{"id":482821,"date":"2026-03-03T14:20:17","date_gmt":"2026-03-03T14:20:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/482821\/"},"modified":"2026-03-03T14:20:17","modified_gmt":"2026-03-03T14:20:17","slug":"19-candidates-to-win-mvp-in-the-nepsac-boys-hockey-elite-8","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/482821\/","title":{"rendered":"19 candidates to win MVP in the NEPSAC boys hockey Elite 8"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

Tommy Saulnier led St. Sebastian’s into the Elite 8. (Brian Kelly\/NEHJ) <\/p>\n

In last year’s Elite 8 tournament, Cushing senior forward Max Dineen (Brentwood, N.H.) posted six points across three wins en route to a title. Most importantly, he scored twice in the championship, including the late game-winner.<\/p>\n

He was undoubtedly the MVP of the Elite 8. But he had company.<\/p>\n

Dexter Southfield junior forward Rian Chudzinski (Needham, Mass.) was dominant, too, scoring five goals across the three games. He also had two in the final.<\/p>\n

Both players were in last season’s story<\/a>. Who will live up to the hype this season?<\/p>\n

The bottom line is that when teams win the Elite 8, it’s usually because of their best players. That will likely be true again this season.<\/p>\n

While this is a relatively top-heavy field, there are candidates on lower-seeded teams primed to make the higher seeds uncomfortable.<\/p>\n

Let’s dive in.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tommy Saulnier led St. Sebastian’s into the Elite 8. (Brian Kelly\/NEHJ) In last year’s Elite 8 tournament, Cushing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":482822,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[377],"tags":[28392,29156,2060,25566,57709,5,44376,23877,2064,2065,11957,28393,19307],"class_list":{"0":"post-482821","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-hockey","8":"tag-avon-old-farms-hockey","9":"tag-belmont-hill-hockey","10":"tag-boys-prep-hockey","11":"tag-dexter-southfield-hockey","12":"tag-elite-8-tournament","13":"tag-hockey","14":"tag-hotchkiss-hockey","15":"tag-kimball-union-hockey","16":"tag-nepsac-hockey","17":"tag-new-england-prep-hockey","18":"tag-salisbury-hockey","19":"tag-st-marks-hockey","20":"tag-st-sebastians-hockey"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116165688535685359","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/482821","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=482821"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/482821\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/482822"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=482821"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=482821"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=482821"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}