The NHL Draft will be held Wednesday and Thursday at Bridgestone Arena in Nashville and there’s growing speculation that Sherburn native Carsen Musser could hear his name called at some point.
He went through the NHL Draft Combine earlier this month in Buffalo and has spent time in camp with the Madison Capitols of the United States Hockey League, who made him the first pick of the second round in the Phase II portion of USHL Draft. He was the 17th overall pick.
Musser has spent two seasons with the USA Hockey National Team Development Program based in Plymouth, Mich.
NHL Central Scouting has Musser rated eighth among North American draft eligible goaltenders.
With the NTDP U-18 team last year, he split starts on a near-even basis with Trey Augustine, who is the third-ranked goaltender.
Augustine made 33 starts and Musser 28. Two other netminders made 13 and two starts, respectively.
Musser is listed at 6-foot-4 and 214 pounds.
“A trend in the NHL is the rise of the big goaltending prospect,” says Eugene Helfrick, who writes for the Tampa Bay Lightning and also thehockeywriters.com.
“While these players may not always have the most polished toolkit, their size and raw ability are tantalizing enough that they warrant a selection in the later rounds and then given time to develop their game. If they are able to put it all together, they can become a dominant force by utilizing their skills and natural size to swallow shots and block off chances that others simply can’t get to. An example in recent years is Akira Schmid, who was a fifth-round selection but developed his 6-foot-5 frame into a potential starter for the New Jersey Devils.”
Helfrick says that heading into the 2023 NHL Draft, the prospect that best fits this description is Musser. He adds that he is one of the largest prospects in his class, and he is able to use this size to cover the net from odd angles.
“If you focus on things like save percentage and goals against average, you will see some fairly middling numbers across various leagues he played in throughout the 2022-23 season,” said Helfrick. “But those aren’t what makes him an appealing prospect.
“It’s his ability to track the puck, hold a tight stance, cut off shooting angles, and his raw size that will entice general managers. His toolkit may be rough, but there are glimpses of a dominant goaltender that will take a lot of time to develop.”
Musser is committed to playing at Colorado College in 2024-25 after spending this season in Madison.
Helfrick says that whoever selects Musser will know that they are taking on a project, but it is a project that already has the path in place to develop and could pay dividends down the road.