For instance, a pair of defensemen who have yet to play for the Wildcats have already attended National Hockey League development camps — Warren Clark and Avery Laliberte.

Clark, a transfer who will be a junior at NMU this fall, was at the Tampa Bay Lightning’s 2025 Development Camp last week in Tampa, Florida, following his appearance at that event in 2024.

That NHL team made Clark a sixth-round pick (No. 179 overall) in the 2023 draft just before he started playing for St. Cloud State of the National Collegiate Hockey Conference.

He played two years for the Huskies before entering the NCAA transfer portal and coming to NMU this spring.

Warren Clark

Clark, 20, is a 6-foot-3, 195-pound blueliner from Riverside, Ontario, and was scheduled to be one of 13 collegiate skaters at this year’s Lightning camp, which wrapped up interestingly on the Fourth of July.

Last season, his second at St. Cloud, Clark appeared in 20 games and scored a goal while making three assists. He scored his goal against Omaha on Dec. 6, while having assists vs. Bemidji State in October, vs. St. Thomas in December and vs. Omaha in January.

As a freshman, he made it into 31 St. Cloud contests, notching three assists with 15 shots on goal and 13 blocked shots. His assists came against Alaska-Anchorage in October, vs. Western Michigan in November and vs. Omaha in December.

The right-shot defenseman was described as a big, smooth-skating defenseman with good hockey sense and good hands in an NMU Sports Information review of the school’s 16 incoming players that appeared in Monday’s Mining Journal sports.

Before his college days, Clark played in several junior leagues, lastly with the Steinbach Pistons of the Manitoba Junior Hockey League in 2022-23, recording six goals and 32 assists in 55 games, adding a goal and seven assists in 18 postseason games as his team won its Turnbull Cup playoff title.

Niverville Nighthawks defenseman Avery Laliberte watches play during a Manitoba Junior Hockey League game during the 2023-24 season. (Photo courtesy MJHLhockey.ca)

In 2021-22, he was with the Chatham Maroons of the Greater Ontario Junior Hockey League and South Shore Kings of the National Collegiate Development Conference, combining for six goals and 14 assists in 50 games, adding 10 assists in the playoffs for Chatham.

“Warren is a player that I am very familiar with, having recruited and coached him while at St. Cloud,” second-year NMU head coach Dave Shyiak said in the NMU SI release about the Wildcats’ new players.

Laliberte won’t be a freshman at Northern for another year, in the 2026-27 season, but has already attended the Winnipeg Jets’ 2025 Development Camp at their Manitoba home that wrapped up also on July 4.

Laliberte, 18, is a 6-2, 196-pound left-shooting blueliner from Lorette, Manitoba, who played for the Niverville Nighthawks of the MJHL in 2024-25. That’s when he played in 53 games, scoring seven goals to go with 32 assists, then adding four assists in six postseason games.

A season earlier, he had two goals and 18 assists for 20 points, also in 53 games.

He’s considered one of the premier defensemen in the MJHL, leading his team’s blueline in every major statistic and was fourth in the Manitoba league among d-men in assists and points.

Laliberte was the only MJHL player at the Jets’ camp that included 29 players, which had college players from Michigan Tech, Bowling Green, Colorado College, Denver, Boston University, Wisconsin, Arizona State and Western Michigan, not to mention multiple Canadian Hockey League teams, too.

Story contents based on Northern Michigan University Sports Information press release reviewing this news. Journal Sports Editor Steve Brownlee’s email address is sbrownlee@miningjournal.net.