OHL Draft

The Ontario Hockey League Draft is going on today. You can see the picks here. Most of the picks this year are '91 birthdates.

The top overall pick was center Ryan O'Reilly, who went to Erie. Reportedly, the Otters tried to get Notre Dame recruit Cam Fowler, but Fowler was uninterested in signing.

Michigan State recruit Matt Duchene went 5th overall to Brampton. That sounds like bad news for Michigan State. I think Brampton will have a good shot to sign him.

Cam Fowler did end up going 18th overall to Kitchener, which is potentially scary. Kitchener is one of the organizations that I could see coercing a top player to sign with them.

Similarly, Ferris State recruit Beau Schmitz went next, at 19th to the Plymouth Whalers. Schmitz is a native of Howell, Michigan native, so he may be enticed to sign with his somewhat-hometown team.

Two recent NTDP commits went in the second round of the draft. Goalie Brandon Maxwell went to Erie and defenseman Bjorn Krupp went to Belleville. Buffalo's Zach Tatrn also went in the second round.

Jeremy Morin wasn't drafted until the 4th round, which seems to imply that he'll go the college route. Maybe I haven't followed as closely, but the hype surrounding him seems to have died down a little bit.

2007 Michigan commit Bryan Hogan was selected with the first pick of the 5th round. I'm not sure what that means. Another interesting name in the 5th round was Belle Tire's Zach Golembiewski. He was selected by Plymouth. A couple different people listed him as one of the best players at the recent USHL '91 Prospect Camp.

There was some pretty good news for Eastern schools today. Boston College commit Kenny Ryan didn't go until the second pick of the 7th round, and Northeastern commit Daniel Erlich was the last pick of the 7th round. Both players would have been much higher if they were interested in the OHL route.