Thursday, December 18, 2008

CHL Announces Rosters for 2009 Home Hardware CHL/NHL Top Prospects Game


Today, the Canadian Hockey League announced the rosters for the 2009 CHL Top Prospects Game. The game is to be played in Oshawa on Wednesday, January 14 of the new year. The rosters are co-selected by the 30 NHL General Managers and the Central Scouting Bureau.

The full rosters and link to the announcement can be found here.

The following OHL players managed to make the cut:

Goaltenders:
Edward Pasquale- Saginaw
Scott Stajcer - Owen Sound

Defense:
Taylor Doherty - Kingston
Ryan Ellis - Windsor
Calvin de Haan - Oshawa

Forwards:
Matt Duchene - Brampton
Ryan O'Reilly - Erie
Peter Holland - Guelph
Michael Latta - Guelph
Taylor Beck - Guelph
John Tavares - Oshawa
Alex Hutchings - Barrie
Zach Kassian - Peterborough
Ethan Werek - Kingston
Nazem Kadri - London

I think that the OHL representatives went pretty much according to plan. The only guy I'm moderately surprised at being included is Alex Hutchings. I like him and have no problem with him being included, however I'm surprised he got the nod over Casey Cizikas, Marcus Foligno, or Andrew Agozzino. Of course, there are likely to be injuries occuring between now and January 14, and this means we could see one of the above guys filling in, or perhaps a defenseman like Jesse Blacker, or a goaltender like Peter DiSalvo.

One thing that I found incredibly interesting, if you were to look at the team distribution, you would notice that Holland, Latta and Beck find themselves on the same team. This means we could end up seeing an all Guelph forward line at the event.

This game always makes for great entertainment, and I'm sure that this year will be no different. For those that can't make it out to Oshawa to catch it live, check it out nationally on Rogers Sportnet.

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