MUSKEGON – As a longtime member of the Des Moines Buccaneers, Noah Ellis was a local celebrity of sorts.

That’s because he grew up in Urbandale, Iowa, a suburb of Des Moines, where the Buccaneers’ home arena is actually located. He was the hometown boy who was kicking off a very promising hockey career in his own back yard.

There was no reason for Ellis to have a billet family, because he could just live at home with his parents and drive five or six minutes to the rink every day.

While that might sound like an ideal situation for a young USHL player, Ellis wanted a change of scenery during his last season in the league, before he heads off to the University of Massachusetts to play college hockey.

He wanted to learn to be away from home, live with a billet family, and have more independence and adult responsibilities. So he asked the Buccaneers for a trade after last season, and they obliged by sending him to the Muskegon Lumberjacks, one of the teams on his preferred list.

“There was a lot of pressure (playing in his hometown), to be honest,” said Ellis, a standout defenseman who played two full seasons in Des Moines. “Just having friends calling every night, saying they are going to come and watch me play. It was just a better fit for me to find someplace new this season, from a maturing standpoint. I wanted to have a billet family and have that experience as well. So I talked to Des Moines and pointed out places that might be a good fit for me, and Muskegon worked out well.

“I love it here. lt’s a cool little place. A lot of the guys on the team live pretty close to each other, so it’s super cool.”

While Ellis wanted to get away from home for a year, one thing he’s learned with the Lumberjacks is to stay at home on the ice a little more.

While he’s quite capable of playing great defense, he said he got a little carried away with being an offensive type of defenseman in Des Moines, which caused his defensive performance to suffer a bit.

In 2019-20, he had five goals and six assists, but also a -20 plus/minus rating, meaning opponents scored 20 more goals than Des Moines did when he was on the ice. Last season he had five goals and 12 assists, with an even plus/minus rating.

Ellis knew he wouldn’t be able to worry about offense nearly as much with Muskegon, an Eastern Conference team. The game pace is faster in the Eastern Conference, and defensemen who get caught out of position can cost their team a lot of goals.

Lumberjacks Coach Mike Hamilton puts a big emphasis on playing responsible defense, and Ellis tuned in to that philosophy right away.

“Typically I have always been more of a two-way player, but the last couple of years I liked to join the offensive rush an excessive amount, to the point where I was not focusing on my defensive game,” said Ellis, who has no goals and two assists so far this season. “This has been a big building year for me defensively. It’s big thing we touch on here most days, always working on defense.”

The defensive corps, led by Ellis and fellow veteran Jacob Guevin, was expected to be a major strength for the Lumberjacks coming into this season, but the group went through a very rough patch recently.

On Oct. 22 in Madison, the Jacks blew a 3-2 lead by giving up four goals in the third period and lost 6-3. The next night they gave up five first-period goals and lost 6-4 to Madison. The following Friday at home, the Jacks allowed seven goals in a loss to Dubuque, including four in the second period.

That situation was addressed internally, and the defense improved dramatically last weekend at home against Youngstown, allowing only one goal in a 2-1 overtime shootout victory on Friday night, and three goals (and only one through two periods) in a 3-2 loss on Saturday.

“After the Madison and Dubuque games, the defense went in and had a meeting with the coaches, and they told us their expectations for us,” Ellis said. “We’ve been doing much better since then, and if we continue that play we will have a good run.”

The future seems very bright for Ellis, who is currently the only player on the Lumberjacks roster to be drafted by an NHL team. He was selected in the sixth round of the 2020 draft by the Vegas Golden Knights, who own his professional rights while he further develops his skills in college hockey.

He said he was watching the draft on TV at home, on the NHL network, to see if his name would pop up, but received a phone call before that happened.

“We were sitting there during a commercial, and suddenly I got a phone call from one of the assistants at UMass, congratulating me, and as soon as the commercial was over on TV my named popped up,” Ellis said.

Ellis admits that he’s excited about the prospect of turning pro and getting to the NHL as soon as possible, even if that means he doesn’t stay for four full years of college.

“I will (go pro) as soon as I’m ready,” he said. “I would say two or three years would be my ideal situation.”