Monday, April 28, 2008

OHL Priority Selection

The OHL holds their draft this weekend, where they will draft players from the 1992 age bracket.

Michigan Junior Hockey had a link to the OHL Prospects magazine, which lists almost all of the eligible candidates for the draft, and has some scouting reports on quite a few potential college hockey players.

Alex Aleardi, Michigan recruit Jared Knight, Phil Lane, Scott Howe, Ohio State recruit Alex Lippincott, Notre Dame recruit Kyle Palmieri, Michael Mersch, John Parker, Brandon Saad, Jeff Skinner, Tyler Toffoli, and Maine recruit Austin Watson are among the forwards previewed. Evan Accettura, Brandon Archibald, Adam Clendening, Kevin Clare, Stephen Johns, Michigan recruit Jon Merrill, and Frankie Simonelli are some of the defenseman mentioned. And goalies Andy Iles and Jack Campbell are also mentioned.

40 comments:

Anonymous said...

And add a pretty high profile 1991 American Defensemen to the OHL.

NCAA taking another hit.

Anonymous said...

Beau Schmitz signs with Plymouth:

http://www.plymouthwhalers.com/releases/SchmitzSigning_042808.htm

Anonymous said...

Heard he scored a 16 on his ACT's. He couldn't go NCAA route or had to sit out his first year as an acamdemic qualifier.

Anonymous said...

NCAA vs CHL

Is it really a battle anymore?

Anonymous said...

how does the ncaa take a hit ? this kid would have never attended classes any way; why are ohl wannabees so happy when a kid chooses the early pro route over the student-athlete route; it's no different that when a baseball player chooses to go into a pro farm system over getting a free education; is that also a knock on the ncaa ? there's no doubt that empirically the main route to the pros is major junior, but every year, a greater number of college players line the rosters of the nhl; so who'se really winning the war ?

Anonymous said...

I guess it wasn't because it was the best thing for his development? It had to me marks right??

Anonymous said...

"Heard he scored a 16 on his ACT's. He couldn't go NCAA route or had to sit out his first year as an acamdemic qualifier"

If a certain player was able to get into Boston College (I'll not name him because I'm sure Chris won't post it if I do but you all know who I'm refering to), then you can bank on the fact that Schmitz could have easily gotten into any school he wanted to as well!

Besides, do you have any evidence that he only scored a 16 on his ACT...yeah didn't think so!

Like another poster said, there is no more battle between the NCAA and CHL cause the NCAA has lost the war!

Chuck Schwartz said...

The CHL, where American kids go when they can't get into college.

Anonymous said...

Chuck, CHL is also home for American kids that can't get out of the pressbox and onto the ice in college to.

Anonymous said...

Carving kids on hockey blogs for low ACT scores, what turds like Chuck do because they can't get laid.

Anonymous said...

You people are pitifull, NG is a perfect example of talent and hard work at BC. Your comments indicate low scores on professionalism and high scores on ignorance. Too many individual players, agents, and lack of respect for teams and organizations. But, basically these players are all hockey whores for rich guys who throw money around, like a high stakes poker game. Good luck, cuzz there are not too many winners.

Anonymous said...

This kid has a poor reputation already, BS, if you will!! he quit NTDP after quiting on D-1 Ferris State Bulldogs. I would say that is a very poor track record and the bottum feeders always prey on that. someone has given that kid very poor advice. another thought is DUMB advice.

Anonymous said...

You jerks offs who think the world begins and ends with the CHL need to take a flying leap. You people reek of insecurity. Face the facts: there are a lot of top tier hockey players in the NCAA. Some, not all, of those elite- cream of the crop players will have nice pro careers. Get your heads out of your asses and accept that not every NHL player goes through the CHL.

Anonymous said...

24 of the top 30 CSS ranked skaters for the 2008 draft play in the CHL. That leaves 6 of them NCAA eligable. You NCAA guys are good with numbers, right? Run those statistics for me.

Anonymous said...

Ya just MOST of them!

Anonymous said...

Schmitz commits to Whalers.

Anonymous said...

I see Palmieri has entered the draft. Is he leaving the NTDP?

Has Morin signed with Kitchener yet?

Tim Braun said...

Anon 10:56 PM

The problem with those numbers is that those 30 players would have probably been considered 1st round talent if they were playing in my intramural hockey league all last year. To be honest, it doesn't really matter where the top talent goes, those players are considered the cream of the crop well before they even get draft by the CHL or commit to college hockey teams for the most part. The comparison is very hard to do with the top end talent because the best of canada for the most part chooses the CHL because of history and the fact that they can play against better competition at 16. Most college players are drafted before they even get on campus...its a hard comparison with the difference in age.

Anonymous said...

Stat guy at 10:56: Thanks nitwit. You just proved the main point here....not every prospect goes through the CHL. There is actually another source for the NHL. No one is denying the CHL remains the primary feeder. But the NCAA is a feeder as well. At least you got the math right, genius. 30-24=6. Well done!

Anonymous said...

"24 of the top 30 CSS ranked skaters for the 2008 draft play in the CHL. That leaves 6 of them NCAA eligable. You NCAA guys are good with numbers, right? Run those statistics for me."

Since you have so much trouble with figures, I thought I would use my NCAA education to help you out a little bit.

First, I think only looking at the top 30 NA skaters in a down year for USA hockey is hardly a sample size that you can draw too many conclusions from, but then maybe you already knew that and were trying to find a stat that supports the point you are attempting to make...ehh? I took a look at the top 120 NA skaters of which 37 or 31% do not skate in the CHL. Taking a look at the last 5 years of CSS final rankings, non-CHL skaters comprise 38% of the top 120 NA skaters.

Second, which country produces more NHL players Canada or the USA? Do you think it is more likely for a Canadian kid to prefer to play his developmental hockey closer to home in a system and league that he is more familiar with? Do you think that an American kid likewise is more familiar with college hockey and more apt to stay closer to home with something they are more familiar with? Now if I were to spout off about do more Canadian kids come to play college hockey in the USA then American kids go to play in the CHL without the context of more Candians play pro hockey than Americans, it would be sort of like saying only 6 out of only 30 out of only 1 year have college eligibility...ehh.

Last, who has more roster spots to fill, the CHL or college hockey? While there are 59 D1 schools, reality is that there are only 3 conferences that play at the highest level CCHA, WCHA, & Hockey East. Now there are a few quality programs in some of the other 3 conferences, but there are also many school that either do not offer athletic scholarships or are limited. Further, not every kid on a D1 roster gets a full scholarship (I believe the max is only 18 per team). When you try to look at it from the perspective of 60 CHL teams (which I can only assume offer an aid package to all 25 kids on their rosters because I keep hearing how superior the CHL is...ehh) verses 30ish college teams with only aid for 18 kids per, the CHL had better have more kids they are producing as they have more spots to fill.

Anonymous said...

49% of OHL Players end up signing a Pro level Contract

44% Use thier Educational Packages

9 of the Top 10 NA Skaters for the NHL Draft are in the CHL

44 of the Top 60 NA Skaters for the NHL Draft are in the CHL

Chuck Schwartz said...

anon at 11:17, 80% of statistics can be made to say anything...50% of the time.

Anonymous said...

"49% of OHL Players end up signing a Pro level Contract

44% Use thier Educational Packages

9 of the Top 10 NA Skaters for the NHL Draft are in the CHL

44 of the Top 60 NA Skaters for the NHL Draft are in the CHL"

How many college players that receive at least a 50% scholarship sign a Pro Level Contract...I bet it is just as high a percentage as the CHL (at least it is for my favorite college team that has dozens of players starring in the pro ranks).

If you go D1...would not 100% of those players "use their educational packages"?

Again, you want to use a small sampling to make some grand deductions, instead of looking at top 10 or top 60 for one year, I did the numbers for you for top 120 for 5 years and it's 38% but do carry on manipulating favorable numbers for you, maybe some of your 56% of Canucks who did not "Use thier Educational Packages" will be impressed with your "data".

Anonymous said...

Chuck,

Those numbers are real, take from them what you want. They are some Hockey DB, off a website, Fed Grad Rate, 1 game in the NHL so they are NHL'ers, or the like.

Anonymous said...

49% Signed a pro contract...

Lets see... Staal's, Kanes, Girardi, Gagner, Wideman, Spezza, Emery, Wellwood, Crosby, and I could go on and on, and yes, they are all different levels of NHL'ers and AHL'ers

I think all of them are quite impressed

Anonymous said...

OHL graduate named Canada’s top male university athlete
Created: Apr 29, 2008
Windsor Spitfires’ graduate Rob Hennigar was named Canada’s top male university athlete of the year at the BLG awards on Monday.

Hennigar, a senior at the University of New Brunswick, was the top scorer in Canadian Interuniversity Sports this season with 15 goals and 43 assists for 58 points in 27 games with the Varsity Reds. He helped the team to its second straight CIS championship tournament appearance, losing in the finals to the University of Alberta.

The 25-year-old from Jordan, ON was chosen ahead of Bishop's football player Jamall Lee of Port Coquitlam, B.C.; Carleton basketball player Aaron Doornekamp of Odessa, ON and Winnipeg volleyball player Ben Schellenberg of Winnipeg.

The fourth-year kinesiology student was previously named CIS men’s hockey player of the year.

"Rob has made a positive, significant difference in the success of our hockey program," UNB coach Gardiner MacDougall told The Canadian Press. “This season he has culminated his excellent four-year career by having his best campaign and leading our team to our best conference schedule ever.

"His competitive personality and strong leadership skills helped the V-Reds win a national championship a year ago and Team Canada win a gold medal at the Winter Universiade."

Hennigar is one of 514 Canadian Hockey League graduates that is playing university hockey this season on scholarship from his CHL club. He signed with the New York Islanders earlier this month.

"As a person and as a player, you grow up going to university and learn a lot of things you didn't know about yourself," Hennigar said. "I learned through the older guys there, we'd had a lot of guys who had come back from pro, and they showed me the ropes and what it was like.

"I don't know if I was ready to go (pro) right out of Windsor, but obviously after you've matured for four years you're a better hockey player and I'm looking forward to the challenge."

The winners of the BLG Awards, established in 1993, are chosen based on athletic accomplishments, sportsmanship, leadership and academic excellence. They're sponsored by the national law firm Borden Ladner Gervais.

Anonymous said...

Maybe it's a "if you can't beat them, join them" mentality.

USNTDP guys are getting sick of watching CHL'ers win gold medals, and are likely to see where all that gold originates.

Anonymous said...

Do college hockey fans frequent CHL blogs?

Hockeys Future lists 4 of the top 5 prospects from the ranks of college hockey (Toews, E Johnson, Turris, Van Riemsdyk), therfore college hockey is vastly superior to CHL for NHL devlopment.

Furthermore, in the last 2 NHL seasons, former collegians like Toews, Cogliano, Gilbert, Erik Johnson, Niskanen, Stasney, Zajac, Carle, Kessel, Pavelski, and Stafford litter the top of rookie scoring leader lists, therefore...again, college hockey must be superior to CHL in devolping NHL talent.


Question for all the friends of college hockey that are knowledgeable about the CHL, when you are considering the virtues of how great the CHL is relative to college hockey, do you consider Euro born players like Voracek, Frolik, Kostitsyn, Hanzal, ect that often have little or no chance of clearing the NCAA guidelines to get into school?

Anonymous said...

kind of hilarious how the pro CHL posters misspell so many words (let me guess, you thought there was only one s in misspell) are you guys "eligable" to post; LOL

Anonymous said...

anon 2:01 PM...too bad kids that pick the CHL and don't end up in the NHL at 20, don't have the added option of attending a US college and playing hockey.

I would think regardless of which side of the CHL/NCAA fence you are on, you would agree that it would be nice if kids had the choice of playing D1 after playing in the CHL. Right now, there is only a one way flow in that a kid that picks college but does not like the particular situation at their college (be it playing time, academics, getting along with a coach, ect) can jump to the CHL, while a kid that goes CHL is cut off from ever looking at college.

Anonymous said...

"Furthermore, in the last 2 NHL seasons, former collegians like Toews, Cogliano, Gilbert, Erik Johnson, Niskanen, Stasney, Zajac, Carle, Kessel, Pavelski, and Stafford litter the top of rookie scoring leader lists, therefore...again, college hockey must be superior to CHL in devolping NHL talent."

Hmmm more number crunching from NCAA grads who majored in "Ojibwe"

Allow me to correct you. This year 3 out of the top 5 rookie scoring leaders were from the CHL compared to only 1 from the NCAA. 11 out of the top 20 were from the CHL compared to only 7 from the NCAA....so clearly the NCAA is inferior!

Anonymous said...

when you did your math...did you include Euros that rarely have any chance of making it past the NCAA clearinghouse?

CHL the only option for talented players that have no abilty to get into US colleges...comparing an apple to an orange again...ehhh.

Anonymous said...

Kane, Meuller and Gagner...three of the top rookies this year, three former CHL players,three North Americans and three players who could have played NCAA hockey but realized they were much too good to do so and opted for the CHL route instead!

Anonymous said...

Don't forget- Kane and Mueller were groomed by the NTDP. so there CHL development was only time creating whine!
Why scrap a NTDP program that has medaled often recently, through sound coaching and development.
Only the best stay to be champions!

Anonymous said...

Kane, Mueller, and Gagner...what an interesting trio to hang your hat on as a proponent of the CHL. As someone else pointed out, the CHL had nothing to do with their draft status as they were drafted right out of the development program.

2 were committed to the NCAA route and one looked to be going that way for quite a while. The Rodent fans have intimated that Mueller was not a great student and more interested in just hockey which the CHL provides an avenue for (I have no idea if this is true or just sour grapes from rodent nation, but at some point if not in this specific case, it certainly gives the CHL a niche with kids not interested in school). Gagner...brilliant move by the Hunters to give the old man a job at a time that the kid was not liking life in Iowa. Good for the CHL...bad for Wisconsin. Kane simply could not get his academics accelerated and his only choices were CHL, or being a mid season college player having to play at a lower level for the first half of the season.

As a few people have already pointed out, the vast majority of these players are either good or not and drafted long before they hit a college campus or the CHL. Does anyone really think Kane, Mueller, and Gagner would not have found their ways to the NHL just as quickly via college? I doubt it, just as much as I doubt Vanek, Turris, Heatley, or Toews would have "developed" faster or better via the CHL. But carry on the chest thumping nonsense, as it does make for good theater.

Do college fans show up on CHL blogs, or is it just an inferiority thing that afflicts CHL fans that feel the need to show up on college hockey blogs? You would think with the great socialized medical system North of the border, that CHL fans could just get a perscription instead of posting trash on college hockey blogs.

Anonymous said...

"Do college hockey fans frequent CHL blogs?"

I think you would be hard pressed to find a CHL based blog that is committed to slamming the NCAA, or, even too worried about the NCAA.

The home base for OHL fans is the "New OHL Open Forum". They don't seem to put much thought into the NCAA.

http://www.thenoof.com/forum/

Anonymous said...

2007 NHL Draft
48.3% Canadian
30.8% U.S.
20.3% Euro.
.5 % Africa (Akim Alou)

doesn't matter where you're from or where you played.

Anonymous said...

" As someone else pointed out, the CHL had nothing to do with their draft status as they were drafted right out of the development program. "

YOU MUST BE AN IDIOT.

Kane, Gagner and Mueller were only drafted into the NHL out of the CHL (OHL or WHL), not out of the NDTP. Kane himself had said that playing with the London Knights (and the way the league is conducted) was a lot more "professional" and was good for his development than playing in the NDTP (which was more loose, disorganized-he said this in the nicest way possible).

You must be thinking of James Van Riemsdyk who was drafted out the NDTP and will most likely turn pro next year, thus, only 1 year of NCAA hockey. (Not finishing his education either!)

Anonymous said...

"44% Use thier Educational Packages"

Please give me a link on where you got that. I heard it's about half that.

Anonymous said...

chuck any american going to the OHL would get a colege ride,hell they get all the players out of the NAHL