Cole Knuble’s season, in all likelihood, has come to a close.
What a wild end to the season it’s been — after losing a pair of 5-2 games to Michigan State to close out their regular season, Knuble and his Notre Dame squad were set to face off against Minnesota in the quarterfinals of the Big Ten Tournament, and his team which has struggled for large portions of the season, managed to beat them in the best of three series (in which Knuble stepped up with a goal and an assist), upsetting one of the top teams in their conference. With this, they punched their ticket to the tournament semifinal, and a win or go home rematch with Michigan State. And while the game remained a competitive one, turning into a goaltending duel — Notre Dame’s goalie Owen Say was as close as can be to exceptional, letting in just one goal on the 46 shots the Spartans threw at him, Michigan State’s Trey Augustine was perfect, coming up with an 18-save shutout — Notre Dame’s momentum was cut short in the end.
Now, while a strong performance in the conference tournaments does mean that teams on the bubble can make a push for an at-large bid for a place in the overall NCAA tournament, with Notre Dame already coming into the weekend ranked all the way back at 41, it would be safe to presume that there’s just too much ground left to make up, and their season is well and truly done.
So, what does this all mean in the big picture for the prospect watching Flyers fans? With Knuble having wrapped up the second of two very successful seasons in a not exactly stellar program, there’s a real possibility that the Flyers will be looking to have him sign his entry level deal and get him moving towards graduation to professional hockey. We could be looking at a situation soon like the one we saw with Hunter McDonald last year, where he was signed to an ELC set to kick in for the following season, and then was able to join the Phantoms for the end of their regular season as well as playoff run on an Amateur Tryout. With the injuries beginning to pile up for them, that’s a bit of reinforcement that the Phantoms also would certainly welcome.
But the ball is in Knuble’s court — to mix our sports metaphors — and he’ll have to decide if he’s ready to move on, or if he’d like to return to college for one more year to try to wrap up some unfinished business. Time will tell, but this officially kicks off College Prospect Signing Watch season. There’s intrigue to look forward to, yet.