Ethan Wyttenbach is setting the hockey world ablaze.
The Long Island native is the NCAA points leader during his freshman season for No. 5 Quinnipiac — a school he committed to at age 15 — and the winger knows his success is a long time coming.
“I had the confidence that I’m going to come in and be a guy that can be leaned on at different times,” Wyttenbach, a 19-year-old with 21 goals and 30 assists, told The Post.
“I didn’t play the game to be mediocre,” said Wyttenbach, picked by the Flames in the fifth round last summer.
Roslyn’s finest played for many reasons, like his love of hockey since he put on skates as a toddler, and growing up with his best buddies on the Long Island Gulls and later at Portledge School in Locust Valley.
But his biggest game-changer was living in a house that took hockey to a whole new level.
Wyttenbach’s grandfather, Heinz, played professionally in Switzerland before moving to the States, sparking Ethan’s dad, Andrew, and his two brothers’ love of the game, which carried over into their college days playing for Cornell in the 1990s.
They were also neighbors with Islanders legend Butch Goring, who described his “very good friend” Heinz as “a big Islander fan and a big hockey nut.”
Goring has even brought the Stanley Cup to family gatherings.
“When I heard Ethan might get drafted,” Goring said, “I certainly paid attention to him, checked him up and Googled him and all that, wanted to see what he was all about.”
Goring, who always gets a hello from Wyttenbach at UBS Arena, is thrilled to see his early success and feels he’s one of many recent players who have “changed everybody’s opinion about hockey on the island.”
Wyttenbach fits right in among the star-caliber players like the Bruins’ Charlie McAvoy, the Rangers’ Adam Fox, the Senators’ Shane Pinto, Bruins prospect James Hagens and prospective Flames teammate Matthew Coronato, who’ve come from his neck of the woods, or rather, beach.
“As I was growing up, it started getting bigger,” said Wyttenbach, who played in the USHL with the Sioux Falls Stampede and finished high school online last year.
“Just a ton of guys like that, where it’s kind of bringing hockey back to Long Island in a sense. … I couldn’t be more happy that I’m kind of [in] the next wave of players.”
A really good skate
Ethan’s dad knows all too well the challenge of breaking in with the best from his own collegiate days, when he was “seeing 20 Canadian boys from the farm and trying to compete with that.”
So, Andrew gave his son, whom he coached for years, an unthinkable power play in 2016.
“He used to work in the city — a really good marketing job. Then he decided to own an ice rink for me, so that I could skate whenever I want,” Ethan said.
His dad, in partnership with two other hockey families, didn’t just invest in a $1.5 million ice center — he had it built from scratch to connect with the Long Island Sports Hub indoor turf facility in Syosset.
“I was maybe 10 or 11 years old, and it was just a playground for me and my siblings and all my teammates,” recalled Ethan, who just netted his first hat trick with Quinnipiac. “There’s times I go skate at 2 a.m. if I’m bored.”
Andrew also takes it upon himself to maintain the ice — which is about 75 percent the size of a full rink — and will hop on the Zamboni if needed when other teams play.
(Despite his desire, Ethan has been Zamboni-ineligible most of his life for not having a driver’s license).
Many of the Long Island-bred talents Ethan aspires to, like Fox, Pinto, Coronato, and others like Massapequa’s Sonny Milano and the Islanders’ Marc Gatcomb, have all skated and trained at his dad’s rink.
“There’s no better education than that, and Ethan has had a front row seat to that for so many years,” Andrew said.
“Now it’s pretty interesting to see the new generation of kids will look at Ethan in that.”
Bidding farewell to the Manhattan high-rise life, well before the NHL draft was a certainty for Ethan, was a no-brainer for Andrew.
He knew it was worth every penny once his little boy skated with a cheek-to-cheek smile on his birthday for the first time.
“Did my wife and I ever imagine that Ethan’s love of the game would result in this path? Of course not,” Andrew said.
“In hindsight, that was the start of really taking his love to another level … and it didn’t matter if it was the oldest, dankest, smelliest rink, or an NHL rink that he’s watching a professional game in.”
And Ethan, who said he loves coaching younger kids in clinics, wouldn’t miss a beat.
“Every day after school, he would go and skate,” said friend and former former Gulls teammate Jordan Sirota.
“Kids would make fun of him for it, and be like, ‘Oh, you’re getting all this ice.’ But I thought, really, if you’re going to skate every day, that’s how you know you’re committed.”
From bird to Bobcat
The 24/7 access turned Ethan into a leader on the Gulls, as he was a captain in the team’s 2024 national title run.
“He’s a hard-working guy. … He takes his game very seriously, and that’s something he’s always done,” Sirota said.
“He loves to hold people accountable. So it may not come off like the best way, but he’ll always try to make you a better person, better player.”
Sirota added that whether Ethan was playing or watching his beloved Islanders, “he always picked up something new that he could add to his game.”
“I feel like the translation, obviously, is there. He’s leading the NCAA in points.”
Ethan recognizes that he stood on the shoulders of giants — a close-knit Gulls core that had been playing together for close to a decade.
“Pretty much three-fourths of my team were committed to Division I, so we had an unbelievable group of players and a ton of people that I’ll definitely have relationships with for a while,” he said.
“They definitely contributed to where I am right now.”
But it was Wyttenbach who soared as he led the Gulls in a semifinal game against a Detroit team, which Sirota said had “waxed” them twice before.
With his team trailing 1-0 in the third, Ethan’s shot from the point tied the game, and he got the overtime tip that sent the Gulls into the final, which they won 2-0 over the LA Junior Kings.
“The clock wound down with five seconds left, and he started crying,” Sirota said.
“It was amazing to watch; he really wanted it. It was like unbelievable. … He had a very big contribution in that.”
The magic moments only continued as the Wyttenbach clan gathered in front of their TV on draft night, nervously awaiting what would happen.
What none of them saw coming was a lag in their TV stream and Ethan finding out he had been drafted through a barrage of messages from friends who were ahead in the broadcast.
“Late to the party, if you will,” Andrew joked. “And on top of this, they went to commercial break.”
Regardless of how it happened, dad, grandpa Heinz, mom Jessica, and younger siblings Sloane and Ryan are just happy that it did.
“I think it meant more to them, to be honest with you. I don’t say that in a bad way. I think just [about] the sacrifices they made for me.”
Ryan, who recovered from open-heart surgery a few years ago, is especially enthralled by his big bro’s success — which has come a long way from when they were watching Islanders games on the family couch.
“He’s my role model, and every day I look forward to trying to be like him,” Ryan said. “He’s like the big brother anyone could wish for.”
Ethan’s feelings toward his loved ones are mutual.
“Now the goal is just them being at my first NHL game,” he said, “and be at my 100th NHL game and just continuing on to keep showing them how grateful I am for what they did.”
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: nypost.com
