“OHL teams better be careful.”
Those words, the response by the scouting director of an NHL team when I asked him last October about looming changes that were coming in the hockey world, are very much the reality right now.
Seven months ago, that man was talking in hushed tones in the crowded corridor of Sadlon Arena. He was referring to rumours that major junior players would soon be made eligible to play college hockey. His point was that the now-old rules, while limiting players’ options for four decades, had also provided protection for the Canadian Hockey League against having to compete for players against big-money programs in the United States.
That protection is now gone.
Ask the Colts as potential 2024-25 overagers Anthony Romani (Michigan State) and Sam Hillebrandt (Ohio State) both recently committed to going to school.
The once-crowded overage picture for the Colts is now decidedly more spacious.
The NCAA still prohibits players who have signed professional deals, so there is no worry that Cole Beaudoin will be skipping off to go to school. Though possible, it’s also hard to imagine Kashawn Aitcheson considering U.S. college because the NHL team that picks him next month will almost certainly want him to sign right away.
Though they have now outgrown junior hockey, captain Beau Jelsma (Providence) and Dalyn Wakely (UMass-Lowell) have also committed to NCAA programs.
“I think you’re going to see more (player movement) after the (NHL) draft,” said Nate Leaman, head coach at Providence, who was effusive in his praise of Jelsma.
Leaman, who was U.S. head coach when it won a gold medal at the 2021 World Junior in the Edmonton bubble six years after leading the Friars to a national title, was not suggesting CHL rosters were going to be cleaned out by college recruiters, but rather that NHL teams could now use the much longer development window open to players not yet ready to turn pro.
That pathway for players like Hillebrandt, Jelsma, Romani and Wakely is now as much as eight years long, rather than four or five until the rules were changed.
“The average NHL rookie is, what, 22 or 23,” said Leaman, as if to point out there is a two- or three-year gap between when a player would graduate junior hockey and make it to the top level.
Leaman acknowledged in a recent phone chat that there are many variables still to play out. Perhaps the biggest unknown right now is how NHL clubs will manage finding preferred places for their unsigned prospects to play.
Around the OHL, Sudbury Wolves defenceman Henry Mews (Calgary) was one of the first players already drafted to make the bold move of forgoing his remaining junior eligibility by committing to the University of Michigan. Erie Otters forward Malcolm Spence, who is expected to be a first-round selection in next month’s NHL Draft, will join Mews in Ann Arbor.
Leaman said college could be a more preferred option for those looking to play against “older, a bit stronger, maybe a bit faster” players that college hockey has, compared to major junior, where the average age is about two years younger, a margin likely to increase.
To do that, however, players such as Mews and Spence will not have the security of an NHL contract. In effect, Mews and Spence are betting on themselves but are pursuing an education while doing so.
And let’s be completely honest: If you’re 19 or 20, would you rather hang out at a major U.S. college campus, or in, say, Moose Jaw? In February.
To wit, a scout recently told me that for all their notoriety, the London Knights’ biggest recruiting tool aside from their NHL-lite arena could be that it is located a short distance away from Western University.
It’s not a doom-and-gloom scenario for teams like the Colts. That’s because there is now a vast, largely untapped pool of players who can play major junior who otherwise would not have considered it.
Historically, Utah Hockey Club forward Jack McBain is perhaps the best example locally. McBain never turned up in Barrie after the Colts drafted him in 2016 because he ended up at Boston College.
Currently, the Colts own the rights to a few solid U.S. players (and one very notable dual citizen in Will Moore).
Leaman told the story of how one of his Providence recruits returned home to Canada to play major junior soon after the rules changed. He said he expects another to do so this season.
Leaman said he has no problem with it.
A rising tide, after all, floats all boats.