FEATURE: Commesso Building Focus Following Successful Season at Boston

In his third season with Boston University, Drew Commesso continued to build his focus and mindset on strengthening his skills as a goaltender.

Some of the main things he focused on throughout his third year included a balanced diet and different breathing techniques to allow him to play a strong and steady game between the pipes.

"I really just focused on nutrition and sleep to things outside the rink," Commesso said. "We worked a lot with breathing before the games and just staying as relaxed as possible. That's something that I've still been doing in the off-ice training as well as just focusing on my breathing whether it's working out or on the ice."

The junior goaltender went 24-8-0 with a 2.46 GAA and .913 save percentage through 34 appearances. In his third season with the Terriers, he helped the team advance to the Frozen Four before they suffered a loss to Minnesota. Shortly after, the Blackhawks signed Commesso to a three-year entry-level contract.

However, halfway through the year, he got mono around the team's Christmas break, which caused him to lose a significant amount of weight. From there, he shifted his focus on his nutrition and build his strength off the ice.

"I think the biggest thing for me was I lost so much weight and goalies lose a lot of weight on the ice," Commesso said. "So, I was really focusing on eating as much as I could, drinking as much as I could and there's just as much work off the ice as there was on the ice at that point."

Once he rejoined the team after the break, he noted that he regained his confidence from the start of the season. From there, he continued to produce strong starts and maintained his strength with the help of the Boston trainers.

"I give a lot of credit to our trainers at Boston University who helped me get back as quick as I could," Commesso said. "I really just found my game after that felt comfortable, was playing confident and I really enjoyed the way we finished the season and the way I finished the season personally."

When Boston wrapped their season up in April, Team USA named Commesso to its roster to compete in the 2023 IIHF Men's World Championship in Tampere, Finland and Riga, Latvia. The 21-year-old netminder made one appearance in the tournament with the team, where they fell to Latvia in the bronze medal match.

Despite their loss, this experience allowed him to learn from the minds of NHL goaltenders such as Montreal's Casey DeSmith and Philadelphia's Cal Petersen. From there, he learned how to become a faster player and picked up some of their habits to adjust to the NHL's style of play.

"I think playing at the World Championships getting to skate with two [NHL] goalies every single day really taught me how much faster I can get and how fast those guys are," Commesso said. "I definitely learned a lot from them just being on the ice with them every single day and picking up their habits and seeing how fast they are."

Another goaltender he tried to model is game off of also included Tampa Bay's Andrei Vasilevskiy. In his summer workout sessions, Commesso created a schedule of the Russian netminder's routine to follow up until the start of training camp.

With a heavy focus on stretching and taking care of his body, Commesso believes this will help him in his next step of becoming a future NHL goaltender following his career at Boston University.

"So, I've really just been ramping it up doing so much more than I ever have," Commesso said. "I'm feeling my best I ever have, so I'm going to continue doing it and do everything I can to put myself in the best position to come to camp and play as well as I can."