College Hockey:
Denver’s LaLeggia gets Hockey Commissioners Association’s nod as rookie of the year

USCHO Staff Report • April 6, 2012

TAMPA, Fla. — Denver’s Joey LaLeggia, who led rookie defensemen with 38 points, has been named the Hockey Commissioners Association national rookie of the year.

LaLeggia was the national rookie of the month in January, when he scored 12 points. He was also named the WCHA’s rookie of the year.

Voting is done through the assistant coaches of the 58 college hockey teams, with each league’s rookie of the year serving as its nominee.

Cornell’s Brian Ferlin, Michigan’s Alex Guptill, Bentley’s Alex Grieve and Massachusetts-Lowell’s Scott Wilson were runners-up.

The following is a self-policing forum for discussing views on this story. Comments that are derogatory, make personal attacks, are abusive, or contain profanity or racism will be removed at our discretion. USCHO.com is not responsible for comments posted by users. Please report any inappropriate or offensive comments by clicking the “Flag” link next to that comment in order to alert the moderator.

Please also keep “woofing,” taunting, and otherwise unsportsmanlike behavior to a minimum. Your posts will more than likely be deleted, and worse yet, you reflect badly on yourself, your favorite team and your conference.

Mowers10
Wasn’t LaLeggia originally a UNH recruit? :(
BC HE Fan
No Johny Gaudreau in consideration? He’s a game-changer … Hockey East Tournament MVP. I believe the Beanpot MVP also.
- css228
  The nominees are the guys who won their conference’s ROY award. So if Gaudreau wasn’t the best rookie in HE then he wasn’t nominated for this.
WCHA HOCKEY
Kyle Rau???
- nogofer
  No.
Suture
This kid is one of the best freshman defensemen I have ever
seen. This is just a long line of
star-studded “D” that have come out of Denver in the past 5-6
years. DU’s ability to get these star
densfemen onto campus is amazing.
LaLeggia’s defensive skills are solid. His ability to join the offensive
play is truly phenomenal. He is the
third-best freshmen defensemen I have seen since 1979. Dougy Lidster was
fantastic as a freshman at CC, he was 6’2”, 222 lbs. and controlled play
whenever he was on the ice. He was a man
amongst children. The best defenseman of
all time (IMHO) was James Patrick who played at North Dakota. For those of us
old enough to see Patrick will tell you he was simply the best defensemen on
the ice as a freshman! If anyone can tell me there was a smoother skater,
better passer and smarter player than Patrick I would love to hear about him. He was in Sports Illustrated in 1982…the
heading said “One Sweet Sioux”…:)

Congrats to LaLeggia. He will be around one more year,
adding to DU’s misery of losing top-end talent after 2 years of
matriculation. Wouldn’t it be
interesting if these great players had to stick around until their junior
year? Go back and look at some of the
teams you would have seen…..would have been fun. Good luck to the teams tonight….can’t help
but pull for the “David” in this David vs Goliath event.

Possibly related: