USHL Draft Explained: Phase I, Phase II, and How Players Get Picked

The USHL is the top junior league in the United States. Teams build their player pools through several mechanisms: the draft, tenders, affiliate lists, free-agent additions, trades and players they already control from previous seasons. The draft gives teams an orderly way to acquire the USHL rights to eligible players who are available to be selected.

A crucial thing to understand up front: being drafted is not a roster spot. A draft selection gives a team your USHL rights, but the team still has to decide where you fit within its roster and affiliate structure. Families who treat draft day as the finish line are usually surprised by what follows.

What the USHL draft is for

The USHL is the top junior league in the United States. Its teams are stocked mainly through a draft, and the draft exists because the league needs an orderly way to assign the rights to players who are not already committed somewhere.

A draft selection gives a team your rights. What happens next is a tryout, a camp, and a decision.

Some drafted players have already been heavily evaluated and are essentially expected to make the team; others are longer-term affiliates. The universal point is simply that a draft pick by itself does not guarantee placement on the final active roster. The USHL's current process ultimately moves from the post-draft 50-man pool toward a 30-man protected list/affiliate list and then a 24-man protected list before the season.

Phase I and Phase II

The draft runs in two phases and they serve different groups of players.

Phase I = one specific birth year.

Phase I is the younger phase. It covers players in their first year of eligibility, which in practice means the youngest group the league drafts. Teams here are selecting on projection. They are looking at a player who is often two or three years away from contributing and asking what they might become.

Because it is a projection draft, the traits that get players taken in Phase I are the ones that suggest a higher ceiling: skating, hockey sense, competitiveness and how a player handles pace. Point totals matter less than most families expect.

Phase II = everybody else who is eligible and available.

Phase II is a much broader draft than Phase I. It includes older junior players who may be expected to contribute immediately, but it also includes high-school, prep, AAA and international players who teams are still projecting. The older the player, the more important immediate readiness generally becomes.

The evaluation of a 2008 Phase II pick is fundamentally different from a 2005 Phase II pick.

Phase II is pulling from at least five broad developmental buckets: established North American junior players; Minnesota/high-school players; prep and 18U/16U AAA players; Canadian junior players; and European junior players.

The international component is larger than many parents probably realize. Elite Prospects counts the 2025 Phase II class at 174 Americans, 25 Canadians, 15 Czechs, 12 Slovaks, 10 Swedes, six Russians, five Germans, five Finns, plus players from numerous other countries.

That works out to roughly 57% American and 43% international among the nationality totals listed there.

A team selecting a 19 or 20 year old generally has a much shorter runway. Look at players like Devin Shakar (2005, Chippewa), Axel Lofgren (2005, West Kelowna), Saxton Tess (2005, Lone Star), Richard Rucireto (2005, Northeast), Victor Mannebratt (2005, Maryland), Tom Molson (2005, Victoria) and others. Those are experienced players from junior environments.

Seven players from the NTDP U18 team were selected in Phase II in 2025:

Landon Hafele, Garrett Lindberg, Joey Slavick, Maceo Phillips, Jake Stuart, Jacob Kvasnicka and Andrew O'Neill.

Again, Phase II isn't necessarily "Who can help us immediately?" Those picks can involve rights strategy, future availability, college timelines and projection.

52 Phase II selections were Minnesota players in 2025. That was by far the largest U.S. state represented. Canada as an entire country had 24 according to the same analysis.

Many of those Minnesota players came directly from high school hockey rather than junior.

Examples include Boden Sampair (Hill-Murray), Jackson Rudh (St. Thomas Academy), Chaz Lentz (Hill-Murray), Rio Treharne (Eden Prairie), Noah Mannausau (Bemidji), Henry Peterson (Hermantown), Carter Ernst (Lakeville South), Lincoln Ayers Assad (Holy Angels), Ethan Sturgis (Minnetonka), Jace Panzer (East Grand Forks), Leo Gabriel (White Bear Lake), Bryce Mattern (West Fargo), Keegan Davis (Benilde-St. Margaret's) and Wyatt Kuznik (Maple Grove).

Tenders and why some Phase I players are never in the draft

Before the Phase I Draft, USHL teams can sign players from that year's Phase I birth year to tender agreements. Under the current system, each team can tender up to two players. The first tender costs the team its first-round Phase I selection and a second costs its second-round selection.

A tender is different from simply being drafted. The player is already committed to that USHL organization before the draft and is included on the team's protected list. Under current USHL rules, a tendered player is expected to join that team's roster the following season and play in at least 55% of its regular-season games.

A tender and a first-round Phase I pick are not equivalent transactions. The tender actually carries the stronger next-season commitment because of the 55% games requirement.

A tender is a significant commitment. The team is giving up a high draft pick and committing meaningful games to the player, while the player is committing to that USHL organization. Families should understand exactly what the agreement means before signing it.

Protected lists

The protected-list system is the umbrella.

USHL teams maintain protected lists of players whose league rights they control. Before the draft, each team submits an Initial Protected List that includes affiliate players it chooses to retain from the previous season along with any players it has signed to tenders.

Those players are already accounted for before draft day. Phase I and Phase II selections are then added to that group, with Phase II continuing until each team reaches its 50-player protected list.

This is another reason the draft should not be viewed as a complete ranking of eligible players. Some players are already protected or tendered, while others remain available to be selected.

So being on that May 50-man list means the organization controls your rights at that point; it does not mean you are firmly part of that team's future roster.

What happens if your player is not drafted

Most eligible players are not drafted. That is the normal outcome, not a verdict on where a player will ultimately play.

Going undrafted also does not close the door on the USHL. Teams can add players as free agents, bring players into their organization as affiliates and continue evaluating players through camps and during the following season. A player who goes undrafted can still earn a USHL opportunity, and younger players may also remain eligible to be selected in a future draft.

It is important to understand that the draft is only one point in the evaluation process.

Players develop, team needs change, roster spots open and organizations continue scouting after draft day.

The more useful question after an undrafted spring is not, "Why was I passed over?" but, "What is the specific gap between my game and the level I want to reach?" That is an answerable question (and one a player can do something about).

What actually gets players noticed

Across both phases, the traits that move a player up boards are fairly consistent, and they are not the ones that show up on a scoresheet.

• Skating under pressure. Not straight-line speed in a testing drill. Whether the feet still work when the game is fast and someone is on you.

• Decisions before the puck arrives. Scanning, knowing the next play and not needing an extra touch to sort it out.

• Compete that shows up in bad moments. Anyone competes on a good shift. Evaluators watch what happens after a mistake.

• Habits that hold up. Reliable route running, stick position, and support. Boring things that separate players once the level rises.

  
  

None of this is a secret and none of it requires a particular team or program. It requires knowing what is being looked at and working on it deliberately.

A note on dates and format

The specific dates, round counts, and eligibility years are set by the league and change from season to season. Check the USHL's own announcements for the current cycle rather than relying on any article, including this one, for those details.

What does not change much is the shape: tenders first, then a younger projection draft, then an older draft for immediate contributors, with camps and tryouts running alongside all of it.