A few things came up this week in the OHL regarding the scoring feats of Zayne Parekh and Nick Lardis that made me ponder once again the stupidity that was the Team Canada selection for the World Juniors.
Zayne Parekh, became the first OHL defenceman in 14 years to hit 100 points. He was the #9 pick in the 2024 draft by Calgary He recently went on a heater where he scored an absurd 55 points in 22 games. But nope this defenceman was not good enough for Team Canada.
Nick Lardis, became the first OHL player in 18 years to hit 70 goals. But not good enough to make Team Canada.
Then I looked at the three OHL scoring leaders. Michael Misa, a top 3 pick in this upcoming draft, leads the OHL in scoring by 11 points - not good enough to make Team Canada.
So who is third in OHL scoring behind Misa and Lardis. That would be Liam Greentree, another first round pick in 2024, who was also deemed not good enough to make Team Canada.
So then I decided to look at the WHL Scoring leaders. Andrew Cristall, with 121 points in 52 games (12 more than anybody else). He apparently was not good enough for a team that lacked offence.
So that's a lot of scoring there in Parekh, Lardis, Misa, Greentree, Cristall... but even better yet, beyond those players we didn't pick the 3rd, 4th, 6th or 7th picks in the recent NHL draft. (one was injured)
For a team without the probable two best forwards in the world under 20 (Berard and Celebrini), I'm not sure which dumb bleeps thought a balanced roster would make more sense.
Nope, we decided our #1 PP would be a 16 year old, a forward with 77 points in 50 games (Yager), and Easten Cowan (55 points in 41 games). And then two London D on the PP, so we would have 3 London players on the PP.
End of out of date rant.
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