A year ago, the winner of Mr. Hockey in Minnesota also ended up winning the American Family Insurance ALL-USA Player of the Year. Could the same pattern emerge again?
This season, winger Riley Tufte had 49 goals and 36 assists for Blaine in 25 games and is projected as a first-round pick in the NHL draft in June. He is ranked No. 17 on NHL Central Scouting’s North American skater list and NHL scouts are said to be enamored with his size at 6-5, 190.
What makes Tufte’s season unique is his commitment to his high school program despite being the No. 1 pick in the 2014 USHL Phase I Draft. He was selected by the Fargo Force and the expectation was that he would bypass his senior season in high school. Instead, he only played with the junior team before and after Blaine’s season.
He played 12 games before the high school season began and then made the tough call to return to rejoin Blaine. When in the USHL, he stays in Blaine early in the week for school and then heads to Fargo for practices and games late in the week and on the weekend.
“It says a lot about who he is,” Blaine coach Chris Carroll told the USHL website. “He’s an unbelievable kid. When I found out he was coming back to high school I knew he’d be good on the ice, but the gift he brings off the ice is amazing. Everyone knows how special he is on the ice, but it meant more to our program about he who is off of it. To have the gifts that he possess will be the intangibles he’ll take with him to the NHL.”
While Blaine’s season ended sooner than he would have liked, Tufte was in the starting lineup days after rejoining the Force for practice and was cheered by teammates and friends from Blaine who were in the stands. He scored what was his sixth goal of the season in his first game back. Fargo is in fourth place in the Western Conference and pushing for the postseason.
“The guys who were here in November, knowing he had a tough decision, respected that decision, and spent a lot of time with him involved in that decision,” Fargo coach Carey Eades told the USHL website. “Guys are all-in about the team being successful, there’s not a lot of ‘what’s in it for me’ or ‘I need to protect my turf. If Riley wasn’t as good of a teammate or person as he is, that’d be much more difficult to orchestrate for sure.”
Tufte also was diagnosed with diabetes when he was 11. This video interview from last year talks about the impact his diabetes has had on him.