Adding players midseason, once a rarity, is becoming the norm in college hockey. That shift is evident this season in Hockey East, where two midseason arrivals are already making a noticeable impact.
Boston College added Finnish 17-year-old Oscar Hemming, who most recently played in the BCHL and is projected to be a first-round pick in the 2026 NHL Draft. Down the street at Boston University, Tynan Lawrence, also an NHL prospect, joined the Terriers from the USHL’s Muskegon Lumberjacks.
In 13 games with Muskegon, Lawrence had 10 goals and seven assists for 17 points. After making his college debut in a 1-0 BU win Jan. 9 at UMass, Lawrence has played seven games and has one goal, which came in a 4-3 loss at Providence on Jan. 23.
BU coach Jay Pandolfo said Lawrence’s transition from playing junior hockey to joining BU during the semester break came during a “whirlwind” of a week, but that the freshman handled it well.
“I think he’s just going to get better once he starts feeling comfortable,” Pandolfo said. “He’s fit in famously, understanding how we play the game and what we expect. I’m really happy where he’s at.”
Lawrence had committed to BU before this season and was expected to join the team for the 2026-27 season. That was also the case with BU goalie Mikhail Yegorov, who joined the Terriers in late January 2025. Yegorov started the remainder of BU’s games that season (18) and in 25 starts so far this season, he sports a 12-10-1 record with a pair of shutouts, a 2.84 goals-against average and .902 save percentage. Before BU, Yegorov played 62 games from 2023-25 for the Omaha Lancers of the USHL.
“If we think adding a player will help us improve (and) it works for the group, we’ll do that,” Pandolfo said. “We did it last year with ‘Big Mike’ and this year we felt with Tynan, he was ready to play at this level. (We) felt he could really help our depth.”
Hemming was a welcome addition to the BC roster with senior forwards Andre Gasseau and Oskar Jellvik fighting injuries. Gasseau returned to the lineup mid-January but Jellvik has not played since a 2-1 win at Vermont on Nov. 7.
Unlike Lawrence, Hemming had not seen game action during the fall. He played for Finland at the Hlinka Gretzky Cup in August, scoring four goals with two assists in five games, but was blocked from playing in the OHL by his Finnish club, which disputed his transfer. NCAA teams are exempt from IIHF transfer agreements.
Hemming made his BC debut in a 5-3 loss to Western Michigan on Dec. 28 at a holiday tournament in Milwaukee. BC coach Greg Brown — who was on the U.S. coaching staff at the IIHF World Juniors at the time — got his first live look at Hemming during the Eagles’ 4-3 overtime home loss to Providence on Jan. 16.
“When you’re short bodies and you have a chance to add a player as talented as Oscar — and he was in a weird situation himself, kind of in no-man’s land — it was a good fit for both sides,” Brown said. “For a young kid like that to be able to step into a game and be impactful was really impressive. It’s a pretty fast-paced game for a guy who hasn’t had a game since August (before Dec. 28).”
Another significant Hockey East midseason player addition took place at Providence, where the Friars signed goalie Michael Simpson in the wake of an injury to regular starter Philip Svedebäck. Simpson, however, has yet to play but is expected to be with the team through next season.
A rule change that took effect just before the start of the current season removed a longstanding ban that automatically made players ineligible if they played in leagues the NCAA had considered professional. Athletes who had previously played in the Canadian Hockey League (CHL) — the major junior system consisting of the Ontario Hockey League (OHL), Western Hockey League (WHL) and Quebec Major Junior Hockey League (QMJHL) — are now eligible to play NCAA Division I hockey.
Activating a player midseason requires clearing hurdles — student visas, school admission, and, in the case of BU’s Lawrence, the complications of taking a player from his junior team — that can stand in the way of a smooth transition from juniors to college hockey.
“You don’t want to take a guy away from a team,” Pandolfo said. “That’s the hardest thing. You feel bad about him leaving Muskegon. They’ve done a great job with him and we have a really good relationship with them. That’s probably the hardest part — you’re taking away their best player. That’s never fun.”