Dogs hope history repeats itself at QMJHL draft lottery
Saint John has 4.8 per cent chance of winning QMJHL draft lottery slated for Thursday at 7:30 p.m.
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The next big event for New Brunswick teams in the QMJHL happens in early June when the Moncton Wildcats host the annual entry draft at the Avenir Centre.
The final order for that draft will be determined Thursday evening with the draft lottery and the Saint John Sea Dogs are one of four organizations that have an opportunity to land the top pick.
The odds are long for Saint John, which will be represented by general manager Anthony Stella at the event. It gets underway Thursday at 7:30 p.m. and will be broadcast on RDS.
The Dogs have one ball in the lottery of 21 balls, which they gained by acquiring Gatineau’s (14th place overall) first-round pick in a trade for Cam MacDonald in 2022. Their own pick (16th overall) has the third best odds but that was dealt to Cape Breton in the lead up to the Memorial Cup in January 2022.
With slightly less than five per cent odds in favour of landing the top pick, the old saying of “so you say there is a chance,” arises. But the Sea Dogs were in the same position in 2019 with one ball of 21 but they won that lottery and selected Joshua Roy with the No. 1 pick overall in a stacked draft class.
“With one ball (in the lottery), you shouldn’t win, but here we are,” said Trevor Georgie of the Dogs who was GM at the time.
The top five players in the draft that year were 1. Roy, 2. Justin Robidas (Val d’Or), 3. Zachary L’Heureux (Moncton), 4. Zachary Dean (Gatineau) and 5. Olivier Nadeau (Shawinigan).
Others in the early part of that draft included 6. Evan Nause of Riverview (Val d’Or), 11. Riley Kidney (Acadie-Bathurst), 15. Jacob Melanson (Quebec), 16. Cole Huckins of Fredericton (Acadie-Bathurst) and 18. Oscar Plandowski (Chicoutimi).
Val d’Or has the best odds at 71 per cent by virtue of their last place performance and then a trade with Quebec to acquire their top pick. Quebec finished 17th. Cape Breton is next at 14 per cent and Quebec follows at 10 per cent as they acquired a pick from 15th place Charlottetown.
Caleb Desnoyers of the Moncton Wildcats was the top pick in 2023.
World U18s
Plenty of eyes will be on the World U18 men’s hockey championship that begins on Thursday when Canada faces Sweden at 1 p.m. in preliminary round action in Finland.
Desnoyers (Moncton) and Riverview defenceman Spencer Gill (Rimouski) are on the Canadian team, which is pooled with Czechia, Switzerland and Kazakhstan and went 2-0 in pre-event play.
Gardiner MacDougall (University of New Brunswick) is the head coach, Travis Crickard (Sea Dogs) is an assistant and Saint John’s Kevin Elliott (Hockey Canada) is the athletic therapist.
The opening test is significant as Sweden blasted Canada 8-0 and 7-2 in a pair of games last year.
All the Canadian games will be aired on TSN and RDS.
Telus Cup
One of the final evaluation sessions for GMs and scouts prepping for the draft is taking place this week in Membertou, N.S., with the 2024 Telus Cup.
On Thursday, the Kensington Wild Atlantic Champions will face the Magog Cantonniers in preliminary round action. Acadie-Bathurst prospect Ethan Dickson, a five-foot-nine centre with the Wild, scored four times and added an assist in his first two games, continuing on his season where he led the NB/PEI Major U18 league in scoring.
He was drafted by the Titan in the 13th round (234th overall) of the 2022 draft and is flourishing in his 17-year-old campaign with 75 points in 31 regular season contests and then 14 more in five games in winning the Atlantic title.
On the other bench is Kyan Labbe, the Sea Dogs fourth rounder in last year’s draft, who was the playoff MVP of the Quebec U18 AA loop. Labbe, son of AHL Hall of Famer Jean-Francois Labbe who played 15 NHL games, has committed to Union College in the NCAA Division 1 next year.
In his first two games of the Telus Cup, he allowed just two goals and has a save percentage of .964 after a playoff MVP award in the Quebec U18 AAA post-season.
Friendly face
Drummondville forward Noah Reinhart, who played 101 games the past two seasons (31-45-76) with the Sea Dogs, says it was a little weird but nice to play at TD Station in the opening round of the playoffs after a Christmas deal landed him with a championship contender.
“It was a little bittersweet,” he said of the four-game Drummondville sweep. “It was really nice to win but I have a lot of friends on that team who I might not see again. So (in the handshake line) I made sure to take some time with everyone.”
Reinhart, who made the Dogs on a free agent tryout in September 2022, recorded 29 points in 30 games with the Voltigeurs in the regular season and added nine in 10 playoff games, including four points in a clinching series win over Sherbrooke last weekend.
“It was just getting to know the players and learning how they play,” Reinhart said of his regular duty with Saint John native Sam Oliver and Peter Repcik. “Once we got some chemistry going, I found it easy to click.”
Drummondville will be favoured in the league semifinal against Victoriaville but not by much and principally on its regular season mark of 48-14-5-1, which was 11 points ahead of Victoriaville in the regular season.
The series starts Friday in Drummondville.
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