How much impact can a first-year player have on the overall success of his OHL team?
The results are varied. For example, a couple of effective players can really make a difference.
The Sudbury Wolves hit a homerun when drafting forward Quentin Byfield first overall in the Ontario Hockey League Priority Selection, and then nabbing goaltender Ukko-Pekka Lukkonen, third overall in the CHL Import Draft. Byfield finished second in team scoring with 61 points (behind Adam Ruzicka who had 78 on the year but 41 in 30 game splayed in a mid-season trade) and won the Emms Family Award for Rookie of the Year.
Lukkonen finished as the leagues MVP and got OHL Goaltender of the Year as he finished with a 38-11-2-2 record and 2.50 goals against average and .920 save percentage. You talk about being the most valuable player on a team; the Wolves only won five games out of the 15 in which Lukkonen didn’t start. Sudbury also had decent production out of their other two first-year players; defencemen Jack Thompson and Isaak Phillips.
This is a case where a team had two prominent impactful first-year players that paved the way for a lot of the team's success as they finished 4th in the Eastern Conference. A couple of the top teams in the league may have had deeper rosters than the Wolves, but heavily relied on very good productive seasons out of their rookie classes.
In the Eastern Conference, the Ottawa 67’s had Marco Rossi and Jack Quinn combine for 41 goals and 97 points.
In the Western Conference, the Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds had six players that played at least 54 games en-route to a third-place finish in the conference. That group managed 108 points for a team that scored 292 goals.
Then there are teams like Kingston who had six players get into at least 47 games and they combined for less than half that production, netting just 50 points among the group.
Although Kingston and the Soo had very different makeups and it’s the players that surrounded the first-year class that went a long way in deciding the outcome for those two teams.
This all goes to show a team can make or break their season sometimes based on what kind of production their first-year players give them. It might depend on their age and their previous skill level as players from Europe could be playing in their first year of OHL hockey but spent time playing in men’s leagues in their home country and now a 19-year-old from Sweden could have considerably more impact than a 17-year-old from Scarborough.
First-year players can sometimes be the "IT" factor teams need to solidify that home ice advantage spot, or they could be the reason teams throw out the line “it’s going to be a development year.”
With training camp about to open for the North Bay Battalion, it will once again be a mixed bag of a handful of first-year players looking to slot into some open spots left by graduating players.
Since moving to North Bay, the Battalion franchise has not had a first year forward produce more than 25 points in their first year of play. The most productive first-year guy has easily been Cam Dineen, a defenceman who had 59 points.
But this class coming in has all kinds of tools that should provide for a competitive camp and in the long run a competitive team for 2019-20.
Take the first-round pick Liam Arnsby who Battalion Assistant General Manager and Assistant Coach Adam Dennis says is a guy who has a well rounded two-way game.
“He is a guy that brings intensity to every shift,” says Dennis. “He plays the game the right way, he likes to play defence and he’s very smart on the offensive side as well. Typically it’s the one thing you have to hammer home for the first couple of years with a young player, that defense is just as important. With Liam, that stuff comes naturally so for him it’s almost about taking more risks offensively because he does have that talent as well.”
Hoping to join Liam upfront is one half of the Christopoulos twins, Right Winger Alex, who is also a graduate of the Don Mills Flyers program with Arnsby. Dennis says, “he has a good pedigree of working hard and along with Arnsby and his brother Paul, they will bring a good culture with them from that Don Mills program, a culture and an identity to our work ethic and that should show in practice. Alex can also shoot the puck, he’s got a nose for the net, and so when you’re a scorer you have to score so I expect him to shoot the puck as many times as he can and earn his spot in the lineup every night.”
Paul on the other hand is looking to fit into a defence core that is losing three players who took up a lot of the ice time last season in overage player Theo Calvas, as well as David Maier and Zack Malik not returning. This would indicate there are spots open for at least a couple of guys to solidify themselves as top six, if not top four blueliners right from the get-go. Dennis says of Christopoulos, “we want to see him play hard and one thing we see for guys when they first come into the league is they maybe give a little bit too much respect to the older guys and then take a back seat. The thing about Paul is that he is not going to do that. He’s going to play the game the same way he has since he started playing hockey and that’s playing the game hard. There are going to be some things that he will have to adjust to at this level, but that’s our job, making sure he has what he needs to adapt.”
The number one spot in between the pipes is also going to be a battle and one that might not be determined at the culmination of training camp. Coming back is Christian Purboo who showed some very nice flashes of being a competent goaltender during the 2018-19 season. In 23 games he produced a 3.90 Goals Against Average and 0.897 saver percentage, working his way to a 6-9-1-2 record while backing up Christian Propp, who was dealt to the Soo Greyhounds earlier this summer. Among some of the young, hungry combatants to that number one job are Joe Vrbetic and Christian Cicigoi who were teammates with the Powassan Voodoos last year.
“It’s going to be an exciting time for the goalies coming into our camp,” says Dennis.
“There’s competition and there’s spots available. The number one spot is up for grabs. Vrbetic got a cup of coffee with us last year, he’s a high draft pick and had a great year in Powassan. Cicigoi has been down there for two years and I expect him to come in and compete for a job. It’s not going to be handed to anybody. And then there’s Reece Proulx who’s been on the ice with us all summer, he’s signed in Pembroke but he’s coming here looking to get a job as well.”
Dennis says that number one job will go to the guy who can do the one thing a goalie is asked of, “Really for these guys, they have to come in and stop pucks. You can complicate the position all you want, what it comes down to is stopping pucks. If you want to earn your ice, that’s the best way to do it.”
