USA National Team Development Program has 'become like a factory'

MONTREAL -- With their 4 Nations Face-Off jerseys on, the United States gathered on the Bell Centre ice to take a team picture Tuesday.

The goalies were on the ends of the first row, the management flanking the sides in their suits. When it was over, the team dispersed, only to reform in smaller packs: the Boston College crew, the Boston University one, players from the New York Rangers and Boston Bruins and Minnesota Wild.

There was one picture, though, that encompassed nearly the entire group.

Fifteen players and two staff members gathered around one of the goals, arms slung over shoulders, the deep blue of the players' jerseys blending together. These were the graduates of the USA Hockey National Team Development Program, the development system started in 1996 and which has been churning out some of the best players not only in the U.S., but in the world.

"It was pretty much the whole team," defenseman Noah Hanifin said, of the photo. "It's producing so many players. Going through it, the way they develop the off-ice, the strength training and the on-ice, the video and coaching, it's all so high level.

"To give that to players with that talent at that age and doing it together, competing against each other, it's become like a factory. It's the bonds that are created. We are all so excited to play together again, and that becomes more of an advantage as the years go on."

This is why the program was created. This is why it's succeeding.

It will all be on display during the 4 Nations Face-Off this week and next in Montreal and Boston, with the U.S. playing their opening game of the tournament against Finland at Bell Centre on Thursday (8 p.m. ET; ESPN, ESPN+, SN, TVAS).

"What we needed to do, in my opinion, was to give these elite young athletes the opportunity to develop and get minutes to develop in high-performance activities that were going to force them to play with older players and have a lot of pressure on them, but we needed to make sure we had the people and the staff … from mental health to education to being properly ready for what was going to be in front of them if they were successful in hockey," said Ron DeGregorio, the president of USA Hockey for 12 years before his retirement in 2015 and a vice-president when the NTDP was established in 1996 and based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, before moving to Plymouth, Michigan, in 2015.

"Part of the philosophy here is that it was like a PR show. We wanted to make sure that they were noticed, so now they get better opportunities in these high-development leagues and positions."

The NTDP was further refined in 2009 when USA Hockey created the American Development Model, a way of ensuring that those who were selected for the next class were at the level they needed to be, with age-appropriate training and long-range development work based on sports science.

Though it's not the only way to get to the U.S. men's national team -- goalies Jeremy Swayman and Connor Hellebuyck, forwards Kyle Connor, Jake Guentzel, Chris Kreider, Brock Nelson and Vincent Trocheck, and defenseman Jaccob Slavin are evidence of that -- it's certainly a leg up, a place to develop their talent and their relationships.

And it's something that could become ever more important as the NHL returns to best-on-best international competition in the coming years, as the United States-born NHL players get a crack at the 2026 Milano Cortina Olympics, World Cups and beyond.

When the U.S. was deciding on its team for the 4 Nations Face-Off, there were so many tough choices, so many good candidates left off the team. That, in itself, is a measure of the impact of the NTDP. Graduates like Tage Thompson and Cole Caufield couldn't crack the stacked roster.

"The difference right now, compared to what it was, is it's difficult to pick a team of Americans because so many Americans are equally good," DeGregorio said. "The bottom line is really much more prepared than our bottom lines in many, many years previously."

It's there, in the depth.

"Would [Auston] Matthews have gone this far [without the NTDP]? Probably," DeGregorio said. "But you can see others that needed a little bit more time and this gave them not only time, but also gave them notoriety in front of those who were going to make the selections on giving them more time past the National Team Development Program, and that's in college, etc."

When Charlie McAvoy was playing Junior B hockey, a couple of colleges came around to check in on him. He thought he had it made, could get his education paid for, could start to set up his future.

Then he was invited to camp with the NTDP. He made the team.

"I remember it was like overnight my expectations were like, I could go to the NHL," McAvoy said. "And it's because you're looking at everybody on the wall there, Patty Kane and Erik Johnson and this and that. It's a who's who and the 1994 [born] was [Seth] Jones and [Jacob] Trouba and all these guys.

"I remember being like, if I do this the right way, I'm in the best place you could be for development. And then it's just on you. They give you all the tools and they give you the opportunity. You've got to earn the opportunity, but then just every single day, how are you going to get better? And there were so many of our guys in that 1997 birth year that really competed and did get better."

Those players are established, that group. They have become certifiable stars in the NHL. There are also the younger cohort, Matt Boldy and Brock Faber and Jake Sanderson, the last a late injury replacement for defenseman Quinn Hughes, himself also an NTDP graduate.

"These guys are, if you will, they’re like the West Point of USA Hockey's junior programs," DeGregorio said. "They're the example of what programs should be like when they have high-performance players to develop. That's what we were intending to do. It's taken a while to get to where we are now, but it's a nice place to be."

While the U.S. has not won a gold medal at the IIHF World Championship since the program started, DeGregorio notes that the results are starting to come at the IIHF World Junior Championship, which the U.S. has won the past two years and three times in the past five years.

It's all something that has paid off as the team has assembled in Montreal. They know each other, are familiar with each other's games, their on-ice tendencies, their off-ice personalities. They aren't players from the Rangers and the Bruins, players from the Toronto Maple Leafs and Florida Panthers and Ottawa Senators.

"Without a doubt," McAvoy said. "On and off the ice. Mostly off the ice, which has been the best part. Since we got together, we haven't stopped smiling."

There are stories, memories shared. There is so much laughter.

"We've almost all reverted to our Pioneer High school selves," McAvoy said, referring to the high school most of the NTDP players attended in Ann Arbor, Michigan. "It's hysterical because what we were then is still what we are now, in a way. There's been stardom and fame and money and whatever you want to call it. But at the end of the day, we're all in the room last night hanging out and we all feel like kids again. At least that's how I felt.

"It's nice to kind of feel that, to revert back and be like we didn't skip a beat and we'll always be that close. So I think that's going to go a long way for this group."

It's especially true for a certain group of overlapping players, in McAvoy, Hanifin, Auston Matthews, Matthew Tkachuk, Zach Werenski, Jack Eichel, Dylan Larkin, Adam Fox and Jake Oettinger, all of whom were in Ann Arbor at the same point.

"I think it helps us with chemistry in these tournaments," Hanifin said. "We have all made bonds and friendships in those years and it matters in something like this."

In addition to that group, Jack Hughes, J.T. Miller and Brady Tkachuk attended the program and assistant coaches David Quinn and John Hynes coached there for multiple seasons before moving into pro hockey.

Those bonds will be tested in the coming days, in the coming tournaments, in international competition. But for now, they are all appreciative of how they got here, of the role the NTDP played in their development, of its existence at all.

"Whenever people ask me about it, I always say, 'If you’re a U.S. player and you can go there, it's a no-brainer," Werenski said. "I'm a big fan of the USNTDP."