COHEN: Who Gets Signed First, Kuffner or Veronneau? 

It’s not often that I get to write about two Princeton players who have a great chance to get signed as NHL free-agents this summer. Both are teammates, both are linemates, both work off each other’s success in games and in their careers but one of them will get signed before the other even it’s minutes before.

Max Veronneau (6-0, 180) is a Canadian-born player who has had a really solid career for Princeton. He’s 23, so the team who gets him gets a mature player. The talented right winger has speed, excellent stick, and puck handling skills and really good hockey sense. Having watched him get better and better every season. He has very quick hands around the net. He can drive to the net with speed and make plays. That should translate on the next level.

He’s calm and cool out there. He’s more of a playmaker than a scorer but he has a good wrist shot and he’s very good at just getting the puck on net to get things started for his teammates. He logs big minutes and plays in all situations. Veronneau scored twice, including the game-winner in a recent win against Yale. He’s a Hobey Baker Candidate.

In 2017, he was invited to the Las Vegas Golden Knights inaugural rookie camp in 2017. There’s no telling if he impressed them enough for them to keep tabs on him and wait for him to graduate before giving him a pitch to become part of the team. If they haven’t surely other teams have. There have been plenty of scouts passing through Princeton the past two seasons as a result.

On to Ryan Kuffner (6-1, 195), he’s Princeton’s all-time leading goal scorer. Veronneau has assisted in more than 63% of them. The record lasted for 63 years and he’s still adding to it. He has one of the top goals-per-game percentages in the nation. He will be 23 this coming June. Kuffner was invited to the Ottawa Senators recent development camp. His great uncle. Edwin Gorman played in the 1926-27 Stanley Cup winning team for Ottawa. Does Ottawa have the inside track on him? Would they sign both? Veronneau is from Ottawa as well.

For what it’s worth, Eric Robinson was a teammate of the dynamic duo and he’s been playing for the Columbus Blue Jackets lately. This is and was a very talented group. They had some playoff success and now their time together in college is almost over. Kuffner will end the season the top scorer for the Tigers. He scored 29 goals in 2017-18 when the team was rolling and won the ECAC tournament but lost to Ohio State in the regionals.

Kuffner has been a catalyst for his team. He’s hard to contain at this level. He will find the open man but he’s a shoot first player and he has a pro shot. If he’s on the power play, he can connect on that short-side high goal that’s hard for goalies to stop. He can be a quick strike scorer, or he can be part of a sustained puck possession attack. His footspeed is good, but he gets into scoring position quickly and always has his stick down. He never gives up on a play.  He will turn a good defensive play into an offensive chance.

I think Veronneau will be the first one targeted. He’s the straw that stirs the drink and it’s harder to be a goal scorer at the next level. If you’re a playmaker with good speed, there’s a far better chance. At the very least it’s easier to fit in a player like him on a team. I don’t think he’ll play in the NHL right away. I think he’ll need to prove himself in the AHL first, and there’s nothing wrong with that. The AHL is a very tough league and I think he’d do very well there.

I think Kuffner will have to wait longer. I think somebody will take a chance on him because he has put up solid career numbers and has done very well in the playoffs too. The fact that he comes from a hockey family could help him, especially in the Ottawa market. He would be a great story for that team, and with everything going on there right now, a rookie with some age could be good for their prospect mix. I think he would start in the AHL as well simply because he might have to prove he can still score goals there. They won’t come easy, but he is fully capable of making it happen.

Including Mike Condon (Belleville Senators), Princeton has been producing more NHL talent than ever before. It shows how far the ECAC has come and that program as well. In a program that stresses academics, it’s hard to get the best hockey players but they’re doing a good job.