Jan. 11, 2010
Toronto, Ont. – The National Hockey League’s (NHL) Central Scouting Service has ranked Notre Dame freshman center Riley Sheahan (St. Catharine’s, Ont.) fifth among all North American skaters in its mid-term rankings for the 2009-10 season. He is joined in the rankings by four other players who have signed national letters-of-intent to attend Notre Dame in the fall of 2010 or 2011. The group of five are made up of three defensemen and two forwards.
Besides Sheahan, the group includes defenseman Stephen Johns (Wampum, Pa.), ranked 28th; defenseman Kevin Lind (Homer Glen, Ill.) at 32nd; defenseman Jarred Tinordi (Millersville, Md.) at 42nd and forward Bryan Rust (Bloomfield Hills, Mich.) who is ranked 76th. Johns, Tinordi and Rust currently play for the U.S. National Team Development Program while Lind plays for the Chicago Steel in the United States Hockey League (USHL).
NHL Central Scouting provides scouting and evaluation of draft-eligible players to all NHL teams. The mid-season rankings features the top 210 skaters and 32 goaltenders in North America. CSS also prepares a list of the top 100 skaters and seven goaltenders from Europe. The lists are then updated in May for the NHL Entry Draft on June 25-26 in Los Angeles, Calif.
Sheahan (6-2, 200) is ranked tops among all collegiate players and all non-major junior players and fifth overall behind Canadian major junior players Taylor Hall, Tyler Seguin, Cam Fowler and Brett Connolly. In 23 games to date for the Irish, Sheahan, a left-handed center is fifth on the team in scoring with five goals and nine assists for 14 points. He sees action in all situations at Notre Dame, centering one of the team’s top lines, killing penalties and playing on the power play.
Central Scouting’s Jack Barzee, who covers the U.S.-based prospects had this to say about Sheahan: “He’s a pretty exciting player because for his age he’s equally as smart in all three zones. He’s an asset offensively, he’s an asset defensively and in the neutral zone he’s clever. Good positionally, understands the game. Big guy who uses his size well, poised, good hands. If he’s guilty of anything he doesn’t shoot the puck enough, but that’s because he’s a center man.”
Following Sheahan on the list is Johns who is a 6-3, 215-pound right-handed defenseman who is in his second season with USA Hockey’s National Team Development Program. A big, rugged defenseman with good size and reach, Johns brings a physical element to the game. In 2008-09 with the Under-17 team, he served as an alternate captain on the team that won the bronze medal at the 2009 Under-17 World Challenge in Port Alberni, B.C. This season, he’s played in 35 games and has three goals and seven assists for 10 points with 32 penalty minutes.
Defenseman Kevin Lind is a 6-3, 198-pound left-shot defenseman who is currently in his second season of playing for the Chicago Steel. In 27 games this season, Lind has six goals and four assists for 10 points, is +3 on the year and has 37 penalty minutes, as Chicago is 13-15-4 on the season. Earlier this year, Lind was a teammate of fellow incoming freshmen Jeff Costello (Milwaukee, Wis.) and David Gerths (Ankeny, Ia.) on the gold-medal winning U.S. Junior Select Team that won the World Jr. A Challenge in Summerside, P.E.I., Nov. 1-8. He was originally ranked ninth by Central Scouting in their preliminary rankings of USHL players.
Following Lind on the list is defenseman Jarred Tinordi who is now in his second season with USA Hockey’s National Team Development program. Tinordi is a 6-5, 202-pound left-shot physical, defenseman who plays a shutdown style but can also jump into the play and create offense with and without the puck. He’s played in 35 games this season and has three goals and seven assists for 10 points with 46 penalty minutes. He is the son of former NHL defenseman Mark Tinordi who played 12 seasons with Minnesota, Dallas and Washington.
Rounding out the group of Irish players is Rust. A 5-11, 191-pound right-handed center, he is in his second year with the national program. The brother of current Michigan player and USA National Team Development alum, Matt Rust, Bryan has had a break out season with the USA Under-18 team as he has 13 goals and eight assists for 21 points in 35 games to date. He has one power-play goal, two short-handed tallies and three game winners so far this year.