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USHL Gaining Top Players With Canadian Junior Leagues Out Of Action

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The United States Hockey League, USHL, is the top junior league in the U.S. and has been growing as a top developmental destination in recent years. Yet, they have never seen an influx of talent as they have this season. Early on, it was NCAA players whose teams (mostly Ivy League programs) canceled play this year due to the Coronavirus pandemic. However, as the CHL leagues – OHL, WHL, and QMJHL – and other Junior-A Canadian leagues remain out of action, the flow of top players has continued. The USHL season is ongoing and has thus far operated without much delay, making it the greatest beneficiary on the other side of the border from the stalled Canadian leagues. This past week has shown that talented players throughout Canada are running low on patience with their current leagues and are now making the move south.

On Tuesday, the trend really began to pick up steam when the BCHL announced nine departures, four to the USHL including two top players from the powerhouse Penticton Vees. Buffalo Sabres forward prospect Matteo Costantini, who had joined Penticton this season before heading to the University of North Dakota next year, has now joined the USHL’s Sioux City Musketeers. Well-regarded 2021-eligible defenseman Owen Murray is also headed to the NCAA next season as a University of Massachusetts commit, but instead of staying with the Vees this year, he has now joined the USHL’s Green Bay Gamblers.

On Wednesday, Penticton lost another top defenseman, as projected 2021 second/third-round pick Jack Bar left for the USHL’s Chicago Steel and will not return to the Vees next season with Harvard University in his sights. However, the bigger story was the exodus from the WHL’s Portland Winterhawks. Detroit Red Wings 2020 second-round pick Cross Hanas and potential 2021 first-round forward Jack O’Brien, along with two other teammates, all left for the USL’s Lincoln Stars. Lincoln also picked up 2021 defenseman and Boston University commit Charles-Alexis Legault from the BCHL’s West Kelowna Warriors.

The biggest move to date is a major addition for the Sioux Falls Stampede. Forward Cole Sillinger, a consensus 2021 first-round pick, left the WHL’s Medicine Hat Tigers to head to the U.S. Sillinger recorded 53 points in 48 games with the Tigers last year and may just be one of the best players in the USHL now that he has arrived in Sioux Falls.

The question of course with all of these transfers is whether any of these players will leave if their Canadian teams are able to play this season. These USHL clubs undoubtedly hope they can retain their newfound talent throughout their season and postseason and they almost certainly will if junior play in Canada is unable to return. However, the WHL is already taking steps toward a possible return and other leagues will try to follow. Regardless, this influx of talent is great for the competition level of the USHL this year and its reputation moving forward as it looks to compete for top players with the CHL elite in the future.

Carolina Hurricanes Sign Jamieson Rees

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The Carolina Hurricanes have inked another top prospect, signing Jamieson Rees to his three-year, entry-level contract. The young forward was selected 44th overall in 2019 and has played the last three seasons with the Sarnia Sting of the OHL. The deal comes with an average annual value of just over $850K, after the signing bonus is taken into account. Hurricanes GM Don Waddell released a short statement on his new player:

Jamieson is a skilled center with strong playmaking ability. He made major strides in his development last season, and we’re looking forward to his next steps.

Rees, 19, scored 18 goals and 61 points in just 39 games for Sarnia last season despite missing time with an ankle injury. Though he hasn’t played this year thanks to the COVID-19 situation, he was invited to Hockey Canada’s World Junior selection camp where he competed for a spot in a loaded forward group. Rees ended up being one of the final cuts, meaning he is once again waiting for his next chance to play competitive hockey.

This is exactly the type of player who could be headed for the AHL should the CHL season eventually get canceled, as Rees is not ready to play in the NHL but still needs to get on the ice for his development to continue. Even if he does play in the minor leagues, his contract will slide forward; the only thing that would make it kick in this season is playing seven NHL games, an unlikely scenario regardless of how he performs in training camp.

Graeme And Brandt Clarke Loaned To Slovakia

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With the OHL still waiting to begin their season and some uncertainty about if and when they will get started, a pair of notable brothers are headed elsewhere to get back to playing. HC Nove Zamky of the Slovakian Extraliga announced that Graeme and Brandt Clarke have been acquired on loan from the Ottawa 67’s and Barrie Colts, respectively. The lucky club lands a recent third-round pick and a player most expect to be selected in the top five of the 2021 NHL Draft.

Graeme, 19, was selected by the New Jersey Devils in the 2019 draft. The talented winger is eager to get back on the ice after missing all but 16 games last season. He did however score at a better than point-per-game pace in that limited action and has the potential to develop into a dangerous scorer if he can stay healthy.

However, the prize of the Clarke family is likely to be Brandt. The 17-year-old right-shot defenseman impresses in all areas of the game, including recording 38 points in 57 games as an OHL rookie last season. With size and skill to go with those results, Brandt has emerged as one of the top prospects in the 2021 class, potentially even a candidate to be selected first overall.

With Zamky, the Clarke brothers could easily become the team’s top two players, even in their first pro experience. The Slovakian Extraliga lacks much in the way of world-class talent and Zamky in particular does not currently roster anyone with NHL or even AHL experience. The club is currently in the middle of the pack in Slovakia, but the addition of two elite, young players could give them a major boost, regardless of whether the Clarkes return to the OHL in a couple months or not.

 

 

League Notes: OHL, Stadium Series, Schedule

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The OHL has pushed back the start of their season even further, with many now questioning whether it will happen at all. The entire province of Ontario will go into a lockdown on December 26, leading to a decision by the junior league to push things back indefinitely.

If the league does eventually cancel the season, it will be a lost year for many prospects trying to further their development. In that scenario, those that are already under NHL contracts could potentially join the team’s taxi squad or report to the AHL (should there be a minor league season). Those that are not signed could potentially also sign amateur contracts with the AHL like they often do after the CHL season ends, but it appears as though many will just lose an entire year of play. For draft-eligible juniors, that will only confuse their stock even more, perhaps leading to some wildly different evaluations come draft day.

  • The NHL has postponed the 2021 Stadium Series game that was set to be held at Carter-Finley Stadium in Raleigh on February 20. Though that comes as no surprise, it is just another disappointment in a long year of them. The Carolina Hurricanes have never been involved in an outdoor game and will have to wait even longer for their first appearance. The league does say it “intends to return to North Carolina for this signature event in the near future.”
  • The league will release the full schedule for the upcoming season later today, which is expected to include short baseball-like series between teams. An earlier report even indicated that there could even be four-game segments between teams, though that seems to be the exception, not the rule. Leaks for opening night opponents have continued to spring up, including one recent report from Chris Johnston of Sportsnet that indicates the Vancouver Canucks and Edmonton Oilers could play on January 13.

Mason Millman Signs With Philadelphia Flyers

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The Philadelphia Flyers have signed one of their recent draft picks, inking Mason Millman to a three-year entry-level contract. Millman has spent the last two seasons with the Saginaw Spirit of the OHL and was picked in the fourth round by the Flyers in 2019.

Millman, 19, was unfortunately cut from Team Canada’s World Junior camp recently due to COVID-19 restrictions, but will still get some good news this holiday season with an entry-level deal. The defenseman scored 13 goals and 44 points last season for Saginaw, turning heads as a potential mid-round steal for the Flyers. The fact that he’s already earned a deal should only solidify that feeling, though where Millman goes from here is very unclear.

The OHL has still not set a date for its official return and some are wondering whether the 2020-21 junior season can be saved at all. For a player like Millman, who is ineligible for the AHL—and likely not ready to compete professionally—this season is looking like a potentially lost development year. Perhaps with him now under contract, the Flyers will find somewhere overseas to get Millman on the ice competing again, keeping the momentum he built since his draft in 2019.

Arizona Coyotes Expected To Hire Cory Stillman

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Dec 15: The Coyotes have officially announced the hiring, bringing Stillman in as an assistant coach. In the release, GM Bill Armstrong explains just why they believe Stillman can help the team:

We are very pleased to have Cory join Rick Tocchet’s coaching staff. Cory was a great player who won back to back Stanley Cups during his career. He is a very good coach who has a strong work ethic and a passion for the game. I’m confident that our players and staff will benefit from his knowledge, insight and expertise.

Dec 14: The Arizona Coyotes have rebuilt the front office and are about to add to their coaching staff as well, according to Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet. Cory Stillman is expected to be hired as an assistant coach, leaving his job with the Sudbury Wolves of the OHL where he served as head coach the last two seasons.

Stillman, 46, had previously worked with the Florida Panthers and Carolina Hurricanes, serving as director of player development with the latter. As Jeff Marek of Sportsnet points out on Twitter, a move like this comes at an interesting time, given that Stillman coaches his draft-eligible son with the Wolves.

Of course, there is more than just a few years of OHL experience in Stillman, who played more than 1,000 games in the NHL and won the Stanley Cup twice. A member of the hall-0f-very-good, Stillman managed to rack up 727 points in the regular season and even hit the 80-point mark in 2003-04. He has another son, Riley Stillman, who is an NHL player in his own right, playing 34 games this season for the Panthers.

In Arizona, Rick Tocchet remains head coach after managing to lead the club past the Nashville Predators in this summer’s qualification round. While the Coyotes went out with a whimper against the powerhouse Colorado Avalanche, Tocchet has been reasonably successful, posting winning records with Arizona the past two seasons.

Minor Transactions: 12/09/20

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With the NHL finally making solid progress on starting the 2020-21 season, the rumor mill has started warming back up with a number of teams who still need to make roster changes, in some cases extreme makeovers, and many talented free agents still available. However, those concrete moves are still to come. For now, the minor moves being made by NHL teams involve minor league assignments with the ECHL about to open up. The ECHL’s list of transactions for today reveals a few different notable moves:

  • After sending goaltender Kyle Keyser and forward Matt Filipe to the ECHL’s Jacksonville Icemen last week, the Boston Bruins have reassigned another intriguing name. Priority college UFA Jack Ahcan, one of the top offensive defensemen in the NCAA over the past few years will make his pro debut with Jacksonville after signing with Boston this spring. Ahcan, 23, may get his start in the ECHL but is an interesting name to watch this season given his success at St. Cloud State University and the Bruins’ lack of talent on the left side of the blue line.
  • Jacob McGrew, 2017 sixth-round pick of the San Jose Sharks, will get his pro start with the ECHL’s Allen Americans. McGrew is eager to get back on the ice after missing all but six games last season with the WHL’s Spokane Chiefs. He did record eight points in those six games and the talented right wing could be a scoring factor in the AHL right away, especially with a strong start in the ECHL.
  • In somewhat of a twist, the AHL’s Charlotte Checkers have recalled Greg Meireles from the ECHL’s Greenville Swamp Rabbits after assigning him to club late last month. With the ECHL starting this weekend and the AHL still eyeing a February start, Meireles’ reassignment would imply that he is not ready to begin his season just yet. Meireles, who was drafted by the Florida Panthers in 2019, was deemed not worthy of an entry-level contract by the NHL club but signed with their AHL affiliate in October. A dangerous junior scorer with the OHL’s Kitchener Rangers, Meireles will be looking to earn that NHL contract with his play this season.

Overseas Notes: Guskov, Kochetkov, Postma

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Minnesota Wild prospect Matvey Guskov has reversed course on his development plan, and in a big way. The 19-year-old Russian forward, a fifth-round pick in 2019, has spent the past two seasons in the OHL with the London Knights. Even after an off-season trade to the North Bay Battalion, there was no indication that Guskov planned to leave North America. Whether due to the delayed start to the OHL season or for some other reason, that has now changed. Guskov has signed with the KHL’s CSKA Moscow, the top team of the program that he grew up in. However, this is not just until the OHL season resumes or even just for the 2020-21 season. CSKA has announced a three-year contract with Guskov, keeping him in Russia – and away from Minnesota – until at least 2023. The Wild are no strangers to playing the waiting game with Russian prospects; the club was finally able to sign 2015 pick turned KHL superstar Kirill Kaprizov this year. CSKA is one of the KHL’s best clubs and Guskov could very well beneift from his time spent there. However, it has to be frustrating for Minnesota to have another talented player skip out of team control and into the Russian void, especially one that seemed committed to the North American development route.

  • Since he was selected in the second round by the Carolina Hurricanes, things have not gone according to plan for goaltender Petr Kotchetkov.  The Hurricanes were happy to take the overager early in the second round in 2019 after he dominated the Russian minor league VHL and looked strong in a pair of KHL starts. However, he failed to take a step forward last season; his VHL numbers improved, but he struggled in his KHL opportunities and was eventually traded away by powerhouse SKA St. Petersburg. His play improved somewhat with Vityaz Podolsk, but he was still demoted to the junior-level MHL for some time as well, where he continued to struggle. So far this season, Kotchetkov had played exclusively on the KHL with Vityaz, however his play has again failed to live up to expectations. As a result, Kotchektov has been demoted to the VHL. He is headed back to HK Ryazan, the same team he made his name with in his draft year, showing full circle how the prospect has failed to improve since then. With a very weak pipeline in net and questions at the NHL level in the immediate future, the Hurricanes need to decide whether Kotchetkov, 21,  is still their potential goalie of the future and if so may need to bring him over to North America soon to try to get him back on track.
  • Defenseman Paul Postma has been unable to stay in one place for very long since leaving the NHL and is on the move again. The veteran over more than 200 NHL games with the Winnipeg Jets and Boston Bruins, Postma left North America 2017-18 after he was used sparingly by the Bruins. He landed with the KHL’s Ak Bars Kazan, where he was an All-Star and one of the best defensemen in the league in 2018-19. He jumped to Metallurg Magnitogosk last summer on a lucrative one-year deal, but ended up leaving the club early in the season. He eventually signed with HC Lugano of the Swiss NLA where he was again a productive player on the blue line. Yet, Postma opted not to stay in Switzerland either. Possibly waiting for an NHL offer, Postma has remained a free agent well into the seasons of many European leagues. He has finally landed with Austrian club Klagenfurter AC, where he should again be a dominant presence on a one-year deal. What happens after this contract expires is anyone’s guess, but Postma should have his pick in Europe if the interest in North America continues to be underwhelming.

Minor Transactions: 12/05/20

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With a mix of some leagues currently in action, others preparing to start, some postponing play, and others still trying to sort it all out, there has been a constant stream of minor moves with players jumping from league to league via signing, loan, reassignment, and more. Today has been no exception, as a number of players are on the move:

  • With the ECHL planning to get underway next week, some NHL and AHL players have begun to be reassigned to the “AA” level to get a jumpstart on their seasons and many more moves are likely to come over the next few days. For now, the Boston Bruins have made the decision on a pair of young players, assigning goaltender Kyle Keyser and forward Matt Filipe to the Jacksonville Icemen, the Bruins’ temporary affiliate for this season. Keyser, 21, saw very limited action last year in his first pro season but the former OHL standout is looking to prove with his  play this year that he too belongs in the “goalie of the future” conversation with top prospects Dan Vladar and Jeremy Swayman. Filipe, 22, is set to make his pro debut after signing with the Bruins out of nearby Northeastern University. The former Carolina Hurricanes prospect plays with size and a nose for the net, which served him well as a reliable producer in the NCAA.
  • A pair of Oshawa Generals stars are getting their seasons started overseas. With the OHL not getting started until at least February, the Generals announced that NHL prospects Ty Tullio (EDM) and Allan McShane (MTL) have been loaned to Slovakia. The pair will join MHK Liptovsky Mikulas of the Slovakian Extraliga until the time that they are either recalled by their NHL clubs or by Oshawa for training camp. McShane and Tullio finished second and third respectively in scoring last season for the Generals, with 67 and 66 points apiece.
  • Although Finland’s hockey seasons are currently on pause, the Dallas Stars do not plan to recall top prospect Ty Dellandrea right away, according to Matthew DeFranks of the Dallas Morning News. Dellandrea has been playing with the Liiga’s JYP this past month, recording three points in six games, and will continue practicing with the team for the time being. The Liiga is tentatively scheduled to return to action on December 20, but that start date is not guaranteed. With the NHL hoping to be up and running by mid-January with two weeks of training camp beforehand, Dellandrea may still be recalled before he can play with JYP again. The Stars hope that Dellandrea can compete for a roster spot this year and will want to make sure that he is in attendance for day one of training camp.

Jean-Luc Foudy To Play In Sweden

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For many junior prospects, it has now been the better part of a year since they played any competitive hockey. That’s unacceptable for many trying to continue their development, so seeking out opportunities overseas is priority number one. For Jean-Luc Foudy, it has resulted in a loan to Morrums GolS IK in Sweden’s third-tier Hockeyettan.

Foudy, 18, was just selected 75th overall by the Colorado Avalanche last month, but currently doesn’t have a place to play. He is a member of the Windsor Spitfires of the OHL, who haven’t yet started their season (or released a concrete schedule) and was not invited to Canada’s World Junior selection camp. For now, he’s going to suit up in Sweden, playing there until the OHL starts back up. If it doesn’t, his agreement lasts for the entire Hockeyettan season.

It’s important for prospects to get playing time, especially ones like Foudy who have a standout skill but lack polish in other areas. Foudy, brother of Columbus Blue Jackets Liam Foudy, is an incredibly fast skater, perhaps the quickest in the entire 2020 draft class. Unfortunately, he lacks some of the other skills that made his brother a first-round pick and notably has just 23 goals in 126 OHL games.

It’s important to remember that even once a player is drafted, he isn’t actually signed to a professional contract and thus not guaranteed a pro career. Foudy has not yet signed his entry-level deal with the Avalanche, and though in his specific case that is still a likelihood, some prospects that miss out on development time will never even get an offer. There are not endless jobs for young players out there, nor will all of them wish to travel overseas when they are still just teenagers. But with junior leagues still so uncertain—the QMJHL, which is playing, has been a complicated mess of scheduling and travel thanks to COVID-19 outbreaks—the bold ones will seek out opportunity elsewhere.

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