Monday, April 14, 2014

What I've Missed over the Last Two Weeks.

It’s been almost two weeks since my last blog. School work has taken up most of my time. So here are the major stories that have happened over the last two weeks.

OHL Playoffs
We saw the end of round one conclude with two epic game 7’s. First in North Bay where Niagara was looking for the upset and then in Kingston where Peterborough was looking to pull off the miraculous 3-0 comeback. The Ice Dogs dominated the first two periods out chancing North Bay. However they could only beat Battalion goalie Jake Smith once, being up just 1-0 through two. From there North Bay rallied with two third period goals to avoid the upset. Kingston did not have the same fate North Bay did. Kingston was up 3-0 in the series and was up 3-0 in game 6. The Petes never gave up and rallied for the miraculous series win in 7. Nick Ritchie had the OT winner to send the Petes to the next round.

In the second round there was nowhere near the same excitement seen in round one. Erie started the second round with a sweep of the Sault Ste. Marie Greyhound. The Otters dominated the series from start to finish, holding the Greyhounds to just three goals the entire series. The other West series saw defending OHL champs, the London Knights take on the regular season champs, the Guelph Storm. This series came as advertised with a ton of goals but London may have been feeling the effects of that Anthony Stolarz suspension as they went down in just 5 games. Stolarz has now missed 6 games and only has two left on the suspension which will be served during the Memorial Cup.  Out East the Petes found themselves in a familiar spot being down 3-0 in the series. However they used up all their magic in round one as they failed to win a game against their rival the Oshawa Generals. North Bay and Barrie played the most exciting series games wise, but it was still only a six game series. North Bay ruined my perfect bracket beating Barrie 4-2.
 The third round gets started on Thursday with Erie taking Guelph, with Oshawa and North Bay starting on Friday. I stand by my original picks and will still take Oshawa and Erie to win and play for the OHL Championship.      

OHL Draft
The OHL draft took place last week as well. I find it very odd that the OHL does their draft during the playoffs. I don’t see why they don’t just wait till the off-season doesn’t make a lot of sense to me but I digress. So to be honest I don’t know a lot about these players if anything. I do know that the kids picked in the first round are the ones most likely to be selected in the NHL draft. Most of these players will be eligible for the 2016 NHL Draft along with exceptional status defencemen Sean Day. The first overall pick was held by the Sarnia Sting, who selected Jakob Chychrun a left defencemen from the Toronto Jr. Canadians. He is 6’2 195, and from reading his bio in the OHL priority selection magazine he has a cannon of a shot and is a powerful skater. I am definitely looking to forward to watching more of Sarnia play next season with Chychrun and potential NHL first rounder’s Anthony DeAngelo (14 on CS list) and Nikolay Goldobin (24). I am also excited to watch the Ottawa 67’s next year as they added another high pick to go along with last year’s first overall selection and rookie of the year winner Travis Konecny.  Ottawa selected Travis Barron third overall. He is a left winger and also from the Toronto Jr. Canadians. He is 6’1 175 and is a very physical player.  

CSS Central Scouting List Final rankings
One final thing that happened over the last two weeks was NHL Central Scouting released their final rankings for North American and European skaters. As you know this is the most commonly cited ranking system on this blog. A few things stood out to me about the rankings. First they had a top three of Sam Bennett, Aaron Ekblad and Sam Reinhart. No real surprises there, as those three are likely going to be the top three in some order. What really had me intrigued was the ranking of players who have been discussed previously in posts. To start the biggest mover was Gavin Bayreuther, who jumped from 115 to 48. I had suggested in my NCAA defencemen post that Bayreuther would likey be a fourth round pick. It appears unlikely he will fall that far. I would still like my team to draft him just means it’s going to cost an early third, late second round pick. I still think he could be a steal.   

The other players that caught my eye were the two much talked about Niagara Ice Dogs defencemen, Aaron Haydon and Blake Siebenaler. I have made it be known that I thought Haydon was ranked way to high at 28 and apparently so did CS as he dropped all the way to 54. Siebenaler also dropped but not very far. He fell from 47 to right behind Haydon at 55. This change is ranking really only affects how Haydon is perceived. He went from being an early second round guy to a late second at best but likely an early third. I would still avoid Haydon even at the potential reduced draft cost as I just don’t think he has the offensive upside to make it work at the next level. I remain optimistic on Siebenaler and this draft ranking doesn’t really change his expected draft cost at all.  

IIHF U18

This is a more look ahead as this tournament starts this Thursday, April, 17.  This tournament is one of the last chances for scouts to see players before the combine. Since it is an under 18 event all of the players have yet to be drafted. It is a great chance to get a look at some guys for this upcoming draft as well as the 2015 draft. With the CHL playoffs still underway many good players are ineligible to play but that doesn’t take away much from team’s rosters. I don’t many round robin games will be available to watch but I know that TSN will be showing a couple games. They will have the Canada-Russia game on Tuesday April 22 at 9am. They will also have a quarterfinal game on Thursday April 24th at 10am, a semi-final game on the 26th and the Gold Medal Game at 2pm on the 27th. I will be doing my best to catch as many games of this tournament as I can, and when I do I will make sure to put up my typical scoring chances post.  

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