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Prospect watch

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

When Dallas Stars prospects not under contract hit the ice this coming season almost half of them will be either playing college hockey or getting ready to make the jump to college in 2008-09. It's not by accident. It's an adjustment to the current CBA.

The big change as far as prospects in the current CBA is that teams now have two years to sign players drafted out of Europe or they go back into the draft.

"We are taking these players when they are 17 or 18 years old and trying to project where they are going to be when they are 22 or 23-years-old," Stars director of player personnel Dave Taylor said on The Fan 590 in Toronto late last week. "We used to draft a European player and hang onto him until he matured and bring him over.

"Now those players are treated just like the junior players in Canada where you have to make a decision [on signing them] within two years."

Teams can no longer take a European player and let him develop over several years the way the Stars did with Jussi Jokinen, Antti Miettinen, Joel Lundqvist and defenseman Vadim Khomitski, who will take another crack at the NHL this season.

That means teams have had to adjust, and the one place they can now stash players and let them develop for beyond the two-year signing window is college.

"Say if you draft a player that is playing in the USHL or one of the Tier II leagues in Canada, and he's heading off to college, then you effectively hold his rights until his class graduates," Taylor said.

Three of the Stars' 2007 draft picks - Nico Sacchetti, Jamie Benn and Austin Smith - are all slated to start college in 2008-09. Sacchetti will play in the Unites States Hockey League (USHL) this coming season, while Benn and Smith are playing in the British Columbia Hockey League (BCHL) before going on to play in the NCAA.

Goalies Richard Bachman (2006 pick) and Pat McGann (2005 pick) both played in the USHL last season and will begin playing in college this season.

Forwards Ray Sawada and Matt McKnight, who were both taken in the 2004 draft out of Tier II hockey in Canada, wrap up their college careers this season.

"There's a four-year horizon there," Taylor said. "I think a lot of teams, especially in the later rounds, taking those college-bound players who will have a little more time to develop their skills before you have to make a decision to sign them."

Here's a look at the Stars' prospects in college or headed to college.