It wasn't just the student-athletes getting excited for being picked for the draft, as North Dakota head coach Brad Berry was in attendance in Vancouver for the weekend. While Berry was just as excited as the players, he also spoke on how it's just one drop in the long-term bucket of their careers.
 
"It's an exciting day for the family and student-athlete, and for us as coaches to be working with these young men, it's truly exciting," Berry mentioned. "Again, we always talk about the draft being a point-in-time and a mark of where they are development wise. And these young men know that this is just one of those marks. Now they move forward in the collegiate direction and put on their work hats every day to determine where they want to go."
 
The first of the incoming freshmen to get selected was Shane Pinto to the Ottawa Senators in the 32nd overall spot.
 
"It was great to see him go right away on day two. There's always that wonderment and excitement of possibly going in the first day, but he got picked right away today. There's things that go into Shane Pinto's development path, he's had great skill, a tremendous work ethic and he knows his next steps are through North Dakota."
 
With the influx of North Dakota products in Ottawa, the bond still runs deep with the Fighting Hawks players still on the roster and those who have just recently left.
 
"One of the things that happened was when Pinto when off the board to Ottawa, one of the first guys who text me is Jacob Bernard-Docker," Berry said. "He said, 'Hey, give me Shane's contact info, I want to reach out to him.' That says a lot about our culture. The next guy was Christian Wolanin who said, 'Hey, can't wait to see him at development camp. There's a bond there right away. Just talking with the Ottawa guys, they love what we do at North Dakota and they love our culture and they want a little bit of that."
 
Next off the board for UND was Harrison Blaisdell, who already has coach impressed with how his handles himself.
 
"Harrison is a go-getter, he has a motor, he has a huge compete level, and he can play in a lot of situations in a lot of different positions. He's got a team-first mentality, great character, and he's going to make everyone around him better."
 
Local product Judd Caulfield went to the Penguins, which allowed Berry to speak on how he's happy that a player who was local and knows the program well is getting rewarded.
 
"Judd's a big body, he's a guy that can grind the puck and play the game any way he really wants to," coach mentioned of Caulfield's game. "He played at the national program and played with a really good crew there with a lot of his teammates off the draft board. He's coming in as a true freshman and it'll be a little bit of an adjustment for him, but he grew up around our program and he knows what it's all about to take the work ethic and commitment to get to the next level. It's great to see a local product like him get rewarded at the draft. I saw on TV that his dad (Bob) got drafted in 1983 by the Islanders and now the son got drafted, as well."
 
Massimo Rizzo was another incoming freshman who was selected with the second-to-last pick at 216th overall. However, Berry did make a point to mention that while it may seem like a disastrous situation to be picked later, it's something that can be used as they develop.
 
"When you look at it, when you get drafted in the first round or really high-- there's a lot of expectation and pressure. What I find right now is if you get drafted in one of the mid-rounds or later, that probably gives you the chance to get your feet underneath you with not a lot of short-term expectations as long-term expectations.
 
"It's a very subjective draft. It's based upon people's opinion about where you are mentally. The biggest thing to get out of it is that it's a mark of a point in time and now you can use that as motivation. If you think you should have went earlier, they can say 'I think I'm a good player and I should have went here.' But our guys now are pretty humble in their approach. Just watching our guys this weekend, there was no nervousness, there was no worrying about not getting drafted. It was one of those things that eventually was going to happen and now they will put it in the past and move forward."
 
The next move is looking ahead to the 2019-20 season starting up in October, with camps happening before that. The biggest thing for these student-athletes is for them to not get too far ahead of the process of development to assure there aren't any missteps along the way.
 
"There's a lot of things they need to check off before they get to the NHL. A lot of our guys, when we recruit them, they want to come to North Dakota. They want to get to the NHL, but they want to come to North Dakota. When we listen to that, we're excited about that because we get to work with these young guys and they're committed to our program. If they flourish in one or two years, they might leave us a few years early. But they get the timeline now of developing for four years and that's what we want with our program is to have someone that when they're ready to go they're ready to go and not before that."