Minnesota State's roster has been tweaked since first being released about a month ago, and highly touted recruit Matt Leitner's name has been removed from the original list of current players.
Leitner is academically ineligible to play for the Mavericks this season, something that was a concern for the coaching staff since the California native and United States Hockey League standout committed to MSU last year.
The good news for the Mavericks, though, is that Leitner is in Mankato and enrolled at the university. He also took summer courses at MSU in order to start getting his academics on track. He is unable to practice with the team, however.
"He is in school," coach Troy Jutting said. "He needs to work on his academics and he needs to look forward to competing and playing with us next season."
When Leitner does play, he's expected to be a good one. Last year, he finished 10th in the USHL in scoring while playing for the Fargo Force with 66 points, including 25 goals, in 54 games. He also ranked second in playoff scoring, as he led the Force to the USHL finals with 18 points (10 goals) in 12 games.
In the meantime, the Mavericks, who started informal workouts and captains practices last week (school began on Aug. 23), still have an intriguing group of freshmen forwards, a cast that includes Leitner's Fargo teammates Chase Grant, Corey Leivermann and J.P. Burkemper, as well as Zach Lehrke and John McInnis. Other freshmen include defensemen Danny Heath and Josh Nelson and goalie Evan Karambelas.
6 comments:
Ouch. This is the first I've heard any mention of Leitner's academic troubles. He was going to be one heck of an addition. Too bad we'll have to wait a full season to see what he can do. I am stoked to see what Chase Grant can do at Mankato, however. Out of the incoming forwards, do you view Grant as being the best of the bunch, Shane?
What determines Mr. Leitner's "academic troubles"? I assume he graduated from high school one or two years ago. Are his grades at that time still used to determine his academic eligibility now? Seems to me if that is the case, MSU would have known about this when they recruited him. Or is there some other criteria used to determine his current eligibility?
Players have to be cleared thru the NCAA Clearinghouse before being able to play. Often times a player can be admitted to school but not eligible with NCAA.
NCAA uses combination of the high school GPA and ACT/SAT scores. They use a sliding scale - the lower the GPA, the higher ACT/SAT score that is required. The most recent ACT/SAT national test date were in the June timefame, so it would have only been in the past 3-6 weeks that scores would have been received by the school/NCAA/Student. I suspect the school was hoping he'd get high enough scores this last test, but obviously didn't.
Good luck to the young man, hope he gains his eligiility.
http://www.adn.com/2010/08/10/1404523/aces-sign-a-pair-of-rookie-forwards.html
Alaska Aces they announced deals with first-year forward Jerad Stewart
As other teams announce their captains it's making me wonder what's on tap for the Mavericks with captains this year?
Would like to see some leadership opportunity's to those players that will be here for the next few seasons.
Not saying that SR's may not be deserving, just that leadership comes in many different shapes and sizes.
GO MAVS...
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