Corridor Cross Checks: Iowa Heartlanders hit the college free-agent market hard

CORALVILLE — Back about midseason or so, Iowa Heartlanders head coach Derek Damon and associate coach Joe Exter started writing names of players on a white board in Damon’s office.

They were every fourth or fifth-year college guy in the United States and Canada, a few major junior guys, basically players who could be looking for a pro hockey opportunity once their respective seasons concluded.

“From there, we watch all the video on them and kind of target guys that we want to go after, and get in touch with their agents,” Damon said. “Kind of let them know ‘Hey, we’re interested.’ Then it kind of goes from there. Once those guys’ seasons end, then we get on them right away. Because it’s like a feeding frenzy.”

A feeding frenzy that includes National Hockey League clubs. For instance, the Vancouver Canucks signed former Cedar Rapids RoughRiders forward Max Sasson as a free agent out of Western Michigan University over the weekend.

American Hockey League clubs get involved, too. Naturally, so do all 28 clubs in the ECHL.

None more so than the Heartlanders. They have signed six guys to ECHL contracts in the past couple of weeks: Louis Bourdon of Lake Superior State, Jared Kucharek of Lake Superior State, Marek Korenchik of UMass-Lowell, Mitch Benson of Boston College, Jesse Jacques of Minnesota-Duluth and Justin Michaelian of Maine.

All six are getting a late-season opportunity to show what they can do at this level of professional hockey, as they seek to secure jobs somewhere for next season.

“Definitely a lot different than college,” Benson said. “A little bit less structured. Guys seem to have a little bit more time. But I thought it was cool, cool to see a difference after five years in college. Cool to see what you can do at the next level. Just happy to be here.”

Benson played four years at Colgate before using a graduate transfer year at BC, one of the bluebloods of college hockey. The Eagles needed a goaltender, and he fit the bill.

He said he spoke a bit with the Allen Americans of the ECHL but decided Coralville was the place he needed to be.

“I knew I wanted to do a grad year because why not?” he said. “See if I could go to a top-tier program. Really fortunate that BC reached out to me. Can’t say enough great things about the program. They treat you like a total professional, resources are crazy, coaches unbelievable, people unbelievable and a smaller school, so the academics are pretty sweet, too. Just really lucky to have gone there.”

The Heartlanders (17-33-13-1, 48 standings points) went 1-1-1 in three home games last week against Wichita, losing in overtime Wednesday night, 3-2, rallying to win in OT on a Tyler Busch goal, 3-2, Friday night and losing Saturday night, 4-2.

Benson played Wednesday and Saturday, his first two pro games.

Iowa has a three-game weekend on the road upcoming, playing Friday night at Toledo, Saturday night at Kalamazoo and Sunday afternoon at Fort Wayne.

Cedar Rapids RoughRiders lose twice

It was not a good weekend in Michigan for the RoughRiders, who dropped a pair of 4-2 games at Muskegon.

Ryan Walsh and Drew Stewart had goals for C.R. in Friday’s game. Stewart, who recently committed to Notre Dame, was called up for the weekend from the affiliate roster.

Walsh scored again Saturday and assisted on a goal by Dylan Hryckowian. A 19-year-old from Rochester, N.Y., Walsh has 25 goals and 43 assists this and is threatening to break the club record for points in a season. That is held by Chad Costello in 2005-06 (76).

Mike Seidel had 73 points in 2008-09 and Jacob Cepis 72 in 2006-07.

The RoughRiders are in sixth place in the USHL’s Eastern Conference with 58 standings points, on a 25-20-4-4 record. They are two points behind Dubuque for fifth place and seven up on Muskegon for the final available playoff spot in the division.

Cedar Rapids has a home-and-home series this weekend against the Madison Capitols, playing at home Friday night (7:05 opening faceoff) and Saturday night in Wisconsin.

Former RoughRiders winger Aidan McDonough (2018-19) played his first NHL game Sunday for the Vancouver Canucks at Chicago.

McDonough was a seventh-round draft pick of the Canucks after his one season in C.R., playing four years of college hockey at Northeastern.

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