Monday, January 07, 2008

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.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

I saw Bryce at UAA's practice yesterday, he looked OK. It is a big jump to college from junior hockey. Wish him the best of luck

Anonymous said...

Sorry, the gophers didn't want him.

Anonymous said...

Yeah like the gophers have good Goalies??? just like there team OVERATED!!!

Anonymous said...

Can we turn this blog into a GOPHERS SUCK blog?

Donald Dunlop said...

My blog readers may not be aware that

"the gophers didn't want him"

is a tongue in cheek poke at gopher fans who when faced with the question about why a recruit chose another school tend to answer by saying that the gophers were never interested in said recruit.

youbetcha:
it already is. it is also a CC Sucks blog and a DU Sucks blog and a UA_ Sucks blog and a BADgers Suck blog and every other WCHA team Sucks blog.

Anonymous said...

Wow donald scooped woody and heisenberg...Big article on Bryce on BCHL WebSite..impressive

Donald Dunlop said...

Regarding Bryce:
I didn't scoop anyone. The first person to publish his info was The USHL Blog on December 19th. I read that post, sent him an email asking who his source was and when he graciously shared his source I was convinced to go with the my post on that day.

Additionally, a rumor on the BCHL board preceded any knowledge I had about this. I did speak with one local source who had intimate knowledge at about the same as well but I won't confirm or deny anything that source told me nor who the source was.

As to Heisenberg ... don't for a second think that he wasn't the one of the first to hear that Bryce was probably coming here.

Anonymous said...

Welcome Jeff!

Anonymous said...

Goodluck to the boys this week-end. Hopefully they take home a couple or four points.

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