Minnesota-Duluth’s Kyle Bettens goes into boards working to get possession of the puck during a game against St. Cloud State during the 2023-24 season. Bettens has become the fourth transfer into the Northern Michigan University hockey program. (Photo courtesy the University of Minnesota-Duluth)

Main hed: Bulldog becomes Wildcats

Sub hed: Only new transfer portal player involving NMU is ex-Minnesota-Duluth forward Bettens

MARQUETTE — The NCAA transfer portal seems to be treating the Northern Michigan University hockey team a bit more fairly, or at least more predictably, this year.

PAGE 1A TEASER — Northern Michigan University’s Jakob Peterson, right, protects the puck from St. Thomas’ Quinton Pepper during their CCHA game played at the Berry Events Center in Marquette on Saturday, Feb. 22, 2025. (Photo courtesy Cara Kamps)

A year ago at this time, 14 NMU players were on their way out — or at least actively looking at the possibility — with nearly that many more jumping ship after former head coach Grant Potulny announced his resignation in mid-June.

By the time new head coach Dave Shyiak had settled into his job around the Fourth of July, he had just four players returning and had to scrounge up another two dozen young men to cobble together a roster of 28 players who played for the Wildcats last season.

While this year’s number of exiting players is nearly as high as on this date last May — it’s 13 right now — the numbers haven’t grown since the first few days the transfer portal opened for all schools on March 30.

And it will be closing in barely more than a week, May 13, to let programs stabilize their rosters.

That’s all according to the internet page maintained by Grand Forks (North Dakota) Herald college hockey writer Brad Elliott Schlossman, which The Mining Journal has relied on for its information on player movement the past two springs.

One more player — for a total of just two — of the 13 Northern players who announced for the portal has also announced a new school to play at. That is sophomore forward Matthew Romer, who had five goals and three assists for eight points last season. He’ll be going to NCAA independent Stonehill, a Massachusetts-based school that moved up to NCAA Division I in 2022.

Announcing the intention to enter the portal doesn’t necessarily mean a player is leaving, but the vast majority of those who do, at least in hockey, end up leaving their original school, according to numbers Schlossman has compiled over the past four off-seasons.

That’s the story of outgoing players. As far as incoming players go, Northern added one more since the last Mining Journal story was written around 10 days ago, which gives the Wildcats four players who are coming from other programs.

These numbers don’t include the incoming freshman class or transfers who announced during other open times for the transfer portal.

The latest addition to the NMU family is Minnesota-Duluth’s forward Kyle Bettens, who had modest numbers of one goal and five assists for six points last season.

He is from Winnipeg, Manitoba, and before Duluth played for Youngstown of the U.S. Hockey League. He’ll turn 24 years old on the Fourth of July and is listed at a robust 6-foot-3 and 233 pounds on last season’s Bulldogs’ roster.

He’ll be a senior this season after playing at least 32 games for UMD each of his three seasons there.

In addition to last season’s six-point total in 32 games, he totaled 18 points (six goals) in 36 games during the 2023-24 season and eight points (five goals) in 34 games in 2022-23.

Duluth struggled to 13-20-3 overall and 9-13-2 National Collegiate Hockey Conference records last season and has been under .500 each of Bettens’ three seasons at the Minnesota institution.

From 10 days ago, there are 13 more players — now 297 — listed in the portal across Division I college hockey, an average of a little over 4 1/2 for each of the 64 Division I hockey-playing schools.

Not surprisingly, another 44 players in the last 10 days are now listed with a destination, almost evening out the committed vs. uncommitted totals — 146 committed to a school, 153 still uncommitted.

Looking at the 31 committed players coming to CCHA schools, Ferris has the most with nine, five of them coming from recently named head coach Brett Riley’s former school, Long Island. Three of the remainder are also from East Coast institutions with the only Midwest transfer from Ohio State.

Minnesota State-Mankato has seven transfers, six of them forwards with players coming from a range of schools, including national champion Western Michigan, Minnesota-Duluth, Wisconsin and Lake Superior State, the Lakers’ departure being defenseman Jacob Conrad.

St. Thomas, which will spend one more season in the CCHA before departing for the NCHC, has five transfers, including Michigan Tech defenseman Nick Willi

After NMU’s four incoming players, Bowling Green State has two, while Tech, LSSU, Bemidji State and Augustana each have one.

Two of these transfers into the CCHA are NHL draft picks — new Mankato junior forward Jack Smith, who is coming from UMD and was a fourth-round pick of Montreal, and new St. Thomas freshman goalie Carsen Musser, who is leaving Colorado College and was a sixth-round pick of Utah.

A quick scan of the rest of Division I shows Ferris with the most incoming transfers, while RPI of the ECAC is next with eight, including Michigan Tech junior Trevor Russell.

Here is the list of NMU’s 2024-25 players who entered the transfer portal, according to Schlossman — forwards Michael Mesic, who didn’t actually play college hockey last season, Ryan Duguay, Matthew Romer, Billy Renfrew, Brendan Poshak and Colby Browne; defensemen Jakob Peterson, a Marquette native, Rasmus Larsson, a fifth-round draft pick of the New York Rangers, Will Diamond, Trevor Mitchell and Wolfgang Govedaris; and goalies Ethan Barwick and Julian Molinaro.

Journal Sports Editor Steve Brownlee’s email address is sbrownlee@miningjournal.net.