The Huskies garnered a huge victory on the recruiting trail this afternoon as 6-foot-four-inch, 180 pound defenseman Jeremie Bucheler, from Quebec, Canada, gave his verbal to play his college hockey on St. Botolph Street. Bucheler is a right shot defenseman currently playing for the Lac-St. Louis Lions of the Quebec Junior Hockey League. It is his second season with the club, and in 72 games, he has amassed eight goals and fifty assists for a total of fifty-eight points. He also added fourteen points in the seventeen playoffs games he played in last season. He was named to the Quebec U16 team in late 2015, as a 15-year-old player.
Bucheler comes with an extraordinary pedigree- he was a first round pick in the 2016 Quebec Major Junior Hockey League draft, going fifteenth overall to Blainville-Boisbriand. He also was selected in the third round of the United States Hockey League draft, thirty-ninth overall, by the Chicago Steel. He is eligible for the 2018 National Hockey League Draft. He has a QMJHL Draft video here.
A scouting report from the Moncton Wildcats of the QMJHL says of Bucheler, “He is able to make key plays under pressure and has good hockey sense. With a good shot and great vision he is able to contribute offensively for his team.” Another observer of Quebec bantam hockey noted that Bucheler might have the highest upside of all the potential defensemen in the QMJHL draft. Here in America, Jeff Cox of SBNation said that Bucheler is “raw, but major upside.”
Bucheler would be following in the footsteps of current freshman Jeremy Davies, who is an alum of the Lac-St. Louis program, and came to Northeastern by way of the USHL. Lac- St. Louis has also churned out quality NHL talent in their time, including Jonathan Drouin, Anthony Duclair, Alex Killorn (formerly of Harvard), and Michael Matheson (formerly of Boston College).
We project that Bucheler would arrive at Northeastern in 2018, with the potential to be pushed to 2019. However, given his age, I would estimate that he will be attending earlier rather than later. Northeastern does have a stockpile of defenseman recruits- Bucheler will be the tenth defenseman in the pipeline at this point, and even 2018 we project to have a number of arrivals already. But in terms of potential, upside, and pedigree, Bucheler rises as the cream of the crop for the Huskies.
Congratulations to Jeremie and his family, welcome to Northeastern. As always, Go Huskies!
To view our Northeastern Hockey roster projection, including Bucheler in 2018, click here.