OHL Draft Day & College Hockey
For those of you don't know, the OHL draft is today and it's currently going on right now (9th rd as of 4 pm EST). This is where many a college hockey fan finds out whether we can expect Player X to ever suit up in a college uniform.
General rule of thumb seems to be early rounds (1-4) are more likely to go while later rounds indicate that that team / the OHL don't think it's likely they'll be able to sign that player.
Bob Miller assembled a list at CHP (link) of notable american prospects and their current commitments (if any). I made a table of those players and their current draft status
First | Last | Pos | Round | Pick | Team | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Louis | Belpedio | (D) | Miami | 9 | 5 | Windsor |
Andres | Bjork | (C) | Notre Dame | |||
Charlie | Combs | (LW) | ||||
Kyle | Connor | (LW) | Michigan | 14 | 11 | Saginaw |
Chris | Dodera | (LW) | ||||
Christian | Dvorak | (LW) | 8 | 20 | London | |
Dylan | Fouts | (RW) | ||||
Joshua | Gabriel | (LW) | ||||
Butrus | Ghafari | (D) | WMU | |||
Marcel | Godbout | (C) | MSU | 9 | 2 | Kingston |
Aaron | Haydon | (D) | 1 | 20 | Niagara | |
Ryan | Hitchcock | (C) | Yale | 10 | 14 | Brampton |
Josh | Jacobs | (D) | MSU | 4 | 9 | Sarnia |
Austin | Kamer | (RW) | 13 | 19 | Niagara | |
Kevin | Kerr | (D) | Penn State | |||
Dylan | Larkin | (C) | Michigan | 10 | 1 | Erie |
Brendan | Lemieux | (LW) | North Dakota | 4 | 6 | Toronto |
Darby | Llewellyn | (LW) | 4 | 8 | Kitchener | |
Mackenzie | MacEachern | (LW) | MSU | |||
Ryan | McInnis | (C) | ||||
Seamus | Malone | (C) | Wisconsin | 14 | 18 | Plymouth |
Ryan | Mantha | (RW) | 5 | 14 | Sault Ste Marie | |
Nick | Magyar | (C) | Ohio | 12 | 16 | Kitchener |
Grant | Meyer | (RW) | ||||
Sonny | Milano | (C) | 4 | 18 | Plymouth | |
Dylan | Pavelak | (C) | ||||
Brendan | Perlini | (LW) | MSU | 1 | 16 | Barrie |
JJ | Piccinich | (RW) | 6 | 15 | London | |
Austin | Pooley | (C) | ||||
Max | Rasberg | (C) | 13 | 8 | Owen Sound | |
Nick | Schmaltz | (C) | North Dakota | 4 | 13 | Windsor |
Alex | Tuch | (C) | 5 | 11 | Guelph | |
Matt | Weis | (C) | 13 | 16 | Peterborough | |
Cody | Gibson | (G) | ||||
Logan | Halladay | (G) | ||||
Brandon | Halverson | (G) | 7 | 4 | Sault Ste Marie | |
Mark | Loveday | (G) | ||||
Edwin | Minney | (G) | 8 | 15 | Niagara | |
Alex | Nedeljkovic | (G) | 6 | 20 | Plymouth | |
Anthony | Stolarz | (G) | UNO |
Notable findings:
-
Kyle Connor and Dylan Larkin (Michigan commits) have not been drafted yet which is great news because as I saw on the twitter:
Both Michigan commits. RT @RyanHPscout: The 2 best players we have on our draft board are Dylan Larkin and Kyle Connor both 1st rd talents.
- Brendan Perlini (MSU, younger brother of current MSU skater Brent Perlini) looks like he might be going OHL
- MSU had 4 guys on Bob Miller's list. One went in the first, two in the fourth, and one in the 9th. I'm not sure what to think of the guys going in the fourth round, but I'd be nervous if they were ours
- Darby Llwellyn is indeed Tristin Llwellyn's younger brother. No word on whether Darby has the same love for incredibly stupid penalties
EDIT: Dylan Larkin just got selected. 10th round, 1st pick to Erie. Looking good.
EDIT2: MacEachern from MSU hasn't been drafted yet. I recorded the draft info wrong
EDIT3: And Kyle Connor finally gets taken by Saginaw. 14th Rd, 11th pick. Looks good there too.
Erie is not a serious threat to sign someone. If I were a college team I would be most worried about Perlini, MSU commit to Barrie, since he's a first rounder and Barrie is not a total disaster (could easily be trade bait, though), and Schmaltz, NoDak commit fourth round to Windsor. Windsor is now one of the leading pressure-them-in organizations in the OHL.
If your player has his rights held by London, Kitchener, or Windsor you worry.
Not worrying: The MSU recruit to Kingston. Kingston is a disaster right now. Also terrible is Sault St Marie, which (not coincidentally) is where Jack Campbell wound up this season.
I consider myself a fan of the game, not just one team or league, which is why I refrain from the OHL hating. It's great hockey, and my team the Gleph Storm has been very kind to my other team, the New York Rangers in recent years.
but I just can't stand it because they always hurt my #1 team: Michigan
Often, but they also hurt other teams. Notre Dame has been burned before, and Patrick Kane was not a serious Michigan prospect when he went to London instead.
The reason we really suffer is because the OHL is a much bigger danger to central-area schools than the Q is to the east (the Q is substandard) and the WHL is to the west (Minnesota isn't particularly close to the WHL footprint, and there is a much stronger high school-college culture here).
Thus, we are more likely to lose talent to the OHL than MInnesota or BC, for example.
I'm perfectly fine with admiring and attending OHL games (used to go to Windsor games a fair bit, and also GTA teams when I was visiting the area) while still recognizing that the system is corrupt and unfair to its players. I was a bit bitter that Windsor stole Jack Campbell, since I'm a Windsor fan, but Jack's subsequent descent into irrelevance has made me feel better about it.
The NCAA is just as much at fault for prospects going up north, the OHL guys just tell prospects the truth about playing college hockey. No fighting, full facemasks, empty playoff arenas, tiny budgets, limited television exposure and the list goes on.
If the NCAA changed some of these things we might see elite prospects coming to play in college like we used to. The OHL is a business and they will do whatever it takes to get players because that is what they are supposed to do, the NCAA just makes it easier for them.
The OHL draft has been strangely kind on the '13 and '14 classes
Player | Year | Rd | Team |
---|---|---|---|
Bryson Cianfrone | 2013 | 3 | Brampton |
Tyler Motte | 2013 | 10 | Sarnia |
Alex Talcott | 2013 | 13 | Sarnia |
JT Compher | 2013 | 11 | Saginaw |
Evan Allen | 2013 | 15 | Windsor |
Dylan Larkin | 2014 | 10 | Erie |
Kyle Connor | 2014 | 14 | Saginaw |
Only guy to go in the top rounds was Cianfrone who was previously expected to go top-10 in the OHL draft before people got wind of his Michigan commitment.