Goaltender Devon Levi Commits to Northeastern

Our long national nightmare is over. The Northeastern Huskies have garnered a verbal commitment from a goaltender, filling a large void in the recruiting pipeline with the impending graduation of Craig Pantano this upcoming May. On Friday night, after Northeastern soundly defeated the Connecticut Huskies, they received the commitment of Devon Levi, a Canadian goaltender from Quebec.

Levi, a six-foot, catching left goaltender, originally committed to Hockey East rival Vermont in April 2019. He is currently playing for the Carleton Place Canadians in the CCHL, the same team and league that yielded current Huskies backup goaltender Connor Murphy. He also is a product of the Lac St-Louis Lions, a program that has had a multi-year pipeline to Matthews Arena including Jeremie Bucheler, Jeremy Davies, and future forwards Justin Hryckowian and Matt Choupani.

Statistically, Levi has been successful at every stop of his journey towards the NCAA. This current season, he has a .943 save percentage and 1.38 goals-against average for Carleton Place, in 23 games. By comparison, last year on that same squad, Murphy had a .917 save percentage and 2.07 GAA in 47 games. In his three years with Lac Saint Louis, Levi had save percentages of .909, .927, and .925, and the last two seasons had playoff save percentages well above .930 as well. This season, he leads the CCHL in both GAA and save percentage by extremely wide margins, and has five shutouts, more than double the second-highest in the league. He’s also only allowed 32 goals this season in 24 games, which is 37 fewer than the next-closest goaltender with comparable playing time.

Levi was also the goaltender for Team Canada East at the 2019 Hockey Canada World Junior A Championship, and was named the tournament MVP after saving .909 in the tournament games and standing on his head much of the time to support his team. This tournament pits the best players from across Canada’s junior hockey leagues against each other, and for a goaltender to be named MVP is a huge deal and honor for Levi, who has raised his 2020 Draft stock considerably this season. He also won the Patrick Roy (best defensive player) and Ken Dryden (best goaltender) trophies for his performance in the Quebec Midget AAA Hockey League in 2018-19.

This commitment cannot be understated with how impactful it will be for the Huskies’ future. Northeastern has amassed a collection of commits that have been dominating the scoring leaderboards in the USHL, and have depth to continue the production for years to come. Getting a quality goaltender to anchor the team for multiple seasons will be crucial to continue the winning ways Coach Madigan has instilled for the past half-decade. Devon Levi has shown all the potential to continue the ways of strong Huskies goaltending, and will be expected to take the starter reigns as soon as he arrives on campus next fall.

Congratulations to Devon on his commitment! And as always, go Huskies!