Quinnipiac commit Keith Petruzzelli ranked top North American goaltender by central scouting

Quinnipiac hockey commit and current Muskegon Lumberjacks goaltender Keith Petruzzelli is ranked as the number one North American goaltender for the NHL's mid term central scouting list. The Wilbraham, Massachusetts native becomes the first ever Bobcat commit to top a central scouting list of any kind. Petruzzelli is coming off a dominant performance a week ago at the USHL/NHL top prospects game when he had 21 saves in just over 27 minutes of game action in relief of starter Maksim Zhukov.

Keith Petruzzelli (photo by Muskegon Lumberjacks)

Here is what central scouting had to say about Petruzzelli. The rest of the rankings are in this link.

"[Petruzzelli] uses his size effectively, is very calm and relaxed," Al Jensen of NHL Central Scouting said. "He has shown steady improvement and has turned into an excellent NHL goalie prospect. His style resembles Pittsburgh Penguins goalie Matt Murray."

Its a testament to all the hard work he has put in the past couple of seasons starting when he played for Springfield Cathedral and the Boston Jr. Bruins before moving on for a season of development at the South Kent School prior to arriving as a rookie this season with Muskegon. Prior to the release of these mid term rankings, Petruzzelli was rated as a B prospect with central scouting which is a second to third round grade. Its possible with him topping the North American rankings he has moved up even further cementing him as someone who should go in the second round with maybe even a chance of getting into the first round of the 2017 NHL draft.

Petruzzelli, who committed to Quinnipiac (with his brother D.J.) back in December of 2013 when he was a freshman at Springfield Cathedral High School is 11-7 with a 2.71 goals against average and a .908 save percentage with one shutout in 20 games played for Muskegon. He is likely to arrive in Hamden for the fall of 2017.

Jonathan Singer is a 2004 Quinnipiac alum. You can follow him on Twitter @jonathan_singer.