ST. PAUL, Minn. \u2014 Brandon Naurato gets excited when he talks about how far Will Horcoff has come in a year.<\/p>\n
It was Dec. 23, 2024, when Naurato called him and posed the question, \u201cWhat do you think?\u201d<\/p>\n
At the time, Horcoff was playing at USA Hockey\u2019s NTDP, and his draft year wasn\u2019t going according to plan. Naurato and his University of Michigan Wolverines were preparing for the second semester. They weren\u2019t initially planning to bring Horcoff in until his post-draft season, but Naurato felt his team had a need at the net-front on the power play, he had an open scholarship slot to use and he knew that the 6-foot-5 forward was already academically admitted to the school for the following year.<\/p>\n
He couldn\u2019t promise him anything but told him that they recognized that it was his draft year and laid out where they saw him fitting in if he wanted to consider joining them for the second half. A couple of weeks later, he made his NCAA debut at Wrigley Field in front of 60,000 people and had a goal and an assist.<\/p>\n
He arrived on campus in Ann Arbor, Mich., slotted as a projected third-round pick by NHL Central Scouting. In June, the Pittsburgh Penguins took him with the 24th pick in the NHL Draft.<\/p>\n
Almost exactly a year after that phone call, he has two\u00a0points and eight shots on goal through three games as a member of Team USA at the World Juniors. When he left for the Twin Cities, he led college hockey in goals with 19 in 20 games. He\u2019s a sophomore now, but it\u2019s his first full season of college hockey.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s an awesome story,\u201d Naurato told The Athletic. \u201cHe\u2019s a 6-5 unicorn to me who was almost like a baby deer last year where he\u2019s still growing into his body, and when all this comes together, it was like \u2018This is going to be special.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Before Horcoff and Naurato were Wolverines together, Horcoff\u2019s dad, Shawn, a former NHL captain, was Naurato\u2019s boss with the Detroit Red Wings.<\/p>\n
Naurato was a development coach for them before getting hired at Michigan, and Shawn was in the middle of his rise through the ranks as an executive in Detroit, going from director of player personnel to his current role as assistant general manager.<\/p>\n
From ages 11 to 14, Will worked with Naurato on the ice. Respecting Shawn and knowing Will, the decision to extend the early offer to join the Wolverines last year became a bet on the person as much as the potential.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s academically intelligent, he\u2019s a worker and he\u2019s always trying to get better and just has the right mentality,\u201d Naurato said.<\/p>\n
He\u2019d also followed Will\u2019s career closely, had been rooting for him and knew that before the national program, he\u2019d always been a scorer.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not like they didn\u2019t do a good job, but different people view different players differently, and for me, I love offence and appreciate guys that can score and get open and shoot pucks and make plays, and that was always there,\u201d Naurato said.<\/p>\n
All of the credit for what has happened since, though, belongs to Horcoff, Naurato insists. He put the work in right away and had a big summer.<\/p>\n
His breakout has been earned.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat he\u2019s doing this year, he\u2019s not getting lucky. Like, he\u2019s not hot. He\u2019s in spots to do it, and he\u2019s doing it, but like his routes away from the puck and how he gets open and his shot are elite,\u201d Naurato said.<\/p>\n
Michigan assistant coach Kevin Reiter has watched Horcoff play since bantam, too, and has \u201calways really loved his IQ and the way he can use time and space with his frame.\u201d<\/p>\n
He felt it was about getting Horcoff with players who could get him the puck in the good spots he puts himself in, because they knew he could \u201creally shoot it.\u201d Once he joined them, they tried to do that and give him rope to make mistakes and find his game.<\/p>\n
There were some growing pains at times last year, but they could feel it coming together for him.<\/p>\n
Reiter said Horcoff\u2019s dexterity and coordination have come a long way in a short period. Both Reiter and Naurato laughed about his big moment at the NHL Scouting Combine in June when he broke the long jump record and gave an animated fist pump to his former NTDP strength and conditioning coach Brian Galivan in the crowd.<\/p>\n
They say that moment sums up Horcoff. Other players would have been stoic in front of an NHL audience, or maybe cracked a smile. But he was proud of himself.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s giving Gali credit, like \u2018Hey, we did it man, f\u2014in\u2019 rights.\u2019 It was like giving a point to a teammate that had just made a great pass to you. I think he\u2019s just ultra competitive,\u201d Naurato said.<\/p>\n
It was also a signal of his athletic ability, which Reiter argued has always been there.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know some people have beat him up a little bit for the skating or the acceleration, but he has put together a really good program and he works at it all the time,\u201d Reiter said.<\/p>\n
That program has included work with new assistant coach Max Pacioretty, who Reiter said has been huge for him, and with Reiter in pre-scouting goalies and finding spots he can exploit.<\/p>\n
Horcoff has also brought a new energy to Michigan\u2019s practices, where Naurato and Reiter said he\u2019s constantly whooping it up and celebrating with his teammates. They both separately compared him to his future Penguins teammate and Michigan alum Rutger McGroarty in terms of his energy, constant smile and gravitational pull.<\/p>\n
All of those qualities also drew in the Penguins \u2014 who interviewed him twice at the combine, and who he told were his first choice. Penguins assistant general manager Jason Spezza and special assistant Trevor Daley also played with Shawn in Dallas and have known Will since he was a kid.<\/p>\n
Will isn\u2019t Shawn, according to Spezza, though. He has his dad\u2019s professionalism and love for the game, Spezza said, but he also has four inches on him, more skill and hockey sense, and \u201cuntapped athleticism.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe felt like he would be a guy who would be great to have in the organization and to work with, knowing that he\u2019d put the work in and we\u2019d be able to maximize him,\u201d Spezza said.<\/p>\n
Both Spezza and Reiter said they didn\u2019t see\u00a0this\u00a0coming this quickly, though.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were attracted to the qualities that are giving him success now, so I\u2019m not shocked, but I\u2019m also pleasantly surprised,\u201d Spezza said. \u201cIt\u2019s a hard league to come into and do what he\u2019s doing at that age. For a big man, he gets inside, but he also knows how to find the quiet areas in the slot. He\u2019s got a nice release. He\u2019s got a natural goal-scoring touch. And I just think he\u2019s a student of the game. He spends a lot of time working on his game, thinking on his game and he\u2019s benefiting from that.\u201d<\/p>\n
He also spent a lot of time in the summer building more lean muscle mass, and Reiter said, \u201chis body has made a huge transformation, and that\u2019s a huge reason for why he\u2019s at where he\u2019s at now.\u201d<\/p>\n
Horcoff said he put on 10 pounds in the short summer to get to his current listing of 201 pounds.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis was a big summer for me. I filled out a lot in my body. And I still have a long ways to go and think I can be even better next year,\u201d he said. \u201cAdding that weight changed my game.\u201d<\/p>\n
He\u2019s not a one-trick pony, either. Reiter talks about how he has scored taking pucks to the net, on breakaways, on fakes, on tips, on rebounds, off passes, with his one-timer, up high and down low this year. Even when the goalies stop it, his shot is so heavy that it creates chaos because goalies at the college level can\u2019t control it, according to Reiter. Naurato said his game has some \u201cFU\u201d to it as well.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s one of the biggest things that has impressed me and is really intriguing for the next level is he scores a lot of different ways,\u201d Reiter said. \u201cYou worry when a guy only shoots in one or two different ways, but he has been scoring with a lot of variety and that\u2019s really intriguing.\u201d<\/p>\n
When Shawn moved back to Detroit at the end of his career, Will needed a place to play and wanted to join Brian Jardine\u2019s Little Caesars team.<\/p>\n
But Jardine\u2019s roster was already full, and so he couldn\u2019t get him on the team. He played in one preseason game for them that year.<\/p>\n
It was a game in Windsor, and Jardine hadn\u2019t seen him play before.<\/p>\n
Horcoff scored six goals.<\/p>\n
Once he joined the team the following season, Jardine had a pair of 1,000-game NHL veterans on either side of him behind the bench: Shawn (who he calls a \u201cbrilliant hockey mind\u201d and who Spezza called an up-and-coming executive in hockey) and Kevin Hatcher.<\/p>\n
By the time Horcoff\u2019s U15 year was finished, Jardine didn\u2019t think there was a better offensive forward in the country. He was big, he played center and he scored in every which way (including on the penalty kill). Jardine expected, when Horcoff left for the national program, that he\u2019d be in their top six \u201cat a minimum.\u201d<\/p>\n
So he\u2019s not surprised \u2014 \u201cnot in the slightest\u201d \u2014 that he\u2019s now become one of the top offensive forwards in the country again.<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause he was so big at a young age, people would criticize everything that he did. But if you watched him, you knew that it was only a matter of time until he grew into his body,\u201d Jardine said. \u201cAnd when you have hockey sense, and you have a work ethic that\u2019s instilled, eventually you\u2019re going to get there, and he has.\u201d<\/p>\n
Heading into the World Juniors, Spezza felt that because of Horcoff\u2019s versatility, he could fit in multiple spots in USA\u2019s lineup. After playing the first two games on the Americans\u2019 top line with James Hagens and Brodie Ziemer, he started Monday\u2019s third game on the third line with Cole McKinney and Ryker Lee before being re-elevated to play with Hagens and Ziemer in the second half.<\/p>\n
After the game, he paused inside Grand Casino Arena to consider what the last year had been like.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt has been pretty crazy,\u201d he said, shaking his head. \u201cLots of ups and downs. I\u2019ve learned a ton. It\u2019s hard to believe.\u201d<\/p>\n
There\u2019s still work to be done, too, so don\u2019t confuse his steep ascension with a finished product.<\/p>\n
Naurato and Team USA both view him as a winger now, and he hasn\u2019t played much over the last few years of the center position he played growing up. While he excels off the puck inside the offensive zone in getting open, Naurato thinks he can hunt and forecheck as the first forward better, and that there are times when he needs to fight through contact more.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow we\u2019re just trying to help with other things to hopefully in a couple years be able to put on a Penguins jersey,\u201d Naurato said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ST. PAUL, Minn. \u2014 Brandon Naurato gets excited when he talks about how far Will Horcoff has come…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":74757,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[38526,4843,73,75,74,1067],"class_list":["post-74756","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh","tag-detroit-red-wings","tag-nhl","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-headlines","tag-pittsburgh-news","tag-pittsburgh-penguins"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74756","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74756"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74756\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/74757"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74756"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74756"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74756"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}