On the eve of the Canadian Hockey League season, Sportsnet magazine polled coaches and executives from every CHL team about their respective leagues. We asked 14 questions covering everything from best overall player to hardest hitter to who will win the scoring title.
In our first installment, we ran down the results for the top forwards, hitters and NHL Draft prospects in each of the three leagues. Today it’s three team-based questions: Which team will surprise the most, top their league and is the favourite to win the MasterCard Memorial Cup.
It looks like our participants know what they’re talking about. After finishing under .500 last season and losing to Erie in Round 1 of the OHL playoffs, the Sting have started 4-2-0 and are sitting third in a West Division that is humming early with a .676 winning percentage through Friday. Jakob Chychrun, who is being touted as a favourite to go No. 2 overall in the 2016 NHL Draft, leads the blueline while the attack is keyed by Nikita Korostelev, who’s on a point-per-game pace through six contests, and Pavel Zacha. Both were 2015 draftees—Korostelev 185th to the Maple Leafs, Zacha sixth to New Jersey.
The Tigres had a 2014-15 season to forget, finishing third last in the Q with a league-worst 275 goals against and being swept in Round 1 by Rimouski. This season, Victoriaville has come out of the gates at 5-5-1-0 and have won three in a row through Friday after waxing Halifax 6-1. The goals against remain an issue, but with No. 3-overall pick and points leader Maxime Comtois and overager Carl Marois leading the attack, the Tigres can score, so if they can shore things up in their own end, look out.
In the Dub, Lethbridge was the league’s second-worst team last season with a 20-44-5-3 reacord. They couldn’t score or keep the opposition from scoring. But this season with an offence led by Brayden Burke and Tyler Wong and Jayden Sittler stopping better than 95 percent of the shots he’s faced, only Brandon and Victoria have a better goal differential to date.
London is a perennial favourite in the O, and with a lineup that has three players projected to be NHL first-rounders next June—Matthew Tkachuk, Max Jones and Olli Juolevi—plus stud draft-eligible goalie Tyler Parsons and returning stars Mitch Marner and Christian Dvorak, it’s no surprise the Knights received the majority of the votes.
Brandon is much the same: talented draft eligibles and loads of depth throughout the roster featuring two of the best 16-year-olds in the league and a ton of NHL draftees, highlighted by D-man Ivan Provorov, who went seventh overall last June. Just check out the Dub’s scoring leaders to see how scary the Wheat Kings offence is.
But it wasn’t so cut and dry in Quebec, where the votes were more spread out. Samuel Girard leads Shawinigan’s group of draft eligibles
and the Cataractes boast three of the top 20 scorers in the league with 2015 NHL first-rounder Anthony Beauvillier back from the New York Islanders and tearing it up as well. Sitting with an 8-2-0-0 record and the No. 2 goal differential in the league, Shawinigan is on track to make the voters look pretty good.
Based on the answers to our second question (and the fact Red Deer wasn’t eligible), there’s no surprise who the Mem Cup favourites were. We asked voters to look across the country for their answers to this one and fully half of them thought the national champion would come out of the WHL. Also interesting, more respondents thought the Niagara IceDogs (2-5-0-0 through Friday) had a better chance to win it all than any team in the QMJHL.
Check back soon for Part 3 of our 2015-16 poll and the answers to best sniper, hands and playmaker in each of the three leagues.
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