Last week, the Huskies secured the verbal commitment of Gunnar Fontaine, a 2000 birth year forward from Rhode Island who is currently playing for the Chicago Steel in the USHL. Fontaine, a former commit to RPI of the ECAC, is the brother of current NU Women’s Hockey defender Skylar Fontaine.
Fontaine previously played at Lawrence Academy in 2017-18 with fellow NU commits Sam Colangelo and Neil Shea. In that season, Fontaine put up 50 points, on 19 goals and 31 assists, and tallied 10 more points in 7 games in the MSHL when the prep season ended.
Fontaine continued his scoring ways in his first USHL season, racking up 43 points (20 goals) for Chicago, who is currently in the USHL playoffs as one of the top teams in the Western Conference. He tied with Shea for 6th-best scoring on the Steel, and Fontaine had the fourth-most goals.
After de-committing from RPI, reports came out that Fontaine was considering Northeastern, as well as UMass and Providence. The fact that Northeastern was able to win a recruiting battle against two Frozen Four teams shows the prowess of Jerry Keefe, Jason Smith, and Head Coach Jim Madigan on the recruiting trail. While those other teams had plenty of success this year and in, in Providence’s case, years prior, Northeastern’s run of success both in Hockey East and the Beanpot has clearly drawn the eyes and attention of young players.
A left-handed forward who stands 5-foot-10, 175 pounds, Fontaine will be counted on to help replace the production of Brandon Hawkins, Patrick Schule, and the other graduated wingers from the Class of 2018.
A week ago, Fontaine was the subject of a featured article in the New England Hockey Journal (subscription required), and a year ago when he was estblishing himself in the prep ranks, Mark Divver wrote another feature on him for the Providence Journal. In that feature, Fontaine says of himself, “I’m fast and I get in there and create a lot of offense, but I’m also strong on defense. I like to push the pace.” He also cites Johnny Gaudreau as his favorite player, and Huskies fans would be quite pleased if Fontaine turned into a player in the mold of Gaudreau, a former Huskies commit before going to Boston College.
Congrats to Gunnar! Follow us on Twitter for all the up-to-date Huskies news @NUHockeyBlog.