Inside College Hockey | Recruiting Trail

Setpember 29, 2009
Recruiting Trail: Top 20 Defensemen

Previous Top Defensemen
2008: Aaron Ness, Minnesota
2007: Ryan McDonagh, Wisconsin
2006: Erik Johnson, Minnesota
2005: Jack Johnson, Michigan
2004: Alex Goligoski, Minnesota
2003: Ryan Suter, Wisconsin

It's a team typically considered to be explosive offensively, yet Minnesota has dominated the top spot in the INCH Recruiting Rankings over the years. Three of the previous six holders of the No. 1 spot on our annual rankings of the top freshmen defensemen have set up shop in Dinkytown.

No surprise, then, that Minnesota's Nick Leddy is tops our list of the 20 best incoming defensemen for 2009-10, just ahead of maroon-and-gold clad neighbor to the north, Dylan Olson of Minnesota Duluth. Nine of our top 20—including the top four—hail from the WCHA. Hockey East has seven representatives on the list.

Inside College Hockey compiled its 2009 Recruiting Rankings with extensive input from college coaches and professional scouts. Participants were asked to evaluate recruits based on their projected impact at the college level, not on their professional hockey prospects.

Also: Top 20 Forwards | Top 10 Goalies

TOP 20 INCOMING DEFENSEMEN
No.	Name	School	Last Team
1.	Nick Leddy	Minnesota	Eden Prairie (Minn.) H.S.
He led his high school to the state hockey title, and was the state's Mr. Hockey last season. The Wild used its first-round pick in June's NHL Entry Draft on him. And now he's a Gopher. Nah, no Minnesota kid dreams about that.
2.	Dylan Olsen	Minnesota Duluth	Camrose (AJHL)
Calgary's his hometown, but Dylan bounced around North America and Europe with his dad, former Northern Michigan defenseman Darryl Olsen, during the elder Olsen's decade-long professional career.
3.	Justin Schultz	Wisconsin	Westside (BCHL)
The star-studded Badger blueline gets even, uhh, starrier with the addition of Schultz, who was named BCHL Interior Division Defenseman of the Year last season after scoring 50 points in 49 games.
4.	Matt Donovan	Denver	Cedar Rapids (USHL)
It sounds like a backhanded compliment—Donovan does nothing great, but everything well—but it's not. A native of Edmond, Okla., his dad is the head coach of the University of Oklahoma club hockey team.
5.	Patrick Wey	Boston College	Waterloo (USHL)
Wey, who scored 34 points in 58 games with Waterloo last season, took a rocket ride to the top five based on our panelists' comments.
6.	Max Nicastro	Boston University	Chicago (USHL)
Nicastro's hockey career has taken him from coast to coast: The Thousand Oaks, Cal., native went from the Los Angeles Junior Kings to the USHL's Chicago Steel and now to BU.
7.	William Wrenn	Denver	U.S. NTDP
A defensive defenseman, Wrenn was captain of the U.S. team that won the gold medal at the 2009 Under-18 World Championship in Fargo, N.D., this past spring.
8.	Brian Dumoulin	Boston College	New Hampshire (EJHL)
If Dumoulin looks familiar to you foodies out there, it's because the second-round pick of Carolina in the 2009 NHL Draft worked part-time this summer as a waiter at a seafood restaurant near his hometown of Biddeford, Maine.
9.	Luke Witkowski	Western Michigan	Fargo (USHL)
The captain of the Fargo team that lost to Indiana in the USHL playoff final, Witkowski ranked second in the circuit with a plus-minus rating of +30
10.	Connor Hardowa	New Hampshire	Spruce Grove (AJHL)
Hardowa was named Alberta Junior Hockey League co-MVP and Defenseman of the Year after scoring 20 goals and 63 points in 61 games for Spruce Grove.
11.	Seth Helgeson	Minnesota	Sioux City (USHL)
12.	Alex Velischek	Providence	Delbarton (N.J.) Prep
13.	Nick D'Agostino	Cornell	St. Michael's (OJHL)
14.	Steve Seigo	Michigan Tech	Bonnyville (AJHL)
15.	Colin Wright	UMass Lowell	Burlington (OJHL)
16.	Brett Kostolansky	New Hampshire	Chicago (USHL)
17.	Sam Calabrese	Notre Dame	U.S. NTDP
18.	Lee Moffie	Michigan	Waterloo (USHL)
19.	Andrew McWilliam	North Dakota	Camrose (AJHL)
20.	Lee Baldwin	Alaska Anchorage	Victoria (BCHL)