CCM Hockey Line Revisited
Looking back at the 2016 "C-C-M" line, it's hard to imagine more successful hockey line from the college ranks to the NHL. All are playing regularly in the NHL, with two still alive in the playoffs. Here are their NHL stats this year:
Kyle Conner 47-46-93
JT Compher 18-15-33 (70 games), 5-2-7 Playoffs
Tyler Motte 7-8-15 (58 games), 2-0-2 Playoffs
Is there another college line that comes close to this?
Stevie Y, a suggestion....
In terms of other lines coming close, probably not if you're looking at all three players. Closest comparisons would be Johnny Gaudreau, Kevin Hayes, and Bill Arnold at Boston College(Arnold only played 1 NHL game), and Jonathan Toews, TJ Oshie, and Ryan Duncan at North Dakota. Duncan ended up a good European pro, but never did anything in North America, but you could argue Toews is a Hall of Famer and Oshie might be borderline.
Phil Kessel and Blake Wheeler played on a line fairly regularly in Kessel's one year of college, but never had a really notable third linemate.
WCHBlog mentions the line that came to mind for me, Duncan-Oshie-Toews. TJ Hensick was robbed of the Hobey that year, but it remains hilarious to me that of the three guys on that line (which was genuinely great) it was Ryan Duncan that won the Hobey.
My memory is a bit vague, but this kind of exercise is going to look like recency bias regardless, because it has only been a generation or so that you would realistically see enough college players make the NHL that a whole line from one team could do that.
Regarding CCM: don’t forget Zach Werenski, whose elegant puck movement was a crucial factor in the line’s dominance. He chipped in 11-37-48 this year.
Who played with Larkin and Hyman?
Looking forward, Berniers, Johnson, and Brisson might have something to say.
I don’t follow hockey close enough to remember, but from a little googling it looks like Alex Kile is the answer, at least for the first part of the 2014-15 season. It looks like he has not played in the NHL, instead bouncing around the AHL and ECHL.
Were Compher and Motte on the same line before Conner arrived?
Also, Andrew Copp was on that 14-15 team and he’s still alive in the playoffs as well.
Kile was a solid grinder. Love the 4 year kids.
From UM side, possibly Brendan Morrison, Jason Botterill but I cannot remember who the third linemate was.
Edit: Botterill's NHL career was less than I thought so probably not a candidate even if Muckalt was on that line.
Muckalt? Or Madden?
From my memory, Madden was definitely on a different line, more of a checking line.
That line looks nastier and nastier by the year. Michigan has a lot of quality talent in the NHL right now. I'm sure it makes recruiting easy
Most goals scored in a single NHL season by former college line mates might well be Brett Hull and 2 guys not in the NHL. The '80's were pretty crazy.
I think the most points from a college line in college were Paul Kariya, Jim Montgomery, and Cal Ingraham. Two of those guys didn't do much in the pros (as players...Montgomery coached a bit) and Kariya struggled with injuries, but they points they piled up at Maine were really absurd.
Double post
That Maine line had the most combined points, but the most goals by a college line was the Tony Hrkac, Bob Joyce, and Steve Johnson line from North Dakota (124 to Maine's 103). Hrkac played a while in the NHL but was never a star, Joyce had a couple seasons before heading to Europe. Only Ed Belfour from that ND team actually starred in the NHL.
Keith Tkachuk - Tony Amonte - Shawn McEachern on a line for BU in 1990-91… some 3500 NHL games and 1200 goals between the trio.
Tkachuk, Amonte, McEachern and another former BU player, Scott Young were on Team USA that won the World Cup of Hockey in 1996. LINK
This just continues to make me ask why we have zero puck luck for decades in the worst NCAA tourney ever.
This year was particularly rough. We had the team to do it. Hughes had a great chance to win it on a 2 on 1 in OT against Denver and the puck rolled on his stick. If it doesn't, that game might go the other way and we're in the final.