As if the Boston University men’s hockey team wasn’t young enough.
BU, already the NCAA’s youngest team at an average age of 20.1 years old, is adding top 2026 NHL Draft prospect Tynan Lawrence for the spring semester, a source confirmed to the Blog on Tuesday. At 17 years old (with an August birthday), the New Brunswick, Canada, native will be the second-youngest player in the NCAA.
BU head coach Jay Pandolfo said in his midweek call that Lawrence was supposed to practice on Wednesday, but visa issues delayed his arrival. He’s expected to practice on Thursday and is questionable for the Terriers’ matchup at UMass on Friday.
It is a bit ironic, of course, that a struggling team filled to the brim with young, high-end talents is looking to another young, high-end talent for help. In fairness, the consensus among analysts on Lawrence is that he plays a mature, pro-ready game, and given the ways Pandolfo has criticized the play of his forwards so far this season, the Terriers could really use more of that. He also leaves the USHL as Muskegon’s captain, a year after he powered the Lumberjacks to their first championship (he was named MVP of the Clark Cup playoffs), and the last time BU rostered a former USHL captain who won the Clark Cup, it was Shane Lachance.
That went pretty well.
Still, Lachance was almost three years older when he arrived on Comm. Ave than Lawrence is now. If BU’s problem truly is that it’s lacking experience and leadership, it’s hard to imagine Lawrence helping much in that area. If BU’s problem in a significantly frustrating first semester was getting a bevy of freshmen acclimated to college hockey… well, Lawrence can’t exactly solve that, either.
Then again, Pandolfo insists the discussion surrounding BU’s youth is merely an excuse, not the underlying reason for the Terriers’ bumpy start (they are 9-8-1, 6-5-1 in Hockey East and 23rd in NPI as of writing), and that his players are capable, regardless of age, of playing the way they need to compete for a national championship. Evidently, he feels Lawrence is no exception. And he’s got a good reason. Forget the Lachance comparison — the last time BU rostered a 17-year-old top draft prospect straight out of the USHL, it was Macklin Celebrini. You may have heard of him.
“I know he’s young,” Pandolfo said. “But he’s had a lot of success in the USHL. A lot of time that translates very well to college.”
This past summer, according to Pandolfo, BU explored bringing in Lawrence for the start of the season, but the forward elected to stay in Muskegon for a second year. That indicates Lawrence is ready for the jump from the USHL. He’s certainly not the college hockey veteran some will argue the Terriers need, but he seems as ready for the NCAA as true freshmen get.
Lawrence is described by analysts as a strong two-way center, an archetype that would help a BU team currently allowing 3.4 goals a game (tied-14th-worst in the country). He’s got an impressive motor, he graded out fairly well in battles in the USHL, according to RecruitScouting, he’s strong on the puck and he’s committed to driving play towards the net, all things BU’s forwards struggled with at times in the fall. “He just plays the right way,” wrote The Athletic’s Scott Wheeler, and Pandolfo, who uses that exact phrase constantly, will love it.
“He has an engine on him. He doesn’t stop moving his feet,” said Pandolfo, who’s criticized the effort of his players at points this season. “We’re getting a really good player.”
It also doesn’t hurt that he had 25 goals and 29 assists in 54 games as a 16-year-old at Muskegon last season (he arrived from powerhouse Minnesota prep school Shattuck-St. Mary’s). It’s not an uncommon view that the transition from prep to the USHL is harder than the jump from the USHL to the NCAA, so Lawrence’s immediate success in juniors bodes pretty well as he prepares to parachute into Agganis Arena.
And BU pretty clearly feels Lawrence is ready. Pandolfo and associate head coach Joe Pereira had no reason to bring him in otherwise. This move isn’t all that comparable to their decision to bring in goalie Mikhail Yegorov at the start of the spring semester last year; Yegorov was getting shelled on one of the worst teams in the USHL (his save percentage in 66 career games was just .899, and he had to make 66 saves in one game), so BU’s decision was partly about airlifting the 18-year-old out of Omaha. And given Yegorov had already been drafted (2024 second round, NJ), enrolling at BU early made total sense for the Russian and his future.
None of that applies to Lawrence. He won’t get drafted until after the season, and if he just continued dominating the USHL on an elite team (Muskegon is 22-9-0-0 right now), he surely would’ve been a top 5 pick (and potentially higher in a pretty wide-open class). Instead, Lawrence risks a slow start in the NCAA lowering his stock, and even if he lights up college hockey, he doesn’t stand to gain much because he’s already so highly rated. Point is — the Terriers need Lawrence far more than he needs them.
“He just wants to come in and help our team,” Pandolfo said. “I really don’t think he’s overly concerned with the draft, from just talking to him.”
Which makes this look like a move BU initiated — a statement from Pandolfo and Pereira that they’re still committed to making a run at the title this season and an admission they need reinforcements to do it.
“We talked to him a little bit a month ago, and still, he was pretty set on staying at Muskegon,” said Pandolfo. “But just recently, both of us mutually decided it might be best for him to come in and help us.”
You can’t blame them. Now we wait to see if Lawrence, specifically, is the help BU needs.
The Blog will have live, on-the-ground coverage from Mullins Center in Amherst, Mass. on Friday as BU returns to action against UMass. Follow on X @BOSHockeyblog and Instagram @boston.hockey.blog.
