By: Neil Simmons | Follow me on Twitter / X: @NSimmz
The college hockey offseason hits some teams harder than others. Whether they’re recruiting the old-fashioned way, hitting the transfer portal, or counting on internal development, every program in the country has to replace one thing or another before the puck drops on the next season.
This summer, after three straight seasons of Hockey East and national contention, and a few trophies, the bill came due for Boston College. The Eagles will start the 2026-27 season without three top-six forwards, four defensemen, and all three co-captains who skated in their season-ending overtime loss to UConn in the Hockey East semifinal. While BC will feel the departures of James Hagens and co-captain Andre Gasseau up front, the Eagles, as they always do, have reloaded well enough to soften the blow. Their losses on defense, however, will be felt right away.
Last season, BC heavily relied upon their veteran trio of Drew Fortescue, Aram Minnetian, and Lukas Gustafsson to eat heavy minutes on the blueline, with each of the three skating over 21 minutes per game and the closest fourth defenseman coming six minutes behind. While Gustafsson’s departure as a senior co-captain was inevitable, both Fortescue and Minnetian signed NHL contracts with a year of college eligibility remaining. Throw in some other departures via the transfer portal, and the Eagles were left with just two rostered defensemen who averaged 10 minutes a night: Luka Radivojevic and Bruins draft pick Kristian Kostadinski.
Kostadinski, drafted by Boston in the seventh round of the 2023 draft, had a slow start to life on Chestnut Hill but came up to speed quickly. The Big Swede was healthy scratched for the Eagles’ season-opening loss to Quinnipiac and struggled to get consistent ice time early on, but worked his way up the lineup through steady, disciplined defense and was the Eagles’ penciled-in second-pair left defenseman for all but one game after Thanksgiving.
Despite his freshman-year progression, Kostadinski won’t be a guarantee for more ice time right away this fall. BC has brought in four defensemen to rebuild the blueline, pulling Teddy Mallgrave out of the portal from St Lawrence, recruiting Matthew Grimes from Sioux Falls in the USHL, and tapping into the OHL pipeline for Carson Woodall and Quinn Beauchesne.
Like Kostadinski, both Woodall and Grimes are left-shot defensemen, but unlike Kostadinski, the incoming duo both add offense from the blueline. Grimes recorded 35 points in Sioux Falls last season, and Woodall finished second in scoring amongst OHL defensemen with 63 points in 68 games with the Windsor Spitfires.
Kostadinski’s greatest advantage will be his stature, both literally and figuratively. College Hockey News lists Kostadinski at 6’6”, 235lbs, three inches taller and 30lbs heavier than the next closest BC defenseman, and numbers only rivaled by fellow Bruins draft pick Dean Letourneau. His size and physical shutdown style of defense could complement a more offensively inclined partner like Radivojevic or Beauchesne.
While the incoming recruits help address the on-ice side of BC’s roster attrition, the Eagles have another vacancy to fill in the locker room. The graduations of Gasseau, Gustafsson, and Brady Berard wiped out the entirety of BC’s leadership group, as the trio shared co-captain duties last season. With just seven upperclassmen skaters on the roster, the Eagles will be icing a very young team this fall, particularly on the blueline.
That collective inexperience could open the door for a voice like Kostadinski to step up. Despite being a rising sophomore, his 2005 birth year makes him one of the team’s oldest players. Between his draft year and joining the Eagles, Kostadinski served as captain of Frolunda HC’s U20 team in Sweden, then was named an alternate captain with Dubuque of the USHL in his first season in North America. Earning a letter with BC this season shouldn’t be entirely out of the question. As Dubuque GM Trevor Edwards once said about Kostadinski, “He sets the tone for everyone around him”.
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