OHL General Manager’s Poll

A survey I have done in past seasons is to poll the General Managers of the Ontario Hockey League teams with this: List your top 3 goaltenders, defencemen and forwards and the order they would be selected in the 2016 National Hockey League Draft.

This season I have expanded the survey to include head coaches, goaltending coaches, and directors of scouting as well as assistant general managers.

Players were given 7 points for a first place ranking, 4 points for second place and 1 point for third place. Based on the number of responses received, the maximum points a player could receive are 357 points.

Only one player received unanimous first place votes from all respondents: Sarnia Sting defenceman Jakob Chychrun. Of those 51 respondents, the vast majority, 40, had London Knights defenceman Olli Juolevi as their second choice.

The battle for top goaltender was for all intents and purposes a tie. Dylan Wells of the Peterborough Petes and Evan Cormier of the Saginaw Spirit ended with 24 first place votes apiece. The difference being Cormier received one fewer second place vote and an extra third place vote.

Among the forwards, the London Knights Matthew Tkachuk was the overwhelming favorite receiving 50 of a possible 51 first place votes. Tkachuk didn’t receive a second or third place vote. Now some of you may think that’s a General Manager trying to get a better result for his own player, but consider this: The one vote that went against him went to his London teammate Max Jones.

Compared to polls from previous seasons, the battle for goaltender has never been so tight – there was always a clear cut favorite: MacKenzie Blackwood, Alex Nedeljkovic, Spencer Martin and Malcolm Subban to name a few.

On defence, the only time we’ve had clear choices were Aaron Ekblad and Darnell Nurse. Up front, of course there was Connor McDavid a year ago, but you have to go back to Gabriel Landeskog at the beginning of the 2010-11 season to find an overwhelming favorite.

Here are the results: