RinkWise podcast: What does the data say about college recruiting and transfers?

How many recruits actually make it to the school they first commit to?

It's a question New England Hockey Journal editor Evan Marinofsky asks himself during the flurries of Division 1 men's college hockey commitments.

He put the query to the test in a two-part series last month, examining not only how many recruits make it to the college they committed to, but also how many transfer, how many August commitments make it, how many goalies made it to their destination and more.

INSIDE THE NUMBERS: Part 1 — How many recruits make it to college hockey? | Part 2 — How many August commits, goalies made it?

In the latest RinkWise podcast, Marinofsky and NEHJ writer Patrick Donnelly sat down to take a deep dive into the numbers and share their takeaways. Notably, 83.64 percent of players ended up at their committed school, but around 30 percent eventually transferred or left college hockey.

The episode also covers recent girls' hockey commitment news, with highlights from Yale, BC, BU and more.

RinkWise podcast: How many recruits make it to college hockey?

Which trend is going to keep changing?

Marinofsky: "August commits, this is something you and I hear all the time in August when kids do commit. You hear it from coaches, you hear it from parents, 'Oh, just because they commit doesn't mean anything. It can change. They might not end up making it.' So I was curious about this number. ... I'm assuming most of these August commits it's their first year being eligible to be verbally offered. So, 78.41 percent of those who committed in August ended up where they initially committed.

"This number I think is going to change the most. I think this number over the next four or five years is going to go down. ... I think it was [Providence assistant] Joel Beal who said it: You're assuming that the top 10 kids in the country are going to commit on August 1. They're probably going to commit to the Blue Blood programs. They're on the right development path, and they're probably national team players. There's probably a lower probability that maybe those kids fail or things change at the school. You don't want to call them safe commitments, but I think you're probably looking at the highest percentage of kids getting in. I think a lot of schools are seeing that and saying, 'Why don't we commit eight guys or let's commit seven?' Those are the guys that are driving the program in the right direction. Let's keep going back to the well. Then he said: as that number grows to maybe the top 50 or 60 players in the country at 15 or 16 years old, you'll see a lot more variability in those kids actually ending up at school that they commit to."

Does the transfer portal really impact Atlantic Hockey more than other conferences?

Donnelly: "Is the attention just falling on the guys who are leaving? That was generally the prevailing opinion from the folks I talked to. Cause you look at Holy Cross who's done really well in the portal. They get Liam McClinskey who was a top 10 Hobey Baker finalist last year. Sacred Heart got Mikey Adamson from UMass, who exploded as a sophomore last year and looks like a really key piece of their blue line. There seems to be a lot more success stories bringing guys in than the 'poaching' stories. Those fly under the radar because, you don't really pay attention once a kid leaves through the portal and goes somewhere else. ... Then, if you look at some of the transfer rates between the New England teams in Atlantic and the New England schools in Hockey East and the ECAC, it all kinds of lines up once you average it all out. I was expecting Atlantic transfers to be much higher."