Calls From Home: Plante plays big role as Fargo wins USHL crown (2024)

Zam Plante will arrive on campus this fall for Minnesota Duluth having reached the pinnacle of the United States Hockey League after his Fargo Force team won the league’s Clark Cup playoff championship on May 18.

Fargo won the best-of-five championship series in four games against the Dubuque Fighting Saints, and though Plante had three assists and no goals in the championship series, he recorded a point in nine of his team’s 12 postseason games. Plante finished the postseason third in the league in scoring with three goals and six assists.

Marissa Weltin / Fargo Force

This was the third season Plante had seen action in the USHL postseason and second with the Force. The Hermantown native racked up 26 goals and 45 assists in 57 games for the Force in 2023-24, including 11 power-play goals. Adding his postseason tally, Plante scored 51 times in 160 USHL games. Plante finished the 2023-24 regular season in the top 10 in points (eighth), assists (fourth) and power-play goals (tied for seventh).

All this came with just eight penalty minutes in his entire USHL career.

Marissa Weltin / Fargo Force

Plante’s last goal of the season came in game three of a best-of-five Western Conference final series against Sioux City in which the Force needed back-to-back shutouts to take the series from the Musketeers in the maximum five games.

On the other blue line for Sioux City was a familiar face, former Hermantown defenseman Ty Hanson, another UMD commit.

Hanson, a defenseman, had two goals and three assists in eight playoff games for Sioux City after posting 10 goals and 37 helpers from the back end in the regular season. That total was the second-best points haul for a defenseman in the league.

Another Hermantown product and UMD commit, Max Plante, was fifth on the USA Hockey National Team Development Program Under-18 team in USHL scoring, recording six goals and 23 assists in 25 games.

Joey DelGreco (Grand Rapids) had a strong season with the USHL’s Chicago Steel, where he had 21 goals and 20 assists in 60 games. The forward is committed to Augustana, a roster that already includes nearby products Ben Troumbly (Greenway) and Hunter Bischoff (Grand Rapids).

Another Thunderhawk with plans to join the Vikings, Garett Drotts, had a busy season, moving from Fargo to Cedar Rapids early in the 2023-24 campaign and then finishing the season with Des Moines. His best production came with the Buccaneers, as he scored six times and added an assist in a 27-game stint in Des Moines.

In the North American Hockey League, two products of well-known Duluth programs helped push the Anchorage Warriors to within sight of the league’s Robertson Cup championship.

After eliminating the Minnesota Wilderness in four games of a best-of-five Midwest Division semifinal series, the Wolverines swept the Wisconsin Windigo for a berth in the four-team tournament alongside the Lone Star Brahmas, Maryland Black Bears and Minot Minotauros at Fogerty Arena in Blaine, Minnesota.

Anchorage was swept 8-2 and 2-0 in the best-of-three semifinals by Lone Star on May 17 and 18, which went on to win the trophy.

However, Cole Christian (Duluth East) was Anchorage’s leading goalscorer for the playoffs, lighting the lamp five times: three in the four-game series against the Wilderness and two more in the three-game sweep of the Windigo. Christian, an Air Force Academy commit, had 20 goals and 30 assists in the regular season in 57 games.

Kade Shea (Duluth Denfeld) had two goals and three assists in the postseason, including one of Anchorage’s two tallies in the Robertson Cup semifinal. That came on the heels of a strong regular season, his second with the Wolverines, in which he had 17 goals and 26 assists in 43 games.

In the regular season, the Duluth duo were fourth and fifth on their team in points.

Kaden Nelson (Grand Rapids) had three postseason assists for the Oklahoma Warriors in 2024 after the Warriors won the 2023 tournament.

Those assists helped Nelson get over the 50-point mark for the year after he had 23 goals and 26 assists in 59 regular-season games.

Hayden DeMars (Grand Rapids) was third on the Odessa Jackalopes in scoring, posting 18 goals and 13 assists in 58 games, finishing the season strong with goals in each of his last two games.

Brandon has been sports editor of the News Tribune since August 2021.