Will Prowse stepped into the office of Lincoln Stars head coach Rocky Russo and took a seat, smirking at the coach’s first question.
“So, do you always play that good?”
This was moments after Prowse’s outstanding performance at the Stars’ development camp last summer, which put the goaltender in position to make the team’s training camp and, potentially, the final roster.
Still, Prowse paused. For most of the last season, he hadn’t played at all.
“Yeah, I mean, I’d like to say I play that well,” he replied, treading carefully. “I only played two games last year, so I hope I play that well all the time.” A backup last season at prep powerhouse Holderness, Prowse barely saw the ice. He never imagined he’d be playing junior hockey a year later — let alone in the USHL.
But here was Russo, offering Prowse a spot at Lincoln’s training camp. A few weeks later, Prowse was back in Russo’s office, learning he’d made the official roster.
He’s taken advantage of the opportunity. Prowse made 24 starts for the Stars through early April, posting a 2.77 goals-against average and .893 save percentage. He also committed to play Division 1 hockey at Princeton.
For a kid who played just 120 minutes of prep hockey last season, it’s all been a whirlwind.
Even as a 14-year-old back home in Vail, Colorado, though, Prowse learned to work his way through the ranks as an unknown quantity. He played his 14-U hockey for AA Arvada’s second team, making the Rocky Mountain Roughriders 15-U AAA squad the following season after impressing the unsuspecting coaching staff at tryouts.
“We noticed him in tryouts and just really liked his style,” said Roughriders 16-U coach Steve Quailer, who played at Northeastern from 2008-12 and spent four seasons in the AHL and ECHL.
Prowse posted a .906 save percentage his 15-U season, upping it to a .908 in his 16-U year with Rocky Mountain, which was the year Quailer began to believe that Prowse would “take it far.”
His competitiveness ratcheted up a level. His preparation improved and his focus sharpened.
Quailer was excited when he realized that he began to have a hard time scoring on Prowse in practice.
“That’s not typical of me with 16-year-olds,” Quailer said. “So that’s when I knew he was going to go somewhere with it.”
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From there, Prowse made the cross-country leap to Holderness, one of the top prep programs in New England, alongside his brother Henry, a defenseman. Will had a sense that he’d be playing behind Ryan Nolan, a returning upperclassman who was one of the best goalies in NEPSAC.
As the season got going, that suspicion was confirmed. Prowse almost never got the nod in net — the Bulls were in contention for a NEPSAC title and had no room to offer extra reps for their backup netminder.
“The first few months were a little tricky when I wasn’t playing,” Prowse said. “But then I realized we had a shot to go far, and so that’s why we were playing Nolan a lot. I kind of just took the backup spot.”
Without the benefit of game reps, Prowse keyed in on his training with Holderness goalie coach Robert “Cap” Raeder.
“In today’s sports market, you don’t see a lot of kids that take on a role instead of being high impact right away, and actually want to stick with it and not leave and play elsewhere,” said Holderness coach Alan Thompson. “He was a great teammate last year, even though he probably deserved to play more games.” After the season, Prowse’s advisor arranged for him to attend some USHL and NAHL development camps, with the plan for Prowse to re-class and return to Holderness for at least another season — this time, presumably, as the starter.
Prowse got the invite to Lincoln’s camp and made his first trip to Nebraska. His primary goal was to make it from the development camp into the main camp. Making the Stars’ training camp — let alone making the team itself — wasn’t even a thought.
“It was just kind of like, ‘Go have fun,’ ” Prowse said. “‘Do your best. Just see what happens.’”
Prowse breezed through the camp, earning a spot at the “main” camp, where participants competed for spots on the Stars’ training camp roster. Once he hit the ice, Prowse was unflappable.
He conceded just one goal throughout the main camp, earning a spot at the camp’s All-Star game. Afterward, he got called into Russo’s office and learned he’d made training camp.
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“Throughout the whole weekend, it just kept getting bigger and bigger,” Prowse said. “It was crazy.”
It all culminated in an offer to join Lincoln’s roster, which took place in Russo’s office again. There was no big reveal — Russo noted some areas that Prowse should be working on going into the season and told the goalie to get ready to hit the ground running.
He walked out of the office and back to the team lounge, where Caeden Herrington (Manchester, Vt.) — a Stars defenseman who played with Prowse at Holderness — eagerly awaited.
“He came out of the office and he kind of gave me that look. I gave him a look, and he smiled,” Herrington recalled. “I was so happy for him. He worked so hard.”
Now roommates in Lincoln, Herrington and Prowse have considered what they would’ve thought if someone told them how things would turn out a year ago. “If you told me that I’d be here, I’d say you’re crazy,” Prowse said.
Those who have coached and played with Prowse describe him as “personable," “friendly," and “a jokester.” He’s also a “great teammate,” according to many.
Russo recalled when Lincoln forward Daniel Shlaine scored his first career goal early in the season. Shlaine, an ’05, is a future NHL draftee committed to Minnesota-Duluth. Everyone on the team knew he would be scoring a lot of goals. But when Shlaine found the net for the first time, Prowse erupted in excitement from the crease. The elation was palpable.
“(Shlaine) is a high first-round USHL pick. You expect him to score,” Russo said. “Guys were happy for him, but it’s different when you see the genuine positive emotion from Will.”
Moments like that have endeared Prowse to the rest of the team, according to Russo. And in the crease, Prowse has continued to develop his game.
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Prowse describes himself as an aggressive goalie who relies on his skating ability to make quick reads. Others — like Raeder and Russo — noted that Prowse is a particularly athletic goalie, especially for his size (6-foot-1, 168 pounds).
At Holderness, Raeder put an emphasis on developing Prowse’s footwork in the crease, and that has become another strength with time. Thompson noted that Prowse’s glove side had been a weak spot initially, but that he “clearly has gotten better at that.”
Those attributes stood out to Princeton, which made an offer to Prowse in January after the goalie toured the school in December. He committed right away, jumping at the chance to play for a Division 1 team with such strong academics.
For now, though, he’s focused on the remainder of the season in Lincoln, with the Stars sitting atop the Western Conference standings primed for a run at the Clark Cup. Russo and the Stars are happy they have him.
“Although he didn’t get as many opportunities the year before, we felt he was capable of much bigger things,” Russo said. “And he’s making all of us look pretty smart right now.”
