Welcome Jeff Carlson

I've made mention of this as recently as yesterday and today UAA officially announced that defenseman Jeff Carlson (6'2" 200lbs) has joined the team. Here is the relevant text from the announcement:

Alaska Anchorage head hockey coach Dave Shyiak announced today that Jeff Carlson has joined the Seawolves for the Spring 2008 semester and is eligible to begin practicing with the team.

A 6-2, 200-pound defenseman, Carlson tallied 15-24—39 totals in 59 regular-season games with the Southern Minnesota Express of the NAHL in 2006-07. The Richfield, Minn., product was his team’s top scoring defenseman and finished fourth among league blueliners in points. Carlson also posted seven power-play goals and three game-winning goals.

This makes an already deep UAA defense even deeper. Now with 10 guys on the blueline, each and every player will need to compete hard in practice and play well in games to guarantee playing time. I doubt we'll see Jared Tuton filling in on the backline for injured players anymore. There is every indication from Jeff's resume that he'll compete well for playing time at some point. Naturally, I'd expect that his conditioning is in question but that shouldn't be an issue for an extended period. Here's what I wrote about Jeff last year (Dec 2006) in one of my comprehensive recruit updates.

Jeff is one of the two verbal committments that UAA isn't allowed to comment on. He is in his second year with the Southern Minnesota Express of the NAHL. Jeff is currently the 2nd leading scoring defenseman in the league with 9 goals and 16 assists in 32 games this season. Last year he scored 9 goals with 27 assists for the Express in 56 games. His numbers are obviously good news. Last season Jeff had interest from a couple of other WCHA teams according to Chris at the Western College Hockey blog. Apparently there was some sort of academic issue which prevented him from entering a school but all indications are that those have been resolved. Chris also indicated to me that Jeff is a "really talented player". His maturity should mean that he'll be able to step in at UAA and contribute right away. If my memory serves me he is the third UAA Seawolf with that name.

Through the remaining part of last season Jeff continued to be one of the Express' leading scorers (finished 4th on the team) and was named to the Robertson Cup (league championship tournament) all-tournament team. I'll say it again here, Jeff is a young man that could become a high quality presence on the blueline for UAA. It's nice to see him finally in the fold after I'd talked about him for so long here (first mention was November 17th 2006). Welcome to UAA Jeff.