My spies in Naples, Fla., report that the American Hockey Coaches Association and NHL folks — NHL Deputy Commish Bill Daly and NHL Players Association executive director Paul Kelly — are putting their heads together this week to discuss what to do about the growing number of underclassmen leaving college hockey for the pros.

So far this offseason, 16 players with eligibility left have said bye-bye to college hockey. And the offseason is really only two, three weeks old for teams which played in the NCAA tournament.

Seven of those are WCHA players, including junior goalie Jeff Frazee of the Gophers.

Minnesota also lost a player, sophomore Kyle Okposo in midseason to the N.Y. Isles.

Coaches, according reports from sunny Florida, also are concerned about NHL teams urging undrafted players to leave.

There has been talk of some sort of a development fee NHL teams might have to pay for signing college players early.

Pro teams are going more to younger players to keep costs down and young players want to get to the NHL as soon as they can so they can sign the cheaper entry level contracts, and then move on quicker to better contracts later.

Seems the NHL and NHLPA are sympathetic to college hockey’s concerns but a quick fix is unlikely.

I plan to follow up with WCHA officials next week — when they return from Florida — on what happened in these meetings.

Frankly, I’m surprised a few more WCHA players have not signed with pro teams. Junior Blake Wheeler of the Gophers still has not made a decision. Phoenix drafted him.

And North Dakota has a handful of juniors who might be tempted to turn pro.Â

This entry was posted on Friday, April 25th, 2008 at 3:25 pm and is filed under Gophers men's hockey. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.