Now that the calendar has turned to February, the State Tournament is not far away, and that means it’s time to start talking about what was a big hit last year: the @MassNZ Mr. Hockey Award for 2020.
As you will likely recall from last year, our first award winner was a consensus selection amongst Neutral Zone scouts: F Thomas Kramer of BC High. This year? We don’t anticipate the choice being so easy. If there is one thing we have seen this season: it’s that any team can beat anyone. There are no runaway teams this year and that also means that the talent pool is a little deeper than we have seen in previous years.
With that in mind, we at Neutral Zone have recapped roughly 30 games over the past two months and seen 37 of the 50 teams in D1 as well as most of the top teams in D2 and a few of the top D3 teams. As a result, our team of scouts has compiled a statewide Watch List for the 2020 MassNZ Mr Hockey Award, which follows below.
Just a few notes on these lists:
- The players below are listed alphabetically by school these are not ranked lists.
- We chose to highlight 35 Division 1 players and 15 Division 2 players for this list and we have also noted a handful of Division 3 players below that caught our eye as well.
- Our finalist group will consist of 10 of the following listed players and will be rolled out exclusively on Twitter and Instagram in April, following the MIAA playoffs conclusion.
- Our finalist group will not be limited to just Division 1 players, see below for which Division 2 players are likely to be included.
- Want to know exactly what we like about each of these players? Then you should subscribe to Neutral Zone here and check out Mass HS Report 1 which features 230 unique scouting reports…
Note: while we didn’t compile a D3 list, we were impressed by forwards Pavit Mehra and Sean Walsh of Hopkinton in addition to F Bobby Guilford of Silver Lake plus F Kevin Skagerlind and D Sean Gardner of Wachusett.
Division 1 Watch List (February)
- F Brendan Jones, Arlington
- F Anthony Messuri, Arlington (Northeastern)
- D Aidan Elkins, Austin Prep
- D Jack Farrell, Austin Prep
- D Mike Dragon, BC High
- F Matt Keohane, BC High
- D John Logan, BC High
- F Bennett Fici, Belmont
- D Matt Livingston, Billerica
- F Jake Marini, Billerica
- F Ian Worthley, Bishop Fenwick
- F Ryan O’Halloran, Burlington
- F Michael Dinges, Central Catholic
- D Nick Peters, Central Catholic
- D Ben Luscko, Duxbury
- G Steve Pisani, Duxbury
- G Jake Handy, Framingham
- D Dom Leone, Framingham
- F Will Trischitta, Framingham
- F Tim Carroll, Hingham
- F David Bazile, Malden Catholic
- F Brendan Curtis, Malden Catholic
- F Brendan Fennell, Melrose
- D Owen Spence, Newburyport
- D Jack Kennedy, Pope Francis
- F Ryan Leonard, Pope Francis
- F Matt Nuzzolilo, Shrewsbury
- G Noah Dorsey-Sorofman, St John’s Prep
- F Matt Myers, St. John’s Shrewsbury
- D Davis Kinne, St. Mary’s Lynn
- D Harrison Kinne, St. Mary’s Lynn
- F John Surrette, Woburn
- F Ryan Pomposelli, Xaverian
- D Aiden Rodriguez, Xaverian
- F Matty Ryan, Xaverian
Division 2 Watch List (February)
- D Damon Alexander, Boston Latin
- G Luke Young, Boston Latin
- F Grayson Badger, Brookline
- G Gil Markman, Brookline
- F John Hagan, Canton
- F Dane Carter, Concord-Carlisle
- F Brendan Quinn, Lincoln-Sudbury
- F Angelo Venuto, Lincoln-Sudbury
- F Logan Campbell, Masconomet
- F Kai Roberto, Masconomet
- D Nick Herald, North Andover
- F Jason Cooke, Tewksbury
- F Cael Kohan, Triton
- D Connor Kohan, Triton
- F Matt Moniz, Wakefield
