will need at least one year, maybe two, at North Dakota before weighing whether to turn pro. Only 19, Zellers will need to add some thickness to a slight frame and, like most kids at all levels, build in game details, and develop a 200–foot mind-set. Scorers typically are given a longer runway to work their way through the full-sheet compulsories.
Zellers, said Luedeke, who is also Green Bay's director of player personnel, is 'fast and dynamic — with the puck on his stick, he is a threat to score in any situation.'
Luedeke added that Zellers may need two years at North Dakota before taking his shot at the pros.
'But I think a lot of that will depend on his role and how quickly he adapts to NCAA play,' he said. 'So whether it's one year or longer, he has the natural ability to be an impact player in one of college hockey's top conferences. We're all just grateful we got to be part of the historic season he had in Green Bay.'
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The Bruins finished the season with three Minnesotans on the varsity roster:
Casey Mittelstadt
,
Cole Koepke
, and
Vinni Lettieri
. Some of that 'Land of 10,000 Lakes' invasion on the Atlantic seaboard is the influence of
Jamie Langenbrunner
, proud son of Cloquet, Minn., who is the Bruins' assistant GM-player personnel.
Help for Bruins?
Hall, Bertuzzi would fit again
Less than 24 hours after helping Carolina eliminate New Jersey in Round 1, ex-Bruins winger
Taylor Hall
signed a three-year extension for $9.5 million (about 50 cents on the dollar compared with the four-year/24 million pact he signed with the Bruins in July '21). Hall will be 34 in November, and it's common for player leverage and payout to erode at the bargaining table after age 30.
The Bruins these next months will be hunting for NHL-caliber wingers, as stated by GM
Don Sweeney
on autopsy day (April 23) and Hall would have been worth a second look, particularly at that comfy dollar level.
As Round 1 ended, Hall was slotted at LW2, riding with
Jesperi Kotkaniemi
in the middle and
Sebastian Aho
at the opposite wing. Which is to say, he can still keep pace, leg speed always one of his better skills.
Sweeney's trade chips are few, but one has to wonder if he'd inquire on another alum,
Tyler Bertuzzi
, who has three years remaining (cap hit: $5.5 million) on his deal with the going nowhere Blackhawks.
Bertuzzi, 30, was effective in his short stint as one of Sweeney's primo deadline pickups prior to the '23 playoffs. He wanted too much dough in an extension and the market proved otherwise, ultimately leading him to a one-year spacer deal with the Maple Leafs at $5.5 million.
The market again didn't bid up Bertuzzi last summer and he settled for four years at the same money (total $22 million) with the Blackhawks. The deal allows him limited trade protection (ability to say no to 10 teams). He delivered 23–23—46 last season, fourth on the motley Backhawks — now with five consecutive playoff DNQs.
Bertuzzi's pay now is middle of the reload for a top-six winger, especially with the cap projected to edge over $113 million (from the current $88 million) over the remaining three years of his deal. Nearly half of Bertuzzi's production with the Blackhawks came on the power play (10-10—20). He was a good fit here in the spring of '23. He looks like an even better one now, especially with the Bruins' power play in a Mass Eye and Ear study for incurable eyesores.
Former Bruins winger Taylor Hall signed a three-year extension with the Hurricanes for $9.5 million.
Karl B DeBlaker/Associated Press
No-nonsense officials
Worlds to have IIHF referees
The World Championship and the Olympics will employ IIHF on-ice officials, which alone will give the games a different look than what we're accustomed to in the NHL — or what we saw during February's 4 Nations Face-Off. NHL officials worked whistle at 4 Nations, with games, and especially tolerance levels among the referees, feeling very familiar for audiences in North America.
'They let things go, right' said a smiling
Andrew Raycroft
, the former Bruins goalie and now commentator. 'Hockey the way we know it.'
The IIHF officials, noted Raycroft, adhere more stringently to the rule book, with referees more inclined (if not mandated) to whistle off players for stick fouls and other forms of obstruction (read: interference). In turn, noted Raycroft, individual national team bosses must be aware of that when filling out their rosters.
'Because you're going to see more power plays,' said Raycroft. 'There's no question about it.'
All of which should have GMs and coaches making some personnel decisions with an eye on making sure both their power play and penalty killing are buttoned up. Special teams won't necessarily rule the day, but teams short on talent there could be in for a short tournament.
Fuzzy math in standings
Loser points for — losers
As the years go by, the NHL's accounting methods to determine the standings, specifically factoring in the so-called loser point, continue to feel more like a scam.
Consider: of the 16 teams to qualify for the playoffs this season, 15 would have made the cut solely on their win totals. The so-called 'loser' points continued to be nothing but a confusing, unnecessary contrivance.
In the West, the eight teams that qualified were the same eight teams that finished with the most wins in the conference. Pretty simple, basic, what we see in most adult sports that shape standings around W's and L's.
In the East, the same played out for seven of the eight postseason teams.
The loser point only factored in the Canadiens locking down the No. 2 wild-card spot with a record of 40-31–11 for 91 points. The Habs edged out the Blue Jackets, who finished 40-33-9 for 89 points. A pair of loser points carried the day for Montreal — a thought that must be funny to more than just your faithful puck chronicler.
Really, all that math, smoke and mirrors to sort out one of 16 qualifiers? Ridiculous. Even more absurd is that coaches and players, when losing in OT, constantly note they're happy 'at least to get a point out of it.'
Fellas, in the overall picture, that loser point only means you didn't win. Worse, by feeling it's OK to bank those points, you're ignoring the greater truth that they hardly mean a thing.
Loose pucks
One former highly touted scoring prospect who played at North Dakota and did not live up to the hype:
Lee
'Scorin' '
Goren
. Drafted by the Bruins in 1997 (No. 63), he drove in 60 goals across his final two seasons at ND, only to fall short on foot speed and playmaking at the NHL level. He left the dream behind in 2007 after playing 67 NHL games (35 in Black and Gold) and finished out with six seasons in Europe before calling it quits at age 35 … Even with Hall's $3 million-plus written into the books, the budget-wise Hurricanes have some $33 million in cap space as the July 1 UFA market approaches. If they want to retain rising UFAs
Brent Burns
and
Dmitry Orlov
on their blue line, the combined price should be well short of the $15.25 million they banked last season. If, like Hall, their new deals reflect around a 50 percent drop, then that savings alone will cover Hall and leave another $4 million or so in GM
Eric Tulsky's
pocket for his shopping. The former Forever .500s, up against the Capitals in Round 2, enter their 15th playoff series dating to the spring of 2019. The win over New Jersey left them 8-6 in 14 series, and a 39-37 mark in 76 games … Prepare the dunk tank, but I'm picking the Maple Leafs over the defending champion Panthers in Round 2. The sons of
Punch Imlach
haven't made it to Round 3 since 2002. Surfing the internet now for that 40-regular wetsuit.
Kevin Paul Dupont can be reached at
