Wisconsin hockey recruiting: Parsells, Stillwell stay home; Boeser, Freytag to USHL

All-State defensemen Adam Parsells (Wausau West) and Tony Stillwell (Notre Dame Academy) will return to play high school hockey in Wisconsin for one more season. The seniors-to-be confirmed the news to Bucky's 5th Quarter on Tuesday.

Stillwell, who committed to the Badgers in July of 2013 and Parsells, who committed to UW in April, will also anchor a blue-line together for the Team Wisconsin U-18 midget program. The duo teamed up last spring to lead Team Wisconsin U-16 to a USA Hockey Tier 1 national championship.

The expansion Madison Capitols own Stillwell's USHL rights after acquiring him in a trade from the Sioux City Musketeers earlier this summer. The Musketeers drafted Stillwell in the second round of the 2013 USHL Phase I Draft. Stillwell made the Capitols roster out of camp, but elected to return to Notre Dame Academy to play for coach Cory McCracken.

Parsells was a third-round pick by the Green Bay Gamblers in the 2013 USHL Phase I Draft, due in large part to his upside. That potential is starting to show, as the 6'5, 190-pound Parsells has continued to generate buzz from the end of the 2014 season through the USA Hockey Select 17 national camp earlier this month. It's likely you will see more than a few NHL scouts in Wausau to watch West games this season.

While Wausau West and Notre Dame Academy received good news on their elite defensemen returning for one last season, both programs lost a premier forward to the USHL. Kevin Conley from West and Sam McCormick from Notre Dame Academy will spend their senior seasons with the Youngstown Phantoms and the Madison Capitols, respectively.

Conley was a second-round pick in the 2013 USHL Phase I Draft and is committed to play college hockey at Denver. McCormick was a seventh-round pick by the Sioux City Musketeers, but was traded to Madison this summer in the deal that included Stillwell. McCormick is committed to Ohio State, where his brother, Max, played three seasons before signing an NHL contract with the Ottawa Senators earlier this summer.

Two Wisconsin recruits from the state of Minnesota will also be leaving to play their senior seasons in the USHL. Burnsville's Brock Boeser and Wayzata's Matthew Freytag have both announced their intentions of playing in the top junior league in the United States next season.

Boeser was the second overall pick by Sioux City in the 2013 USHL Phase I Draft, but was traded to the Waterloo Black Hawks earlier this off-season. Freytag was a second-round pick of the Tri-City Storm in that same draft.

Freytag and Boeser will be two of eight committed Wisconsin recruits in the USHL next season. Luke Kunin and Luke Opilka from the U.S. NTDP U-18 team along with Seamus Malone (Dubuque) and Peter Tischke (Chicago) all played games in the USHL last season. New to the league this year will be Matt Berkovitz (Chicago) and Trent Frederic (U.S. NTDP U-17).

Recent commits Max Zimmer (Wayzata High School) and Dominick Mersch (Chicago Mission U-16) will spend at least one more season with their respective clubs before making the move to the USHL.

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