FutureHawks: Juniors regular season wrap-up

The USHL concluded its regular season last weekend, and Miami signees were prominent on the league’s stats leaderboards.

Two RedHawks commits finished among the top 13 scorers, and their incoming freshman goalie ended the campaign fourth in save percentage.

Thirteen of MU’s 17 signees for 2025-26 spent this past regular season in the USHL, with two more coming from the Canadian Hockey League and another pair transferring from the NCAA portal.

Miami may hold out a few signees until 2026-27 and will be adding more commits in the coming weeks and months. Per new NCAA rules, the RedHawks’ roster will be limited to 26.

Some regular season highlights among signees, first from the forwards:

— Muskegon’s David Deputy led the signee class in points with 57, tied for 11th in the league, as he scored 21 goals and dished for 36 assists. He started the campaign with Omaha and went 14-27-41 with a plus-22 rating in 38 games after being traded.

Deputy has 92 points in 113 career games in the USHL.

— Artemi Nizameyev racked up 27 goals — tops among all incoming skaters — and 28 helpers with USHL Tri-City, finishing the regular season 13th in points with 55, including five in the final four games.

Nizameyev scored four goals his first campaign in the league and 16 in 2023-24 before tying for eighth in USHL markers this season. Six were game winners.

— Sudbury’s Kocha Delic is expected to be the first forward ever to join Miami from the CHL.

Despite missing 22 games largely to a late-season injury, Delic finished with 22 goals and 32 assists for 54 points, including 21 on the power play. His 1.17 points-per-game average with the Wolves is tops among 2025-26 signees.

Delic racked up 216 points in 214 games in the Ontario Hockey League and will be a freshman this fall.

— Ilia Morozov went 11-11-22 with USHL Tri-City but has tremendous upside.

He was just 16 this season but his academics are so advanced that he is eligible to play collegiately this fall despite turning 17 in August. At 6-feet-3, Morozov has a chance to bloom into a first-round pick in the 2026 NHL draft.

— Pittsburgh native Justin Stupka took a major step forward, scoring 15 goals with Sioux City after netting that many in 117 previous USHL games.

At 6-feet-2 and 214 pounds, Stupka is a much-needed wide body for Miami to generate goals around the net.

— Ryan Seelinger posted solid numbers in his first USHL season with Des Moines, going 14-19-33 and dressing for every game.

— Ian Scherzer could be a late bloomer for Miami. In his first season in North America, the Austrian native went 8-12-20 in 39 games for USHL Madison.

Scherzer also had two goals and two assists in five games with the Austrian Under-20 D1A team.

He has held his own at every level playing in national tournaments in Sweden and Austria.

— Alaska-Anchorage transfer Max Helgeson finished with eight goals and 11 assists in 34 games and brings much-needed experience to what will likely be a very young 2025-26 Miami team.

He has 68 NCAA points in 95 games (including an assist vs. Miami in the teams’ series this past season) and joins the RedHawks as a senior.

Some defenseman highlights:

— When Anthony Noreen took over as Miami’s head coach last April, USHL Tri-City’s Shaun McEwen was the first player to commit to the RedHawks.

And the Massachusetts native was previously committed to UMass, where his grandfather coached.

McEwen wrapped up his fourth season with the Storm, having played under Noreen the first three, and jumped from 16 points in 2023-24 to 32 this season.

While he will be a freshman in October, McEwen he has logged 191 games in the USHL and was team captain, so he should be able to adjust to Division I play quickly.

— Like McEwen, Charlie Michaud doubled his USHL point total from 16 to 32 in 2024-25. A 2006 birth, Michaud is a year younger than most of the incoming freshman but has a solid resume and should hold his own right away in the NCAA.

— Ryder Thompson is the first CHL defenseman Miami has signed, having played 263 games with WHL Portland.

Thompson scored nine goals and assisted on 14 more this season, and he’s already posted five points in the WHL playoffs.

— Kyle Aucoin, son of long-time NHL D-man Adrian Aucoin, is transferring after three seasons with Harvard.

The Detroit Red Wings sixth-round draft pick whose rights are held by Tampa Bay went 2-2-4 in 28 games in 2024-25 and has played in 90 collegiate games and adds experience to the RedHawks’ blue line.

And in net…

— Shika Gadzhiev, a dual Russian and Slovakian citizen, posted a .909 save percentage with Muskegon, fourth-best in the USHL. He finished 19-13 with a 2.68 goals-against average and three shutouts, tied for third-most in the league.

He finished the regular season with five wins in his final seven decisions and won the best-of-3 first-round postseason clinching game against Cedar Rapids on Wednesday, stopping 30 of 31 shots.

Gadzhiev has played two full seasons with Muskegon, including a pair of playoff runs, and is expected to compete for the starting job this fall.

Final regular season stats for all Miami 2025-26 signees:

FORWARDS

Player	Team	League	GP	G	A	Pts.	PIM	+/-
David Deputy	Muskegon	USHL	59	21	36	57	134	22
Artemi Nizameyev	Tri-City	USHL	53	27	28	55	31	0
Kocha Delic	Sudbury	OHL	46	22	32	54	56	-3
Ryan Seelinger	Des Moines	USHL	62	14	19	33	24	-12
Justin Stupka	Sioux City	USHL	60	15	11	26	50	6
Ilia Morozov	Tri-City	USHL	59	11	11	22	20	-12
Ian Scherzer	Madison	USHL	39	8	12	20	48	9
Max Helgeson	UAA	NCAA	34	8	11	19	16	-7
Charlie Blanchard	Cedar Rapids	USHL	55	6	9	15	23	-1
Bradley Walker	Waterloo	USHL	57	7	6	13	106	3
Ryan Smith	Quinnipiac	NCAA	34	2	3	5	21	-10

DEFENSEMEN

Player	Team	League	GP	G	A	Pts.	PIM	+/-
Shaun McEwen	Tri-City	USHL	57	7	25	32	89	12
Charlie Michaud	Madison	USHL	61	5	27	32	22	7
Ryder Thompson	Portland	WHL	67	9	14	23	33	-9
Michael Phelan	Waterloo	USHL	52	3	9	12	27	5
Cal Huston	Youngstown	USHL	61	1	8	9	47	29
Kyle Aucoin	Harvard	NCAA	28	2	2	4	8	-3

GOALIES

Player	Team	League	GP	Min.	W-L	GAA	Sv%	SHO
Shika Gadzhiev	Muskegon	USHL	34	1,990	19-13	2.68	.909	3

NOTE: Updated April 21, 2025.