Top players, scouts in dark
What would have happened had the Ontario Hockey League not been forced to cancel its season?
It’s a question Brandt Clarke has asked himself over and over again. A top10 prospect in the upcoming NHL Entry Draft, this was supposed to be the biggest year of the 18-year-old’s hockey career. A year when he showed scouts how much he had grown, how much his game had matured, and how ready he was for the next big challenge in the NHL.
Instead, with COVID-19 forcing the OHL to officially shut its doors on Tuesday, it’s been a year like no other for the Barrie Colts defenceman, who has spent almost as much time in quarantine as he has on the ice.
“I don’t want to lie: I expected it,” Brandt, who is in Dallas quarantining for the World Under-18 Hockey Championship, said of the OHL’S decision to forgo the season. “Some guys were holding out hope, but I knew back in March that it wasn’t going to happen. It’s devastating for some that never got to play anywhere.”
Unlike some of his peers, Brandt got to play this year. Just not where he expected.
While other major junior leagues in Canada have operated with limited schedules, Brandt spent the first four months of the season at home in Nepean, Ont., wondering where — and if — he was going to play this season.
But at the end of December, an opportunity arose to play professionally in the Slovak Extraliga. Brandt, along with his brother Graeme, a prospect with the New Jersey Devils, jumped at the chance, leaving for Slovakia on Christmas Day.
“There are some things that upset me about not playing in the OHL, but I’m not upset that I went to Slovakia,” Brandt said of playing for Nove Zamky, where he had six goals and 13 points in 26 games. “I think I did a lot of growing up. I had to do my own laundry, cook my own meals. I think I did pretty good for myself.”
In a league of grown men 10 to 20 years older, Brandt got a glimpse of what life would be like in the NHL. At first, he struggled. But eventually, he learned how to better use his body to spin off checks and improved his footwork into gaining positioning down low.
Brandt wonders how much his draft stock has suffered compared to others, such as Michigan defenceman Owen Power or Sweden’s Simon Edvinsson, who spent the year playing.
“Could I have I been No. 1?” asked Brandt, who led OHL rookie defencemen in points last year. “I’d like to think I would have pushed my way to the top of the draft board. But I don’t know.” Neither do scouts. “There’s a lot of ‘What ifs?’” said OHL commissioner David Branch. “What about those overage players who wanted to showcase their skills for a minor (league) opportunity or to get into a university program? What about those players who were draft eligible, but not at the level that Brandt is? What abut those players who are drafted but not signed?”