Neutral-Zone Crap: Who will apply for exceptional player status in Ontario?
With a deadline of Dec. 1 to apply, there are some 14-year-olds with important decisions to make, and there are more of them on the way
Ryan Roobroeck turned 14 just two months ago, but over the next couple of days, he and his family face a potentially life-altering decision. With the deadline for players to apply for exceptional status with Hockey Canada set for next Wednesday, Roobroeck and a number of other ridiculously talented 14-year-olds in Ontario will decide whether or not to put their names forward to join a list of phenoms that include John Tavares, Connor McDavid, Shane Wright and Connor Bedard.
When Hockey Canada established the exceptional player concept in 2005 to allow Tavares to play in the Ontario Hockey League as a 15-year-old, it was designed to designate the truly gifted players who had nothing to gain by continuing to play minor hockey. In the first 17 years, only seven players have attained exceptional status, five of them in Ontario. But the trickle is turning into a flood. The national hockey body has granted exceptional status to players the past two seasons – Wright in 2020 and Bedard in 2021 – and more are coming. In fact, in Ontario alone, speculation is that at least four players will apply for exceptional status this season.
Along with Roobroeck, it’s believed Ethan Weir, his teammate with the London Jr. Knights, will apply. It’s also expected that two teammates with the minor hockey powerhouse Mississauga Senators – Michael Misa and William Moore – will as well. Hockey Canada has never accepted more than one player for exceptional status in a season, but it might have to this year. Roobroeck and Misa are believed to be the leading candidates.
And with good reason. They’re both incredibly talented. Roobroeck, for example, leads the Ontario Hockey Alliance’s Under-16 division in scoring with 14 goals and 29 points in just 13 games, despite being almost two years younger than many of the players in the league.
With two goals and an assist in his team’s first game in the prestigious Silver Stick Tournament in Whitby, Ont., Thursday night, Misa is undoubtedly an elite talent. And both have older brothers currently playing in the OHL. Luke Misa is a 16-year-old rookie with the Mississauga Steelheads and 17-year-old Dylan Roobroeck is in his first season with the Niagara Ice Dogs.
At 6-feet and 180 pounds and growing, Ryan Roobroeck would be physically ready to play in the OHL next season, and those who know him well acknowledge that he’s mature beyond his years. Those two attributes will work in his favor with Hockey Canada. Roobroeck and Weir had both been playing with their own 2007-born age group until this season before making the jump to the Knights under-16 team. “We wanted to get him in the right situation and show people that he was in the right spot playing up a year,” said Knights coach Rob Crowther. “Obviously, we knew he was going to make our team better. I think it was the right decision. He was ready mentally and that was the difference.”
At 5-feet-10 and 160 pounds, Misa is not quite as physically developed as Roobroeck, but he has a dynamic offensive quality that makes it almost impossible to take your eyes off him whenever he’s on the ice. In the Senators’ game against the Thunder Bay Kings Thursday night, in the space of about three seconds, Misa jumped off the bench on a line change, darted to the net and converted a pass on the top of the crease for a tap-in goal. And despite the fact he’s young and slight, he does not shy away from physical play.
“This weekend is a big weekend and if I perform well, I’m definitely considering it,” Misa said of applying for exceptional status. “I love playing a year up because it’s a really physical game and you have to adjust because these guys are big, strong and fast.”
If Roobroeck and Misa both gain exceptional status, the players will get bigger, stronger and faster in a hurry, but there’s ample evidence already to suggest they’ll both be prepared for the challenge.
FUN WITH NUMBERS - SITUATIONAL SCORING
Every other week, we’ll take a look at a stat unique to Hockey Unfiltered. And it has to do with situational scoring. In hockey, there’s an old saying that suggests they don’t ask how, they ask how many. Well around here, we don’t simply ask how many. We want to know how many mattered.
So here’s the bi-weekly update to Hockey Unfiltered’s Situational Scoring Race. And, as the name suggests, it measures situational scoring, specifically which players produce offense at the most crucial times in the game.
As always, there are a couple of things to note, the most important being that goals are weighted more heavily than assists, with goals worth one point and assists worth half a point. In this system, goals can be worth more than one point and assists worth more than a half a point. For example, the first goal of a game is automatically worth two points, one for being the first goal of the game and one for putting that player’s team ahead in a game. An overtime goal is worth three, one for putting the team ahead, one for being the game-winner and one for the overtime goal. If that is the only goal in a 1-0 game, it’s worth four.
It can all be a little confusing, so here’s a glossary:
FIRST: When a player scores the first goal of the game.
AHEAD: Any goal that puts a team ahead at any point in the game, including overtime.
TIED: Any goal that pulls a team into a tie at any point in the game.
COMEBACK: A goal that is scored when a team is trailing by two goals or more and is part of a series of goals that eventually ties the game, regardless of the ultimate outcome of the game.
WINNER: A game-winning goal, but not by the NHL’s definition. The game-winner in this category is the goal that puts a team ahead in a game to stay. So in other words, you could have a 7-6 game and maybe the first goal of the game was the game-winner.
OT: Overtime goal.
SO: Only shootout game-winning goals are counted in this category.
NHL: Where the player stands in the actual NHL scoring race.
Apologies for the way it looks, but this is a one-man operation here and that one man happens to be a luddite.
OLYMPIC UNCERTAINTY BEHIND APPOINTMENTS
The fact that Hockey Canada has put together the management team and coaching staff it has for the upcoming Channel One Cup and Spengler Cup tournaments is a clear indication that it is hoping for the best and preparing for the worst when it comes to NHL participation and the Olympics.
Because if that participation is pulled because of the disruption caused by COVID to the NHL schedule, the coaching staff of head coach Claude Julien and assistants Bruce Boudreau and Scott Walker will be at the helm for the Games in Beijing. With several teams being short-staffed at the NHL level because of the pandemic, that possibility is concerning. And Canada will have to be ready with players, chosen primarily by GM Shane Doan and assistant GM Blair Mackasey.
“I think that’s a big part of it,” Doan said. “I think if you look at it, it’s almost redundant to say, but Hockey Canada is as prepared as anyone to go to every tournament in every situation. We are overly redundant in our preparation for things and that’s because we take so much pride in it. I’m not saying we know anything or that there’s any more of a chance, but it would go against the culture of Hockey Canada to not be prepared if the NHL doesn’t go.”
Doan said the Channel One Cup (formerly the Izvestia Tournament), will be made up of players from the KHL and the DEL in Germany, while the Spengler Cup will be comprised primarily of Canadian-born players playing in Switzerland. The Channel One tournament is scheduled for Moscow from Dec. 15 through 19, and the Spengler is slated for Davos, Switz., from Dec. 26-31.
Should the call come for players in Europe, Canada will be well prepared. Corban Knight, Curtis Valk, Philippe Maillet, Daniel Audette, Ryan Spooner and Brooks Macek are all top-25 scorers in the KHL, while Jesse Blacker and Darren Dietz are top defensemen in that league. Chris DeSouza and Kristopher Foucault are the top two scorers in the DEL and Jesse Graham leads all defensemen in scoring. Alexandre Grenier and Chris DiDomenico are among the top 10 scorers in Switzerland. You may not be familiar with any of them at the moment, but they could become household names in February.
But there are also some other intriguing names out there for Canada to pursue. Eric Staal, Brandon Pirri and Patrick Marleau are still without NHL contracts, as is defenseman Jason Demers and goalie Devan Dubnyk. Might Hockey Canada be able to get them? And if they are looking for a goalie, there might not be any better choice than 26-year-old Zach Fucale, who has played and won for Canada in the Spengler Cup in the past and recently recorded a shutout in his NHL debut for the Washington Capitals. Last year at the World Championship, Canada took Winnipeg Jets 2020 first-rounder Cole Perfetti and won a gold medal. Perfetti is currently playing for the Manitoba Moose in the American Hockey League. Quinton Byfield, who fractured his ankle in the pre-season and hasn’t played yet this season, could be another intriguing possibility.
“We’re going to take the best players we can get to come,” Doan said. “You only put the Canadian sweater on to win, right? If we go there, we’re going there to win.
NOT DRAFTED IN JUNIOR? DON’T GIVE UP
Speaking of Shane Doan and, previously, of junior hockey drafts, here’s an interesting little nugget that should provide some inspiration for young players who get passed over early in their careers. What do Doan, Jarome Iginla, Darcy Tucker, Jason Strudwick and Jason Holland all have in common? None of them was drafted in the Western Hockey League’s bantam draft and not only did all of them go on to play, they won 11 Memorial Cups among them as teammates with the Kamloops Blazers in the early 1990s – Tucker won three and the other four won two. They also all went on to have careers in the NHL. Doan and Iginla are still part of the Blazers’ ownership group.
“The only reason they saw me was they were watching Darcy,” Doan said. “And I was a year younger and a late birthday. Darcy and I played against each other growing up and we played one year together. My hometown (Castor, Alta.) has 75 people and his (Byemoor/Endiang) had about the same. And we both grew up on farms about 15 minutes from each of those towns. The guy who found us all was a guy by the name of Warren Renden and he still works for the Blazers. He’s an awesome, awesome guy.”
As expected, the affable Doan is full of great stories, one of them about the high school team for which he played in Castor. “The name of the team was the Castor Raiders,” Doan said. “We were the Castor Raiders (said quickly it sounds like castraters). Welcome to central Alberta. Everybody’s careful when they play the Castor Raiders.”
DRIBS AND DRABS
Spent Thursday night with TSN director of scouting Craig Button at the Gloria Rints Memorial International Silver Stick Tournament in Whitby, Ont. If you love hockey, I mean really love hockey, and you’re looking for something to do, simply go down to the local rink and watch the kids play. It’s entertaining and cheap, free in most parts of Canada and the U.S., and you’ll be amazed at the things some of these young people can do on the ice…Also had some great conversation with former NHLer and current Sportsnet analyst Anthony Stewart, who is coaching the Toronto Red Wings under-16 team. He’s doing some amazing things when it comes to diversity in minor hockey…I originally thought the idea was ridiculous, but there is a possibility Zach Hyman could be the 13th or 14th forward for Canada’s Olympic team. I probably wouldn’t pick him, but I can see the logic behind it…There’s a good chance Canada will be without Seth Jarvis, Cole Sillinger, Jamie Drysdale, Quinton Byfield and Cole Perfetti for the World Junior Championship. But the first person who uses that as an excuse gets a punch in the throat. Canada makes up for those absences with the most massive player pool in the world. Injuries or the NHL should never, ever be used as an excuse for Canada in this tournament…Love the New Jersey Devils third sweater. Love it. And even though it has ‘Jersey’ emblazoned across the front, it’s a sweater, not a jersey. Always has been, always will be…Anaheim Ducks 2021 first-rounder and third-overall pick Mason McTavish had a hat trick in his first game back with the Peterborough Petes Thursday night.
“And despite the face he’s young and slight…”
the face? the fact
Great stuff Ken but proof reading is a must.
Thanks for your great insights. Brian