With Michigan State down Saturday night and staring at a rare second straight loss, Charlie Stramel came to the rescue.
Stramel, 20, had had this game circled for a while. It was the Minnesota Wild prospect’s first game at Wisconsin since transferring from there to Michigan State last summer. And in the next few periods, Stramel showed just how far he has come.
And why the Wild are sticking with him.
Stramel was in a top-six role, playing in all situations. That included a net-front spot on the power play, where Stramel scored on a rebound to pull the Spartans within one in the second period. Stramel raised his arms and slapped the boards in celebration, much to the chagrin of his quiet former Badgers teammates.
That had to feel good.
Stramel gets MSU on the board in the second period to cut the deficit to 2-1. Nice pass from Dorwart to Howard to set up the initial shot. pic.twitter.com/Gft7cMe7JG
— Michigan State Hockey (@MSU_Hockey) December 8, 2024
So did Stramel assisting on Isaac Howard’s overtime winner later that night. Heck, just the fact he was put on the ice in overtime.
The junior has more points (11) in 14 games this season than he had in 35 last season for Wisconsin (eight), when he played mostly fourth-line right wing down the stretch.
“The big thing,” Stramel told The Athletic recently, “was getting my confidence back.”
The past couple of years have been tough for Stramel. The Rosemount, Minn., native was taken in the first round (21st) in the 2023 NHL draft by his hometown team. It was a dream come true. A feel-good story. But Stramel’s time at Wisconsin was underwhelming, sparking much concern among Wild fans. It didn’t help that there was a coaching change with the Badgers, as Tony Granato — who recruited Stramel — was replaced by Mike Hastings. Stramel said he tried to do too much, picked up some bad habits and was buried in the lineup.
This is where the college portal can be a good thing. Stramel was in desperate need of a change in scenery.
Reunited with his former U.S. National Team Development Program coach, Adam Nightingale, at Michigan State, Stramel has been playing some of his best hockey heading into a return to his hometown to face the Gophers at 3M Arena at Mariucci this weekend.
“We’re going to stick with this kid,” Wild director of player development Brad Bombardir said. “We’re starting to see glimpses. He’s starting to figure it out, and he knows that. He’s just scratching the surface.”
Stramel isn’t expected to be a major point producer in the NHL. He’s likely not going to be a No. 1 center. But there’s a lot of value in a middle-six center who can play a power forward’s game, be part of both special teams and win faceoffs. And that’s what Stramel can do.
It’s what Nightingale remembers.
He coached Stramel at the USNTDP from 2020 to ’22 and saw a tough, determined, coachable kid. He recalled when Stramel’s father, Dave, died in 2021. The day after the funeral, Nightingale and Stramel drove together to Dubuque, Iowa, because Stramel insisted on playing the next game.
“And he was the best guy on the ice,” Nightingale said. “I know I couldn’t have done that. That’s pretty amazing for me from a 16-year-old at the time.”
When Stramel decided to go into the transfer portal after last season, he said it was a “no-brainer” on both sides for him to go to Michigan State. Along with the bond with Nightingale, he reached out to Howard, his friend and former USNTDP teammate and a Tampa Bay Lightning first-rounder, who had a lot of positive things to say from his experience transferring to Michigan State from the University of Minnesota-Duluth.
Other schools were interested, Stramel said — the portal can be a flattering place, with schools trying to recruit you as they did before Stramel chose Wisconsin — but the Spartans were his only choice.
“I think having that trust (in Nightingale) is huge, knowing he’s got your back and you have his when it comes to stepping on the ice,” Stramel said. “And trust helps a lot with confidence from a player, too. You know if you go out there and make a mistake, (Nightingale) isn’t going to be too happy, but I’ll get out there next shift with a chance to make it right. That was a big thing for me is having trust with him, knowing he’ll give me an opportunity to prove myself here and he’s done that so far.”
And a pep talk, a pitch, by Nightingale early in the summer proved prescient.
“He said, ‘You’ve got to come into this season with a chip on your shoulder,’” Stramel said recently on the “Fellowship of the Rink” podcast. “That was a big thing he told me. ‘We want to prove people wrong.’”
“I told Charlie, ‘I should leave the rink saying you’re the best guy on the ice,’” Nightingale recalled. “There’s no reason he shouldn’t be that way, and playing like a power forward, he’s done that. The weekends, people see him playing, but we see him in practice every day and he’s playing to that identity of being a power forward.”
Charlie Stramel says it was a “no brainer” to transfer to Michigan State and that he’ll be playing with a “chip on my shoulder” this season pic.twitter.com/dO4P7LAMHq
— Michael Russo (@RussoHockey) July 9, 2024
Nightingale noticed a few things about Stramel at Wisconsin.
He would often lose his effectiveness in the second half of a shift, which could have been partly due to conditioning. But also if Stramel made a mistake, he’d find his way stuck on the bench. It messes with a player’s psyche. In the Badgers’ NCAA regional loss, Stramel played 14 shifts and barely saw the ice in the third period and overtime.
“Effort and attitude are non-negotiable, but we play a game of mistakes, and they’re going to happen, and we’re going to coach you through those,” Nightingale said. “We also tell our guys a repeated mistake is a decision, so you can’t keep making the same mistakes. But I think when you’re talking about player development and young players — I mean, Charlie just turned 20, right? — as long as the effort’s there and the attitude’s good and you’re working, we’ll coach you through mistakes.”
In other words, the only time one of Nightingale’s players misses a shift is if he sees an effort problem.
Badgers coach Mike Hastings had a rotation going, and Stramel was a lot of times the odd man out. Stramel knew by the end that Wisconsin wasn’t the right fit, so he put himself in the transfer portal.
But, Nightingale told Stramel, “Changing your jersey isn’t going to change us. You’ve got to be better.”
“And I think (Stramel) respected that,” Nightingale said. “He had a great, great summer. He got here in July and transformed his body.”
Stramel gave a lot of credit to Will Morlock, the Spartans’ strength and conditioning coach, who was also part of USNTDP previously. They did a six-week training program in the offseason, trimming Stramel’s body fat and putting on some muscle. “I’m in the best shape of my life,” he said.
The Wild have noticed.
“He has a better fitness level than he had last year,” Bombardir said. “He’s playing a little lighter, so it’s allowed him to be more effective in games. It’s allowed him to be more effective on the second half of his shifts, which just watching him at Wisconsin last year, he would die off in the second half of his shifts a little bit. You don’t see it as much anymore.
“Part of that has to do with confidence, too. He’s getting to play more minutes and playing in all situations, so that’s helped. I can’t say enough about Adam and the coaching staff there. Charlie has a lot of trust in him, and Adam has allowed Charlie to become a confident player again, and I think we’re starting to see it now.”
Stramel has put himself in a position to play to his strengths.
“The big thing for me is moving my feet,” Stramel said. “A lot of people have been on me about that — coaches and obviously the Wild — making sure I’m playing a power forward game. I think a lot of times at Wisconsin I got away from my identity. I was trying to do too much, not playing the way I need to be successful at this level. So it’s just getting back to the power forward basics: taking the puck to the net, being good on the forecheck, things that they’re very vocal about.”
These were the aspects of Stramel’s game Nightingale saw at the USNTDP but were only shown in spurts at Wisconsin. Playing this way, Stramel elevated himself into a top-six role, playing alongside Howard.
“What we saw when we had him at the national program is a big, powerful kid,” Nightingale said. “He’s as good a net-front player as I’ve been around. And that took some time. … You ask any kid on the national team where they played on the power play, and every kid raises his hand that he played on the half wall. And not everyone is going to be a half-wall guy. And don’t look down your nose at it.
“For me, this is who I always thought he was. Really good on the penalty kill, good on the forecheck, really good (as a) net-front guy, and he’s still trying to grow his game.”
🚨Fellowship of the Rink Ep43🚨
🎙️ @JoeSmithNHL
YouTube: https://t.co/nYaXmli1rk
Podcast: https://t.co/GczBQSYjnA📽️Charlie Stramel on being drafted by #mnwild
🎯Stramel’s self-eval
🎯Playing Gophers at Mariucci this weekend
🎯Nightingale’s impact
🎯Wisconsin & transfer portal pic.twitter.com/5G3lday9lL— Fellowship of the Rink (@FOTRshow) December 11, 2024
There’s a lot of pressure that comes with being a first-round pick, especially a local one. And it’s often difficult for a team and its fan base to be patient with a player’s development in those situations. (Just ask Marco Rossi, who was also deemed a “bust” by many.)
Stramel has had ups and downs, but he said he believes that adversity will help him going forward. He didn’t make excuses or blame someone else. He still speaks highly of the Wisconsin program, rooting for his former teammates to succeed.
“It would weigh on him a little bit, being local,” Bombardir said. “And I think he’d be the first one to say, ‘Hey, I could have had better seasons the last two years.’ And that’s what I actually respect about him, is when in our conversations, he would always say in the past like, ‘I’ve got to be better, I’ve got to improve, and I’ve got to gain my teammates and coaches’ trust.’ I was just always impressed with how he carried himself.”
His friends and former teammates — even those on the other side in this weekend’s Michigan State-Minnesota series — are taking notice of Stramel’s turnaround. The jump in play this season has been obvious.
“He plays more freely,” said Gophers forward Jimmy Clark, another Wild prospect and Edina, Minn., native. “He’s playing with guys he knows before. Same coach. He’s more comfortable. He’s loose. He can play his game. He didn’t have other things in the back of his head. Just a fresh start and he can play his game.”
“He’s just a great story,” said Gophers sophomore Oliver Moore, a teammate at the USNTDP. “I’m really happy for him.”
It’s an example of the portal working for a player. And a kid doing his best to silence the critics.
“(Nightingale) is one of my favorite coaches,” said former Gophers and USNDTP star Logan Cooley, now with Utah Hockey Club. “He knows the game very well. I can see how it’s helping (Stramel’s) game and turning him into the player he hopes to be, which is a top center in the league one day. And he keeps working toward that.”
(Top photo courtesy of Michigan State)
