Victor Plante is heading into the NCAA with a built-in edge.
The Red Wings draft pick has spent plenty of time battling older, bigger, NHL-caliber prospects, and that kind of grind has already shaped the way he plays. Now he’s about to take the next step, and for the first time in his career, he’ll officially share a sweater and a team with his brothers on the ice when the upcoming season begins.
“I mean, it’s a great league, I mean, probably the best league coming into pro hockey,” Plante said, “I’m just excited for it.”
What makes Victor different from Zam and Max is easy to spot. He doesn’t bring the same kind of eye-popping offense Max showed as a Hobey Baker winner, and he doesn’t have Zam’s passing touch either. Zam was the setup man on Minnesota Duluth’s top line with Max last year and finished with 20 goals and 31 assists, just one point behind Max.
Victor’s game is built on something else entirely: he stays glued to the puck and is tough to move off it. At 5-foot-9, he plays with a nasty edge, and the numbers back that up. Last season, he piled up 71 penalty minutes in the National Development Program, nearly matching the combined total of his two older brothers’ careers before they got to Minnesota Duluth, where they had 78 between them.
That gap shrinks a bit when you add in the four minutes he picked up during a 20-game stint with the Program’s USHL team. Still, Plante is far more than just a physical presence.
Across 77 games last year, he put up 66 points and built a reputation as one of the toughest players to handle in the draft while skating for the USNTDP. Once the summer ends, he’ll make his Division I debut as a Bulldog.
There’s no shortage of expectations waiting for him in Duluth, where the family ties run deep and his father, Derek Plante, also left his mark. And with Minnesota Duluth lined up against heavyweights like the University of Denver, last year’s NCAA champions, and Western Michigan University, which stopped the Pioneers from completing a second straight three-peat in 2025, Victor will have a real stage to show why the Red Wings took him with the same draft slot they used on his older brother.
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