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Winning the third-place game failed to numb the pain. “The goal, from when you were a mite to your senior year, from March 7 through 12, is to win that championship,” Leivermann says. “If you don’t, it’s not like your life is over … but it hits you hard.”

While Mittelstadt’s back-to-school draft year did not blaze trails — many others, including NHL star Ryan McDonagh, had done the same — it still raised a few eyebrows. For a prospect of his calibre, a top-five talent to some, he chose an unconventional path.

The hockey world can be judgmental, at times feeding a follow-the-pack culture. Especially concerning personal development in a player’s draft year, zigging instead of zagging can carry a negative connotation.

“From a team perspective, it was all over the map,” says an NHL scout based in the American Midwest. “We had no problem with it, but there were certainly scouts who looked down on it.” Adds a scouting director from another NHL team, “It was his decision, so we just embraced it as it was.”

Supporters maintain Mittelstadt has shown immense loyalty to his community, a rare case where superstardom and commitment can coexist. Hockey will begin to feel more like a job in college, the thought process went, and when the window for high school joy closes, it never reopens.

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The Casey Mittelstadt scouts watched this year is 6-foot-1 and 201 pounds. He’s confident and dominant at both the high school and USHL levels, unlike the old Mittelstadt.

“He was kind of a short, little fat kid, a late bloomer,” says Mittelstadt’s dad, Tom. Not making an under-16 regional select team a few years back — a cut that suggested he wasn’t even a top 100 player in Minnesota for his age group — hit a nerve. Opposing players used the slight to get under Mittelstadt’s skin. It was time to get serious.

The family hired a skating coach to correct Mittelstadt’s stride. Baby fat transformed into muscle. And, perhaps most importantly, his dedication to skill development ratcheted up.

Mittelstadt’s mom, Dede, tells a story about a family friend looking after the teen over one Fourth of July weekend. The friend rang the couple, who were out of town, to express concern and puzzlement over Mittelstadt’s behaviour in 90-degree heat.

“Casey was stickhandling for like four hours. He was worried about him,” Dede recalls. “He was like, ‘Is he going to get heat stroke or?’ We were like, ‘I don’t know, that’s just how he is. He’ll come in when he gets hot.’”