The 2011 class outscored the 2010s by 27 points at the same National 15 camp. We've covered that three ways. So here's the question that actually matters for the top of this class: does it have a Jack Queally or a Sam Lee?

Those are the two Massachusetts 2010s who went on to the U.S. National Team Development Program. Not a USHL tender. Not a QMJHL selection. The NTDP.

The NTDP Is a Different Beast

Draft rights are rights. A USHL club or a QMJHL club holds them, the player keeps playing prep hockey, and the decision comes later. The National Team Development Program is not that.

Acceptance into the NTDP is a two-year agreement between the player and USA Hockey. Players relocate to Plymouth, Michigan, live with billet families, and play out their U17 and U18 seasons inside the program. There are no trades and no cuts. You don't hold it in reserve while you weigh options — you go, or you don't.

And the pool is the entire country. USA Hockey selects roughly 23 players per age group, nationally. The U17 team plays the bulk of a 62-game USHL schedule against players aged 17 to 20; the U18 team plays a shorter junior slate plus a run of NCAA Division I and III opponents, along with international events.

Every USHL and QMJHL club drafts players by the dozen across many rounds. This is 23 spots in the country. Queally and Lee didn't just finish at the top of Massachusetts — they cleared a national bar.

What Queally and Lee Actually Did

Here are the two seasons that mattered: the 2025 National 15 camp, and the 2025–26 Massachusetts prep season that followed.

PlayerSchoolNat 15 Camp '25Prep 25–26
Jack QueallySt. Sebastian's0G, 4A — 416G, 21A — 37
Sam LeeBelmont Hill0G, 3A — 315G, 16A — 31

The camp week was quiet. Neither scored a goal — four assists for Queally, three for Lee.

Then they went back to prep hockey and were dominant. Queally put up 37 points for St. Sebastian's on 16 goals and 21 assists. Lee put up 31 for Belmont Hill on 15 and 16. Both scored in double digits. Both were among the most productive players in Massachusetts prep hockey.

That's the sequence that produced two NTDP selections — and the prep season is the half of it that separated them.

Worth saying plainly: nothing here reflects how Queally or Lee have performed since joining the NTDP — those numbers aren't something we track. And prep point totals don't adjust for schedule, ice time, or role, nor do they capture skating, defensive detail, or hockey sense. Treat this as a benchmark, not a formula.

The Bar

What a 2011 has to produce in prep
37 points  ·  31 points
Queally's and Lee's 2025–26 prep seasons

That's the number to hold this class against. Not their camp lines — those are already in. The prep season — December through March — is the part that hasn't been played.

Who Could Fill Those Shoes

Eight 2011s came out of the 2026 camp with a case. Here's where each of them lands this fall.

2011 PlayerPosSchool (26–27)Nat 15 Camp '26
Robbie McCannFMount Saint Charles3G, 6A — 9
Christopher WelbyFSt. Sebastian's6G, 1A — 7
Jaxson KilimonisDMaster's Academy International4G, 3A — 7
Sam ArchibaldDMount Saint Charles2G, 4A — 6
Mason McGovernFWinchendon3G, 3A — 6
Maxwell PrudovskyFDexter Southfield2G, 4A — 6
Brayden CampanaleFSt. Sebastian's1G, 2A — 3
Deacon BrackettFMount Saint Charles2G, 1A — 3

Robbie McCann led the entire MA camp group at 9 points with six assists, and he's at Mount Saint Charles. Of this group he's the closest thing to a Queally — a distributor who drives a line.

Christopher Welby has the most direct line to this comparison of anyone in the class — he was already there. Welby played last season at St. Sebastian's on the same roster as Queally, appearing in 27 games and putting up 3 goals and 5 assists as a 2011 in a supporting role. He watched a 37-point season happen from the next stall over.

Now Queally is gone to Plymouth, and Welby returns to Sebs coming off a six-goal camp — more goals than any Massachusetts skater at either camp. The role is open. Same program, same league, same schedule length, one year later. It's the only true apples-to-apples measuring stick anyone in this class has.

On the blue line, Jaxson Kilimonis (7 points) and Sam Archibald (6) both outproduced anything the 2010 defense group managed at camp. But note what the NTDP took from the 2010s: two forwards, no defensemen. Whatever the path looks like for those two, Queally and Lee aren't the comparison.

Two South Shore kids round out the group, and neither should be filed under long shot. Brayden Campanale, out of Norwell, was already at St. Sebastian's last season, where he lit up the middle school team. He steps up to compete for a varsity spot this fall — in the same room Queally just vacated. Deacon Brackett, from Hingham, is at Mount Saint Charles. Both put up three points at camp, and both are one strong prep season from being squarely in this conversation.

One caution on all of it: these eight are scattered across NEPSAC prep programs, national club teams, and academies with wildly different schedule lengths. Raw point totals won't compare cleanly across them. The Queally and Lee benchmark was set in NEPSAC over a prep season, and that's the context it should be judged in.

If I Were a Betting Man

Everything above is data. This part isn't — it's my read, and you should weigh it as exactly that.

If I had to name the 2011s with a real shot at that call, I'd put three on the list: Sam Archibald, Jaxson Kilimonis and Robbie McCann. McCann because he drove the camp and produces at a level nobody else in the class matched. Kilimonis because four goals from the blue line in a week is not a fluke of usage — that's a defenseman who joins the rush and finishes.

And if you made me pick one — one name, no hedging — I'd take Archibald.

That's not a numbers call. Six camp points is a strong week for a defenseman, but it isn't what puts him at the top of my list. I've watched this kid play for years. There's a poise to how he handles the puck under pressure, a way of slowing a shift down and speeding it up again, that you don't teach and don't often see at fifteen. He skates like the game is easier than it is. When I watch him, the player I keep thinking of is Jack Eichel — not the position, obviously, but the carriage. The sense that the puck is on a string and everybody else is reacting.

That's a heavy comp to hang on a fifteen-year-old, and I know it. Eichel was a North Chelmsford kid who went through the Junior Bruins, left for the National Team Development Program, and came back to Boston University before going second overall. That's the exact path we're talking about here — Massachusetts to Plymouth — which is part of why the comparison sits in my head the way it does.

I'm not saying Archibald is Jack Eichel. I'm saying that when I watch him, that's the shelf my brain reaches for. Ask me again in March and I'll have four months of prep numbers to argue with myself about.

And don't sleep on the South Shore pair. Campanale and Brackett are closer to that top group than three camp points suggests.

The Honest Answer

By camp production, this class has more high-end performers than the one ahead of it — that much is settled. But Queally and Lee weren't selected off a camp week. They were selected after scoring 37 and 31 in prep hockey.

None of the 2011s have played that season yet. Ask again in March.

Queally scored 37. Lee scored 31. Both went to the NTDP — a two-year agreement with USA Hockey, roughly 23 spots per age group in the entire country. Those are a lot of shoes to fill.
Track every 2011 all season → stateofhockey.us/season-stats-2627-2011
Coming next — The Tender Question: Cotter vs. Kilimonis and Archibald, Wilichoski vs. Welby and McCann.