Tkachuk, the son of former NHL player Keith Tkachuk, will play for Team Roenick. The 6-1, 195-pound left wing had 38 goals and 96 points in 65 games with the NTDP U-18 team last season. He also had a tournament-high 10 assists in seven games for the U.S. at the 2015 IIHF World U-18 Championship.
Opilka plans to put a miniature version of the cross on his goalie mask when he gets it painted. The symbol reminds him of his roots and of the town he called home until Grade 6 when his family moved two hours west to St. Louis so he could pursue his passion of playing hockey.
“There is no hockey scene in Effingham,” he said. “It was either go to Chicago or St. Louis to play hockey.”
Kitchener is at a crossroads, too. But this one is in the crease.
Forwards Logan Brown and Luke Kirwan will not be in the lineup Thursday when the Windsor Spitfires open the Ontario Hockey League season.
Instead of being at the WFCU Centre for the 7:05 p.m. match with the Erie Otters, Brown and Kirwan will be in Buffalo to compete in the USA Hockey All-American Prospects Game (7 p.m., NHL Network).
“There’s really not any negatives about that,” said Matthew Tkachuk, who plays forward for the Ontario Hockey League’s London Knights alongside Max Jones. “I do hear people comparing, ‘You’re like him,’ or, ‘You don’t play like him,’ and that is kind of a challenge, but overall it’s just been great having a guy like that around, a guy who’s been through it, who knows the game.”
The Corpus Christi IceRays opened their season with a series in Topeka and ended up with a weekend road split. Forward Andy McGlynn, 18, scored in each of the games and had four shots on goal. On Friday, the native of St. Louis, MO, had the IceRays first goal in a 3-1 win.
Hiebert said drafting and then waiting for players like St. Louis, Mo., natives, goalie Luke Opilka and forward Jake Henderson, might’ve been considered risky moves two years ago. But they paid off.
The twosome signed in August and reported to Kitchener to start the season.
The son of former NHL All-Star Keith Tkachuk is about to follow in his father’s footsteps and embark on what many expect to be his own storied career. Matthew Tkachuk is a top 2016 NHL Draft prospect (we ranked him fourth overall in our first 2016 NHL Mock Draft) who is expected to be a top-five draft selection.
Henderson, 18, and from St. Louis, Mo., signed with the Kitchener Rangers in the off-season. “I love hitting but I can also make plays and score goals and be an all around player.”
Tkachuk, a 6-foot, 188-pound left wing, will play for London of the Ontario Hockey League this season. Playing with the NTDP last season, Tkachuk had 38 goals and 96 points in 65 games.
The IceDogs hosted 2014 draft pick Trent Frederic and his parents at the Meridian Centre in an effort to sell the promising forward on what the organization and the Ontario Hockey League has to offer.
