He's certainly seen them play hockey a lot, and it was obvious from Day 1 just how good they were.
In fact, you can go back more than three years, to Jan. 13, 2016, to see why TB wrote this about Teves:
"For about 20 seconds Friday night at Baker Rink, Josh Teves was the greatest hockey player who ever lived."
You can read the whole thing HERE for a little context. Hint - it involves about the most ridiculous individual play that TigerBlog has seen here, followed up by an exclamation point a few seconds later.
If you don't want to go back and read, basically Teves made an insane play to keep the puck out of the goal at one end and then cashed it in with a goal at the other end in a 4-4 tie with Union. TigerBlog has the video in that entry, and when he watched it again just now, he remembered just how amazing a play it was.
As for Veronneau and Kuffner, TB has written about them many times. They've all been extraordinary athletes to see compete here, and their names are all over the Princeton hockey record book.
Kuffner is Princeton's career leader in goals scored after taking down a record that stood for 56 years. Veronneau has the highest single-season points total in program history. Teves has more career assists than any Princeton defenseman ever.
And now they're pros.
Veronneau was the first to make his NHL debut, which he did last week with the Ottawa Senators, the team he and Kuffner grew up rooting for when they were kids playing hockey together in Ottawa. TB watched that game, and it was clear that Veronneau belonged.
He has the vision and the skill, and more than anything else, he has the speed. That was clear from his first shifts.
He was the third star of his first game and then in Game 2 he picked up his first career NHL point, a really nice assist in a 6-2 win over the Toronto Maple Leafs:
In fact, go to @princetonhockey Twitter for a lot of good stuff from all three of them, including Kuffner as he sang on TV after his first game with Detroit and Teves as he got on the plane for Vancouver's trip to Dallas.— Ottawa Senators (@Senators) March 16, 2019
There was a also a great story on sportsnet.ca about the new Princeton pros, complete with how Ron Fogarty got to see Veronneau and Kuffner play live. Read the comments at the end of the story too, since they suggest that Fogarty should be the next Senators' coach.
By the way, the three of them are balancing NHL hockey with their last Princeton semester. Veronneau and Teves are mechanical engineering majors; Kuffner is an economics major.
You can read the story HERE. It's definitely worth it.
This is TB's favorite part of the story:
Regardless of how long they play in the NHL, Kuffner, Veronneau and Teves all have Princeton degrees no one will take from them. They shine as an example that it’s OK to take the longer route to a pro career, and gain a fabulous college experience en route.
“It’s not a sprint,” Fogarty says. “It’s unfortunate with Twitter and social media, everyone is in a race to get drafted. To get to the next level, without truly developing at their present level. Sometimes they’re not both feet in, and always looking at what’s next.”
All of this, by the way, got TigerBlog wondering something.
The Princeton men's hockey season ended with a three-overtime loss to Brown in Game 2 of the ECAC opening round playoff series. Brown, by the way, went on to take out top-seeded Quinnipiac in two straight to advance to this weekend's semifinals.
As you recall, it was a year ago that Princeton won the ECAC title and advanced to the NCAA tournament. This year's team was hoping for a repeat of that same playoff magic, but it fell excruciatingly short in the three-OT epic.
As a result, the season ended and with it, the eligibility of the seniors. Within days all three had signed NHL contracts, and Kuffner and Veronneau went from playing against Brown in that playoff series to playing in the NHL a few days later.
Hey, as TB said, Veronneau already has a point.
And so the question is, would they have rather been in the NHL or at Quinnipiac for the next round of the playoffs? Like TB said, he's never met any of the three of them, but his sense is they would have chosen Quinnipiac in a heartbeat.
Now they're pros. NHL players.
TB hopes they're all there for the long run.
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