Miami Hockey lands former Phantoms captain Cal Huston for 2026-27

Miami did not sign a long-range project with Cal Huston. It added a 6-foot-1, 190-pound defenseman who has already played 115 games for the Youngstown Phantoms, wore a letter in a championship room and produced in both seasons he spent in the USHL.

The RedHawks will get the Youngstown, Ohio native for 2026-27, with Huston listed on Miami’s roster wearing No. 17. That matters because his junior résumé looks finished, not partial: he put up 17 points, including two goals and 15 assists, in 2025-26 while serving as an assistant captain on Youngstown’s Anderson Cup-winning team. The year before, he had nine points, including one goal and eight assists, and finished with a strong plus-minus rating. For a college blue line, that is the profile of a player who already knows how to handle real minutes against older competition.

Huston’s path also runs deeper than one strong USHL season. Before Youngstown, he logged 50 regular-season games with the Maryland Black Bears in the NAHL, where he piled up 21 assists and added playoff experience. Across junior hockey, one statistical database credits him with 165 games, 44 assists and three goals. That kind of workload is why Miami’s move reads less like a commitment announcement and more like a roster bet on a player who has already been through the full junior grind.

Miami had already identified Huston as part of its 11-player signing class on Nov. 13, 2024, when head coach Anthony Noreen said the group had “a high level of experience.” The June 22 roster update simply put a sharper point on it. College Hockey Inc. also lists Huston as a Miami commitment, confirming the RedHawks have been tracking him for a while as one of the more established junior defenders in their incoming group.

The context from Youngstown makes the fit even cleaner. The Phantoms clinched a share of the Anderson Cup on March 31 before USHL coverage confirmed them as champions on April 4, 2026, so Huston’s assistant-captain season came inside a regular-season title run. Miami is not waiting on his development arc to start. It is buying into what he already is: a battle-tested junior defender who has shown he can contribute, lead and win.