Despite a very successful freshman season in Hockey East, UMass forward Mike Pereira was not selected in this past weekend’s NHL draft.  Pereira did not dwell on the draft this year, telling Matt Vautour of the Gazette that he would be checking the coverage here and there during the day but wasn’t planning around it.  He did say that going undrafted last year motivated him, so it likely will again.  A strong sophomore effort would go a long way to helping the UMass team have a breakout season.  In fact, following the draft Pereira thanked his supporters on twitter and ended with the hashtag “#missionHEchampionship”.  Sounds motivated to me.  Maybe we can send the NHL scouts a thank you note in a couple years for replacing the chip on his shoulder.

Dick Baker had some interesting comments from assistant coach Red Gendron on what Pereira not being drafted means for the long run.  Interesting in what Red had to say and interesting that it’s Red that’s saying it.  Maybe the news of him going to Yale wasn’t as definite as first thought.

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Hockey East did have a number of current and future players picked over the weekend, including Northeastern defenseman Jamie Oleksiak.  With Greg Cronin bolting for the NHL the college future of Oleksiak and some top Husky recruits is in question.

Former UMass commit Zack Phillips was picked 28th overall, joining John Carlson as first round picks who never made it to Amherst.

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Around the NHL, Casey Wellman, a restricted free agent, was offered a qualifying contract by the Wild and Danny Hobbs is attending New York Ranger Development Camp for the third straight summer.  Only a handful of camps have started or released their roster so far.  I’ll do my best to pass along news of any other attendees.

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Lastly, a bunch of people have asked me about potential roster changes going into next season.  I’ve certainly heard some speculative talk regarding  players who might be looking to leave due to playing time or other reasons, but as of yet I don’t know of anything official.  The roster at UMassAthletics.com has been updated with everyone’s new class year (I think Joel Hanley and Stephen Guzzo were mistakenly switched), but so far there are no deletions from last year’s squad reflected.