If the name David Pope sounds familiar to you, it's because the Detroit Red Wings just signed him to a two-year entry-level contract on May 7.
Pope was originally the Wings' fourth-round pick, 109th overall, in the 2013 NHL Entry Draft.
Pope spent three seasons in the British Columbia Hockey League from 2011-14, playing for the Cowichan Valley Capitals, Westside Warriors and West Kelowna Warriors.
In 131 BCHL games, Pope had 52 goals and 62 assists.
4 -- Pope spent the last four years at the University of Nebraska-Omaha, compiling 45 goals among his 94 points in 133 games. Pope had four assists, tying a school record, among five points (also tying a school record) on Jan. 12 vs. Miami. He was also fourth in conference scoring with 28 points (14-14-28) in 23 National Collegiate Hockey Conference games.
20 -- Pope led the Mavericks with 20 goals in his senior season, seven more than he had as a junior and only five fewer than he had in the previous three seasons combined. Zach Jordan was second on the team with 16 goals.
12 -- Of Pope's 20 goals, 12 came with the man-advantage, which was another team-leading number. No other Mavericks player had more than four. Pope ranked second in the country in power-play goals. Northeastern's Dylan Sikura had 14.
21 -- Pope shared the team lead in assists with 21. Tyler Vesel also had 21 assists for the Mavericks.
41 -- Pope also led the University of Nebraska-Omaha with 41 points, 10 more points than he had as a junior. The second leading scorer was Vesel with 32 points.
28 -- Pope was tied for 28th nationally in scoring with Quinnipiac's Odeen Tufto, who had nine goals among his 41 points. Northeastern's Adam Gaudette led the country with 60 points.
123 -- Pope also led the Mavericks with 123 shots. Only one other player -- Jordan with 105 -- topped the 100-shot mark.
Quotable: "Dramatic improvement. This was the best year he had by a longshot in his college career. Probably a testament to the time that he put in in the offseason more so than in years past. Also the coaching change at Nebraska-Omaha, I think benefited him and his development. But he made a commitment on his own dime and decided to live down here for the better part of the summer last year and trained with a group of pros and trained differently. I think the dividends paid off on the ice. He worked on his foot speed, his skating got better and I think the combination of his strength training and the work on his skating showed up on the ice and he had obviously a very, very successful senior year of college. He'll come to the development camp and certainly play for us in the prospects tournament, then from there work right into main camp. Our expectation would be that he would be competing for a job in Detroit in main camp and then if he didn't make Detroit, he'd be in Grand Rapids next year." -- Ryan Martin, Detroit Red Wings assistant general manager
