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You’d think by now the rest of college hockey would’ve figured it out — if there’s a Plante in Hermantown, odds are he’s headed to Duluth, and odds are he’s going to make your top defense pair hate their lives for 60 minutes.
Doesn’t matter the birth order, doesn’t matter the draft slot, doesn’t matter the hype. They just keep showing up, like some kind of blue-and-gold migration pattern.
Now comes Victor, the youngest of the bunch, fresh off signing his papers and preparing to join the family business at Minnesota Duluth.
He’s the third Plante in line. In Hermantown, they call that a “warm-up skate.”
Look — nobody’s saying Victor is Max or Zam. He’s not the top-of-the-country scorer like Max is right now, and he’s not the shifty puck wizard Zam’s been since squirts. Victor’s got the lighter frame, the NTDP polish, and the responsible two-way game that makes coaches grin and NHL scouts say things like “projectability,” which is code for: “Could be sneaky good, or he could be a third-line coach’s favorite. We’ll see.”
But if you’ve watched hockey around here longer than five minutes, you know better than to doubt a Plante kid. They’re carved out of the same pine as the old Hermantown bleachers, raised in a rink where you learn backchecking before you learn your multiplication tables.
The intrigue — the thing people in the Twin Ports are tossing around like salt on an icy stairway — is whether Victor will get a chance to play with both brothers next season.
Zam? Safe. Sophomore, blossoming, entrenched.
Max? Ah, that’s where this gets delicious.
Max Plante, who right now is leading the entire nation in scoring — think about that for a second — is skating around like he’s got a cheat code installed. He’s the guy every Bulldog fan in the building watches even when the puck is in the other zone. The puck comes to him, and the entire arena shifts its weight forward like they can help him score one more.
And he might be gone next year.
The Detroit Red Wings own his draft rights. Steve Yzerman and company don’t exactly have a reputation for patience when a kid’s torching the college game like this. There are people in Ann Arbor who probably know Max’s Corsi before they know their own kids’ birthdays.
UMD fans are living in this weird emotional split: thrilled to watch Max play like a man possessed — or — terrified the performance is too good.
This town has seen the script. Bulldogs get a superstar. Superstar dominates. NHL realizes, “Oh right, we drafted this kid,” and off he goes before the linens from the postseason banquet are even washed.
And here’s the thing nobody really wants to say out loud in a college rink, because it feels a little rude, like mentioning the divorce rate at a wedding: Max Plante isn’t just playing for the Bulldogs right now. He’s playing for his next job.
If Detroit decides to tug the rope their way, the offer isn’t complicated. It’s a standard NHL entry-level deal — three years, slotted, boilerplate stuff — but it still represents a life-changer for a kid who was driving to Hermantown youth hockey practice not that long ago.
He’d get the signing bonus, somewhere around $90,000 a year for three years, the usual sweetener to get the pen on paper. Then there’s the rookie salary — league minimum around $1M, sure, but the NHL version of “minimum” still comes with commas the rest of us will never see.
Of course, that’s if he makes the club. More likely, Detroit parks him in Grand Rapids for a season of buses, Wednesday-night grinders, and coaches who say things like “we need you harder on the wall.”
That’s the AHL: the world’s greatest humility factory. And every year a dozen elite college scorers find themselves staring at a laptop on a bus to Milwaukee, wondering how they went from flying around NCHC barns to backchecking for ice time.
It’s a business decision, plain and simple. Detroit looks at charts and actuarial curves. UMD looks at chemistry and legacy. And Max sits in the middle, weighing a childhood dream against the irresistible pull of professional hockey, knowing full well both choices have their own gravity.
But imagine — just imagine — if he delays the contract, the bonus, the pro grind. Imagine he chooses Amsoil Arena for one more winter instead of Grand Rapids. Victor arrives. Zam continues his ascent. And all three Plantes share the same sheet of ice, wearing the same sweater, saluted by the same 6,700 who’ve been following this family saga since pee wees.
It would be pure Minnesota hockey folklore. The kind of thing old guys will still bring up two decades from now.
“We had all three Plantes at once,” they’ll say, slapping their driverless car like it needs confirmation.
If Max stays, the Bulldogs won’t just have depth next year. They won’t just have scoring, or fan buzz, or the best family storyline since the Brotens.
They’ll have a season no one in Duluth will ever shut up about.
And if he leaves?
Well… then the Bulldogs lose the nation’s best scorer, Detroit gets another shiny prospect, and Victor walks into a locker room missing one very large piece of the family puzzle.
Either way, the Plante pipeline rolls on. But only one choice gives us the chapter everyone around here is praying to read.
That’s the punchline: The Red Wings can offer Max Plante money. Only Minnesota Duluth can offer him a legend.
Howie, 71, is a veteran Duluth journalist and publisher of HowieHanson.com, which he has operated for 21 years. He is the region’s first and only full-time online columnist, covering local news, politics, business and sports with an independent, community-centered voice. Hanson has spent more than five decades reporting on issues that shape the Northland.
