It was only a couple months ago that Moorhead boys hockey coach Jon Ammerman began envisioning a 2025-26 team without his top players. But when practice kicked off this week, Ammerman didn’t have to entirely rebuild a state title-defending Spuds squad.

Zac Zimmerman’s return to Moorhead ice for Monday practice marked the final of three players who decided to play one in last high school hockey hurrah.

The Spud’s most prolific returning scorers, Zimmerman and Tyden Bergeson, were all set to play for the United States Hockey League (USHL) and leading defenseman Brandon Mickelson packed up to play for Wenatchee in the Western Hockey League (WHL), which is under the Canadian Hockey League umbrella.

Instead, all three chose to suit up in orange and black this season.

The chance that Bergeson, who played for the Madison Capitols last spring and skated with his Moorhead teammates all summer, would return was “50-50,” Ammerman said.

“The other two weren’t even on our radar,” Ammerman said. “I would have said maybe a five percent [chance] at best.”

The current high school hockey market, uncertain in the wake of players becoming eligible in the CHL without threatening their NCAA chances, only created more unknowns.

Mickelson announced his return a week and a half before the first day of tryouts. Zimmerman, whose 32 goals and 46 assists last season helped bolster the Spuds onto state championship glory for the first time, chose to give up his Fargo Force roster spot just days before the first practice.

Ammerman’s pitch was a simple one: fulfill your dreams. He recognized that for most players, elite hockey is part of the high school dream. But playing for a hometown team offers certain things that the hockey coach and social studies teacher said you can’t quantify, like family ties to the community.

The rest of the team sold the three players on returning for a second shot at securing the Eveleth trophy.

“I think there was a little internal recruitment from the kids, too,” Ammerman said.

Joey Cullen, Minnesota’s 2025 Bantam Player of the Year and son of former NHL player Matt Cullen, will follow in the footsteps of Brooks and play for Moorhead this season. His decision to play on high school ice was a selling point for the other returning players.

Joey, a forward, is the top-ranked 2010 U.S.-born skater in the PuckPreps.com ratings. He spent the past two seasons with Moorhead’s Bantam AA Under-14 team, producing 37 goals and 32 assists in 60 games in 2023-24 and 67 goals and 84 assists in 51 games — 2.96 points per game — this past season.

The now-extended roster has changed Moorhead’s combination possibilities as the team goes back to the whiteboard, but it has also meant tough conversations.

“We have the good fortune right now of a lot of kids that want to be hockey players, and they’ve worked really hard,” Ammerman said. “Obviously, four additional players changes things.”

The team won’t look exactly the same as last year after losing its star senior Mason Kraft, who scored four goals in the first period against Stillwater to bring Moorhead its first state hockey trophy in school history.

But the returning players are anticipated to strengthen Moorhead’s chances come March. Bergeson scored 25 goals and Mickelson racked up 36 assists over the 2024-25 season.

“There are certain years where we expect to go to the state tournament and then there are other years where we expect to be competitive at the state tournament,” Ammerman said, calling in from Moorhead High School just hours before the team’s first practice. “Going into the year, we would have expected to have a chance to go to the state tournament. Now, I think expectations have risen again.”