Last spring, Ohio State hockey coach, John Markell successfully recruited two of the brightest 18-year-old hockey prospects in North America. Today, there is a strong chance that both will be selected in the first round of the National Hockey League draft this June.

For a college football or basketball coach, watching two of your best players being drafted one year after they were recruited would be a nightmare. For Markell, it may not be a problem at all.

Buckeye centers, R.J. Umberger and Dave Steckel are both ranked among the top 25 North American prospects eligible for the NHL Draft by the Central Scouting Bureau in Canada. Both will hear their names called by NHL commissioner Gary Bettman; however, neither are likely to leave school.

Steckel and Umberger, unlike college football and basketball players, have the luxury of a complex system that automatically makes them eligible for the draft this year and keeps them from entering it ever again.

If a hockey player declares himself eligible for the draft as an 18-year-old, he can never play a game of collegiate hockey. At 19, players are automatically eligible for the last time and can stay at the NCAA level. After that, undrafted players become unrestricted free agents.

“I think staying for another year is probably what’s best for me,” said Umberger, an undecided business major who is ranked fourth among North American skaters and is projected to be selected no later than tenth in the NHL draft. “I think we’ll have a great team and I want to go for a national title, but nothing’s final.”

There is a chance that an NHL team will throw a king’s ransom at Umberger, OSU’s leading scorer and CCHA rookie of the year, and he will leave, but that decision does not have to be made within any time frame.

“It really depends on what team chooses a certain player,” Markell said. “If, say, Toronto picked him, he may be here for four years because that’s (coach) Pat Quinn’s philosophy. But, if a team that needs him right away, takes him and throws a big signing bonus at him, he may leave right away.”

The idea of losing players early is not something that is necessarily a bad thing for Markell and his program. In fact, it may be the mark that Ohio State is starting to arrive as a college hockey power by recruiting the kind of players that have this option.

For Umberger, there will be tempting offers. If he is selected in the top part of the first round, there is a high probability that he will go to a team that will need him sooner rather than later. For Steckel, projected as a low first- or high second-round pick, the likelihood is that he will be told to remain in school to develop further physically.

“Going pro was the last thing I thought about when I came here,” said Steckel, who led OSU in goals during his first season and finished third in assists and total points. “I planned to stay in school for four years. My mother’s a teacher and that’s what she expected too. Now, that fantasy is becoming a reality. Ever since I left the USA program, going to the show has been the ultimate goal, but I didn’t expect all this to happen already. I think I need to stay at least another year, put some weight on and develop some more.”

Markell, using the example of junior defenseman Jason Crain, has advised both of his young stars to stay in school. Crain was among the most highly touted recruits ever to come to OSU and lived up to the hype in being among the leading scoring defenseman in the conference as freshman in the 1998-1999 season. He was then drafted higher than any Buckeye ever, going in the third round to the Los Angeles Kings.

Crain could have left, but didn’t. He suffered a knee injury and stayed in school, continued to develop and now, after his junior season, may finally go pro. That is a decision Markell would not argue with.

“If Crain was eating the league up and not developing anymore, I would have told him that leaving may be the best thing for him as a hockey player,” Markell said, “but the majority of kids aren’t physically mature enough to compete as 18- or 19-year-olds and it shows when they get there. You have to be a man to play in the National Hockey League and most guys aren’t at that age.”

For most college hockey players in this situation, it comes down to patience in realizing a dream that was born, for most, as four or five-year olds. With the probability of Steckel and Umberger returning, Markell and his Buckeyes would seem to be ready for a serious run next season in the CCHA.

“Coach Markell helps us every day and I know he doesn’t look at these things selfishly,” Umberger said. “It’s a matter of being smart and making the right decision. When I’m ready, I’ll know.”