OHL SEASON PREVIEW

Hello. For those of you who do not know me, my name is Jordan Bean and I help out as a scout for the Guelph Storm of the Ontario Hockey League. As well, I am working on completing a Sport Management degree at Brock University in St. Catharines, Ontario. I recently was transferred over as a staff writer at sabrenoise.com to join the team here at Frozen Futures as an OHL staff writer, and am really looking forward to the opportunity. If any of my followers ever have any questions about the OHL, or any of my articles for that matter, I’m always happy to answer e-mails at bean_8@msn.com, tweets @jords82, or comments on my posts.

Enough about me! With the NHL Lockout in effect, the OHL promises to garner a lot of extra attention. I’m looking forward to seeing how the results differ from last year, as every year rosters shake up much differently, due to the obvious fact of the OHL, that is graduating players and incoming prospects.

Below I have published my season prognostications, which does not look all that different from last year’s results. This is largely due to the fact fewer players will graduate to the pro’s because of the NHL Lockout. This week I have completed my Western Conference predictions, and promise to do the same for the Eastern Conference in my next article.

1. (LY: 3) Kitchener Rangers: A team that is always competitive, the Kitchener Rangers are the team to beat in the Western Conference this year. With their only notable losses being Mike Catenacci, and Cody Sol, Kitchener is primed for another great season. If the several top NHL forward prospects (Puempel, Faksa, Marcantuoni, Rieder), one top NHL defensive prospect (Murphy), and one of the top goaltending talents in the league in John Gibson continue their steady upward trend toward the NHL, I can’t see many OHL teams challenging them for a Memorial Cup appearance.

2. (LY: 2) Plymouth Whalers:  The losses of Bathgate, Beau Schmitz (Carolina), Jamie Devane (Toronto), and Austin Levi (Carolina) will forfeit a total of 192 points from last season. The loss of New Jersey goaltending prospect and Whaler starting goalie last season, Scott Wedgewood, will not help either. On the bright side, I don’t know if the Whaler offence will miss these players as much as people think. With Stefan Noeson, JT Miller, being two prized NHL prospects, with a strong supporting cast in Rakell, Aleardi, Heard, Meurs, and continued development from Tom Wilson, offence is the least of this team’s worries. A shaky D corps will surely have help behind them with Mahalak in net. All of this could mean a deep playoff run for the Whalers.

3. (LY: 1) London Knights: As is the sad reality of the OHL, great players don’t last forever, and the Knights will surely feel this burden. Four of their top five scorers in Greg McKegg (Toronto), Vladislav Namestnikov (Tampa Bay), Austin Watson (Nashville), and Jared Knight (Boston), have all departed. Not to even mention Detroit prospect Andreas Athanasiou. But before you start feeling bad for the defending OHL champions, keep in mind this is the London Knights we are talking about, and they always have a good team because they draft so well. With a total of six NHL prospects, and several promising 2013 eligible draftees that include Max Domi, there is no shortage of talent on this team. This speaks to the strength and planning of the London Knight scouting department. An 8-2 shellacking in there opening game against the Erie Otters is evidence of this.

4. ( LY: 7) Guelph Storm: Say what you will about my affiliation with this team and the perceived bias that comes with it, but as an objective observer this would be my sleeper pick in the Western Conference. Still a year away before they climax as a group, GM Mike Kelly has assembled an impressive young core, who resemble a mixture of talent, speed, and personality. There key losses only being overagers Francis Menard, Stephen Gaskin, and Brandon Foote, the Storm don’t have any superstars on the team but they are built upon character and leadership (Richard, Garlent, Mitchell, McGinn, Kosmachuk, Dickinson, Pedan, and Finn), and will rely on a balanced scoring attack. Lots of minutes will be eaten up by Finn and Pedan, and look for Toronto draftee Garret Sparks to receive the brunt of the workload.

5. (LY: 6) Owen Sound Attack: Many similarities may be drawn between the Attack and the Spirit. For one, Dan Catenacci (Buffalo), Gemel Smith (Dallas), Jarrod Maidens (Ottawa), and Cameron Brace round out another solid unit of pivots. Like Saginaw, they lost there star forward in Mike Halmo, and there defence is below average. But with a more experienced goalie, and a little more depth at every position, they will finish ahead of Saginaw.

6. (LY: 5) Saginaw Spirit: The loss of there superstar, Brandon Saad, was nothing short of devastating for the Spirit. As much as it hurts there depth on the wing, Saginaw is loaded at Centre with Trocheck, Locke, and Kea. Detroit goalie prospect, Jake Paterson, will buoy the back-end. At the end of the equation, Saginaw remains a solid hockey club, but point totals will likely stay fairly stagnant for the foreseeable future.

7. (LY: 8) Windsor Spitfires: It was tough to lose Khokhlachev (Boston), but the Spitfires still have superstar 18-year old, Kerby Rychel, expected to be a top 10 pick in this year’s NHL Entry Draft, who will improve, and the upward trend is also expected with fellow 18-year olds Brady Vail (Montreal), Chris Marchese, Michael Clarke (Colorado), Ben Johnson (New Jersey), Patrick Sieloff (Calgary), and Nick Ebert (LA). They also brought in there top prospect, Josh Ho-Sang. This team is good enough to make the playoffs, but next year is more realistic if they are looking to put themselves in the Memorial Cup chat.

8. (LY: 4) Sarnia Sting: Although this team finished a stellar 34-27-7 and 4th place finish in the West without their top two players (Alex Galchenyuk (Montreal), Nail Yakupov (Edmonton)) for a large majority of the year, I just can’t see a repeat of it. I do still believe they will make the playoffs, largely because a healthy Alex Galchenyuk is sticking around, but Yakupov, Spooner (Boston), Thompson, Brown, Rensfeldt, and Robertson are all gone. Buoyed by the fact these players have been replaced by largely unproven commodities, the team will now enter a rebuild. Although there back-end does have some encouraging prospects already in the pipeline and ready to step in, and San Jose Shark goalie pick, JP Anderson is as good as any OHL net minder.

9. (LY: 9) Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds: This is going to be a great hockey team in a couple of years. I really like what GM Kyle Dubas has done with them. They are still in a rebuild mode though, and Matt Murray, a Pittsburgh draftee, is really going to have to step it up if he is going to fill the void left by star goalie, Jack Campbell. With one star up front in Nick Cousins (Philadelphia), and one on the back-end in Ryan Sproul (Detroit), this team could still make a push for the playoffs if the right cards fall into place.

10. (LY: 10) Erie Otters: The long and painful project that is the Erie Otters is better, but not enough to take a significant enough hike from there 10 wins in 68 games fiasco last season. They drafted the next superstar in 15-year old Connor McDavid which will surely help, and signed 18-year old Oskar Dansk (Columbus) from the 2012 gold medal winning Swedish Junior Team, which can’t hurt either. But despite having made those additions to the team, they are still a long way from getting back into contention.

January 9, 2011; Brampton, ON, CANADA; Kitchener Rangers defenceman Ryan Murphy (24) carries the puck against the Brampton Battalion at the Powerade Centre. Mandatory Credit: John E. Sokolowski-US PRESSWIRE