From left, Northern Michigan University’s Grayden Daul and Jakob Peterson, St. Thomas’ Ryan O’Neill, and the Wildcats’ Colby Browne ready for a faceoff at the Berry Events Center in Marquette on Feb. 22. Peterson and Browne are among the Wildcats who have entered the NCAA transfer portal. (Photo courtesy Cara Kamps)

MARQUETTE — Good news may already be coming to the Northern Michigan University hockey team when it comes to the NCAA transfer portal.

About a week and a half ago on March 31, this reporter found 11 of last year’s 28 Wildcats players listed as entering the transfer portal, according to an online story that doubles as a way of keeping track online of the status of Division I players nationwide who enter the portal.

It is maintained by Brad Elliott Schlossman of the Grand Forks Herald, the hometown of National Collegiate Hockey Conference powerhouse University of North Dakota.

The latest looks at Schlossman’s site on Thursday now shows two more NMU player listed, bringing the total to 13, but also two players who will be coming to Marquette from elsewhere.

The two new Wildcats listed in the portal as entering the portal are freshman forward Michael Mesic, who actually wasn’t even on NMU’s roster last season. In 2023-24, former head coach Grant Potulny’s final season at NMU, Mesic had four goals and five assists for nine points.

From his listing on Schlossman’s website, Mesic apparently went back to junior hockey last season, playing for Youngstown (Ohio) of the USHL.

The other newbie to the list is sophomore forward Matthew Romer, who had five goals and three assists for eight points last season. That made him Northern’s third-leading goal scorer and tied for sixth in points.

Romer played at Arizona State the previous year, his freshman season.

But on the good side, NMU has two of the 63 players listed who have already committed to a new school.

That’s impressive, considering the portal has only been open since March 30 and will continue to be open through May 13, according to Schlossman.

The two players are sophomore defenseman Warren Clark of St. Cloud State of the NCHC and sophomore goalie William Gramme of Wisconsin in the Big 10.

Clark not only had a goal and three assists last season for the Huskies, but is a sixth-round draft pick of the NHL’s Tampa Bay Lightning.

Gramme had non-awe-inspiring statistics of a 2-4 record and .878 saves percentage, but also a solid 3.23 goals-against average.

Goalies will be a particular need for the Wildcats, since every netminder who saw any playing time at all last season has either graduated or entered the transfer portal.

Ryan Ouellette played about 85% of NMU’s minutes in goal last season, but was a senior as he has already signed and started playing with the Chicago Blackhawks’ ECHL affiliate Indy Fuel.

His backups, freshmen Ethan Barwick and Julian Molinaro, are in the portal though as of yet uncommitted like the vast majority of portal players.

Right now, 24% of the 259 players listed by Schlossman have committed to a new school, leaving 196 — 110 forwards, 54 defensemen and 32 goalies — still uncommitted.

The author states that while players must commit by May 13 to be in the portal, they don’t have to make up their minds on a new school — or even actually transfer — by that date.

The previous 11 NMU players who had already been listed as entering the portal on March 31 in addition to goalies Barwick and Molinaro are defensemen Jakob Peterson of Marquette, NHL draft pick Rasmus Larsson of Sweden, Will Diamond, Trevor Mitchell and Wolfgang Govedaris; and forwards Brendan Poshak, Ryan Duguay, Billy Renfrew and Colby Browne.

Of the 13 Northern players listed currently, the only one already committed to a new school is Mesic, the player who wasn’t on the 2024-25 NMU roster. He’ll be going to Bentley of the Atlantic Hockey League, which is a Massachusetts school which made its first-ever appearance in the NCAA tournament this season before being eliminated by Boston College in the first round of the Manchester, New Hampshire, regional.

Story contents based on Northern Michigan University Sports Information press release reviewing the games. Journal Sports Editor Steve Brownlee’s email address is sbrownlee@miningjournal.net.