It may be the Maritime Hockey League, but players from Newfoundland and Labrador have been making their mark for a long time in the junior A circuit based in New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island.
It’s no different this season, what with Corner Brook native and Amherst Ramblers captain Jordan King sitting second in overall league scoring.
King, who has 47 points (18G, 29A) in just 27 games, recently moved into third place on the Ramblers’ all-time scoring list, a point ahead of St. John’s native Jordan Escott (who also played for the Maritime league’s Weeks Crushers) and behind another St. John’s product, Matthew Squires, who skated for Amherst a decade ago.
The 20-year-old King now also finds himself among the MHL’s top 50 point producers of all time, a list that also includes Newfoundlanders Chris Owens, Andre Gill, Michael Hynes, Andrew Pearcey, Jon Reid, T.J. Smith, Steve Yetman, Squires and Escott.
There are four players from this province among the Maritime league’s top 15 scorers this season, with Matthew Smith (Yarmouth) of St. John’s, Mateo Short (South Shore) of Black Duck Cove and Liam Leonard (Edmundston) of Clarenvlle completing that group.
Leonard, who is averaging almost a point per game for the Blizzard (28 in 29 GP), also was the league’s top rookie scorer entering Friday.
Evan White of St. John’s had been one of the MHL’s top defenders, but he is no longer with the St. Stephen Aces. The 18-year-old White, who had 21 points in 28 games for the Aces, saw his QMJHL rights traded from the Acadie-Bathurst Titan to the Chicoutimi Sagueneens before Christmas, and has been with Chicoutimi ever since.
White is the second 18-year-old rearguard from St. John’s to move from the MHL to QMJHL as a result of a trade this season. Last fall, Ian Smallwood was with the MHL’s South Shore Lumberjacks when the Quebec Remparts sent his rights to the Cape Breton Screaming Eagles, and he’s since become a regular on the Cape Breton blueline.
One last note about Newfoundlanders in the MHL: Mackenzie Janes of St. John’s, who plays with South Shore, owns the second-best goals-against average (2.29) among netminders who have appeared in 10 port more games so far this season.
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It’s proving to be a tough first professional season — at least health-wise — for Chicago Blackhawks prospect Nathan Noel of St. John’s.
The 20-year-old centre missed all of the Blackhawks’ main training camp after suffering a knee injury during a September prospects tournament. He eventually resumed playing with Chicago’s ECHL team, the Indy Fuel, and was having a decent run with the Indianapolis-based Fuel, with four goals and five assist in 17 games. But he hasn’t played since Dec. 27, when he fought Dylan Sawody in a game against the Toledo Walleye.
