Within days of Northeastern’s season coming to an end, associate head coach Mike Levine is on call for a variety of urgent tasks.
Sometimes, Levine spends hours grinding tape and making real-time evaluations of prospective players. Other times, he’s busy working the phones with a vast network of advisors, agents, family members, and coaches, as he identifies possible fits for the roster and gauges which players have mutual interest. And once a player is vetted, there is only a matter of days for the staff to make their full pitch.
Levine plays a major role in Northeastern’s efforts to navigate the rough equivalent of a free-agency period in college hockey. The Huskies have leaned into the sport’s new method of roster building, adding five transfers last offseason and six more this year — the second-most of any Hockey East school.
“Things happen pretty quickly once players go into the portal. So you have to be ready,” said Levine. “You have to almost start the recruiting process immediately once there is interest.”
A series of rule changes enacted by the NCAA since 2018 has ushered in a new era of college athletics, with eased restrictions on player movement and the introduction of athletes’ ability to profit off their own Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL). In college hockey, the number of transfers nationally has grown each of the past five years, reaching an all-time high of 312 in the 2024 offseason.
In recent years, players brought in from the portal have become some of Northeastern’s most important contributors: Last year, Alex Campbell, a transfer from Clarkson University, tallied 22 goals and 42 points in his lone season at Northeastern, which was the second-most points scored by a Northeastern player in the past five years.
This cycle, Northeastern’s transfer additions included Omaha junior defenseman Jo Lemay, Quinnipiac senior wing Christophe Tellier, and Colgate senior center Ryan McGuire, all of whom were widely viewed as among the top options in the portal at their respective positions. The Huskies also landed Jake Boltmann from Notre Dame and Jake Higgins from Holy Cross — two fifth-year defensemen with 240 combined games of college experience — and UMass Lowell junior Nick Rhéaume, a proven middle-six forward in Hockey East.
“In college hockey today, you have to use the portal. There’s no way around it,” said Northeastern head coach Jerry Keefe. “I think every year is a little bit different depending on how your team is built, but it’s something we want to take advantage of.”
While a select handful of top players in college hockey receive NIL compensation, it is not a relevant or driving factor for most players in the transfer portal, unlike in major college football and basketball. Instead, the primary focus for most players is on finding the best program to develop them and earn a future professional contract.
According to Levine, once a player enters the portal, agents or family advisors often reach out to programs they identify as possible fits and put their player on the coaching staff’s rader. Other times, the dialogue begins because of a pre-existing relationship the prospective transfer or his inner-circle has with a current player on the roster or a member of the coaching staff. On occasion, coaching staffs simply scour the hundreds of names in the portal and proactively contact players they identify as possible fits.
“Once a player goes into the portal, you’re having conversations with their advisors. That’s something that has changed since I started,” Levine said. “Players lean more on the advisors’ opinion than ever before. So having a relationship with an advisor can help or hinder where that player ends up.”
And when it comes time to make their final sales pitch, Northeastern’s coaching staff is confident in what they have to offer: A long track record of developing NHL players, the big stage of Hockey East and the Beanpot, a competitive roster, and quality academics in the middle of Boston.
That formula was on display last offseason. Lemay, a fourth-round draft pick of the Washington Capitals in 2022, entered the transfer portal on April 4, just one week after wrapping up his breakout sophomore season at the University of Omaha. And by April 7, just three days later, the defender committed to Northeastern.
As the process began, Lemay sat down with the three parties which have the most input on his long-term development — his family, his agent, and the Capitals front office — in order to compile a list of priorities. Pretty quickly, Lemay and his support group identified Northeastern as checking all their boxes: The track record of developing professional-caliber defensemen, a featured role on a competitive team, and a school closer to his family in Quebec.
Lemay and his team quickly got in touch with Northeastern’s coaching staff, and both sides raced to conduct their due diligence.
“It all happened so fast, so I had to trust the people who have my best interests,” Lemay said. “For us, it was about digging deep into the coaching staff and how good the team is going to be. And then even deeper than that, the structure around it, like the assistants and the strength coach…. It really comes down to asking, ‘are these all hardworking people that want to develop me as badly as my own people want to?’”
Similarly, Christophe Tellier, a key piece on Quinnipiac’s 2023 national title team and one of the country’s top playmakers, entered the portal last spring for a change of scenery and with a goal of improving his professional prospects in his final season of college eligibility.
Tellier was introduced to Northeastern through Huskies’ captain Jack Williams, as the pair became friends while playing together on the Muskegon Lumberjacks (USHL) during the 2020-21 season.
“[Williams] shot me a call right after I entered the portal, and was like, ‘we’d love to have you here,’ and talked about how exciting the team would be,” Tellier said. “So that got me interested at first.”
After Williams’ initial outreach, it was up to Keefe and Levine to sell Tellier on the program’s development opportunities and emphasize his fit on the roster — which was an easy pitch following Campbell’s departure at left wing.
“When I started talking with coaches and stuff, I thought they had great experience, great leadership,” Tellier said. “My goal is obviously to get an NHL contract at the end of the season. And personally, I think after this year getting a bigger role on this team, I think I can make the jump to the pro level.”
Ryan McGuire had a laundry list of potential suitors following a breakout 14-goal junior season at Colgate. But the Belmont Hill (Mass.) prep school product was intent on playing in the Beanpot and on the Hockey East stage, which immediately put Northeastern in play.
“Once the season was done, I spoke a little bit to my agent about the decision to maybe move on past Colgate, and I told him I wanted to focus on a Beanpot school,” McGuire said. “And when I entered the portal, Northeastern called me pretty quick and we got in touch.”
McGuire, a two-way center and one of the nation’s top faceoff takers, was a natural fit to take over the center role held by last year’s team captain Justin Hryckowian after he departed for the Dallas Stars. But beyond filling a simple roster need, the external connections also added up for McGuire. Keefe had a ringing endorsement from McGuire’s father, longtime NHL broadcaster and executive Pierre McGuire. He also skated over the previous summer with Owen Keefe, Jerry’s son and a Northeastern commit.
“My dad told me that Coach Keefe, you really can trust him. He said he’s one of the best coaches he knows in college hockey,” McGuire said. “And so knowing that, and then seeing the development they’ve had with guys like Devon Levi and others, I just knew this was a place who cares about developing their players and also wins.”
Lemay echoed the importance of the Beanpot, which puts a national spotlight on Northeastern’s program each year and particularly resonates with players who grew up locally. It doesn’t hurt that Northeastern has won the title five of the past six seasons.
“I remember I was in my house last year in Omaha, watching the Beanpot, like ‘damn, this is sick.’ So I think that helped a lot,” Lemay said.
As Keefe views it, successful outcomes developing previous transfers is a key part of the Huskies’ sales pitch for new entrants to the portal. For example, Keefe highlighted defenseman Tommy Miller, a four-year player and captain at Michigan State who had a hugely successful 2021-22 season at Northeastern, and is now playing with the AHL’s Toronto Marlies. Likewise, while Campbell led Clarkson in goals during both his sophomore and junior seasons, his skills flourished at Northeastern, leading to a contract with the Nashville Predators following the college season.
“I think your track record speaks for itself,” Keefe said. “You want the players to see that they transferred into Northeastern and they’ve had a great experience, and now they can do the same.”
In the end, the goal for Keefe and his program is to achieve sustainable success — an objective which still starts with recruiting freshmen out of junior hockey and developing homegrown talent. But given the coaching staff’s increasing success navigating the transfer portal, using both avenues simultaneously to complete the roster has become a critical component of fielding a competitive team year after year.
“We want to make sure we are bringing in the right blend of younger guys that were talented as freshmen, but also some older guys that can replace what we lose,” Keefe said. “But to go out and identify really good players that have played in great programs and were big parts of their team’s success, that helps.”