Lumberjacks acquire Wyatt Bongiovanni, two others in USHL Draft Day swap with Tri-City

By @MichaelCaples –

Birmingham native Wyatt Bongiovanni is going to be playing a little closer to home next season.

The Muskegon Lumberjacks announced just two hours before the start of the USHL Draft that they have sacrificed one of their top picks to acquire Bongiovanni and two other players from the Tri-City Storm.

Muskegon is sending their first-round pick in Tuesday’s USHL Phase II Draft to Tri-City in exchange for Bongiovanni, Monte Graham and Jonathan Bendorft.

Bongiovanni was the No. 3 overall pick in the 2015 Phase I Draft (the 2017 edition of that takes place tonight for the top 2001 birth-year players), and he has played in two seasons with the Storm. This past season, Bongiovanni – still uncommitted to any college – recorded 12 goals and 30 total points.

At just 17 years of age, he’s already played in 116 total USHL games.

In Graham, the Lumberjacks pick up a power forward who posted 24 points and 57 penalty minutes last year. Bendorf failed to find the back of the net in the 2016-17 season for the Storm, but he has shown promise in the past; he was named the USPHL 16U forward of the year in 2014-15.