Two hockey players of color on both sides of the border are rolling like the water down the Falls – playing some of the best hockey in their league and their conference.
Akil Thomas, a rookie center for the Niagara Ice Dogs of the Ontario Hockey League, enjoyed a 5-point game – 1 goal and 4 assists – en route to a Niagara 7-1 win against the North Bay Battalion on Sunday.
Niagara IceDogs center Akil Thomas posted a 5-point night Sunday and is second among Ontario Hockey League rookies in scoring (Photo/Terry Wilson/OHL Images).
The performance upped the Florida-born Thomas to 21 goals and 26 assists in 58 games for the IceDogs. He’s second-leading scorer among OHL rookies, the IceDogs’s fourth-leading scorer, and the major junior hockey league’s 81st best scorer.
Thomas, 17, hails from a hockey family: His father, Khalil Thomas, was a career minor league player. His uncle, Leo Thomas,retired last year as a player for the ECHL’sFort Wayne Cometsand is an assistant coach for the Macon Mayhem of the Southern ProfessionalHockey League.
Akil Thomas’ dad and mother, Akilah Thomas, are owners of the Oshawa RiverKingsof Canada’s Greater Metro Junior A Hockey League.
While Akil Thomas is on a roll in Canada, Charles Williams is in the flow stopping pucks across the border for Cansius College in Buffalo, New York.
Williams’ strong play over the weekend powered the Golden Griffins past Upstate New York rival Niagara University and helped the team advance to the Atlantic Hockey conference semifinals.
Canisius College goalie Charles Williams beat Niagara University 3-0 and 2-1 over the weekend, advancing the Golden Griffins to the Atlantic Hockey Tournament semifinals.
Williams earned a 3-0 victory against NU’s Purple Eagles on Friday and a 2-1 win on Saturday. The wins extended Canisius’ unbeaten streak to 17 games, dating back to January.
A Canton, Michigan native, Williams is a nominee for the Hobey Baker Award, given annually to the top NCAA men’s hockey player. He’s also a semifinalist for the Mike Richter Award, presented to the best goaltender in NCAA Division I hockey.
Williams, a fifth-year transfer from Ferris State University, posted a 15-6-4 regular season record. He led all NCAA Division I goaltenders with a .944 save percentage and was tied for first with 5 shutouts. He was second among D-I goalies with a 1.83 goals-against average.
Akil Thomas has gone to the dogs – the Niagara IceDogs.
The 16-year-old forward for the minor midget Toronto Marlboros was chosen by the major junior hockey IceDogs in the first round with the 12th overall pick in Saturday’s Ontario Hockey LeaguePriority Selection draft.
“It’s the best day of my life right now,” Akiltold me Saturday. “It’s a great team that’s doing well this year. They have a lot of guys leaving so it will give me a good opportunity to step in and get some ice time and play for a great organization.”
Akil, a Brandon, Florida, native, tallied 33 goals and 39 assists in 56 games for the Marlies in the 2015-16 season. He helped power the Marlies to the finals of the OHL Cup Showcase tournament last month.
The team lost to the York-Simcoe Express 2-1 in double-overtime. But Akil led the tournament in scoring with 6 goals and 7 assists in seven games and was named to the Gatorade OHL Cup All-Star Team.
“We’re excited to get him, IceDogs General Manager/Head Coach MartyWilliamson told The St. Catharines Standard. “We really had him going in front of us. He was a pretty easy pick for us sitting there at 12… I really liked him. I thought in the OHL Cup he really put his team on his back.”
Still, Akil was surprised that he was drafted so high because he’s also weighing offers to play NCAA Division I hockey. Several schools, including Arizona State University, the University of New Hampshire, Boston University, Penn State University, University of Michigan, and the University of Maine have inquired about him, his family said.
Both the NCAA college hockey and major junior hockey routes are high-profile stepping stones to reaching the National Hockey League, Akil’s ultimate goal.
“I hadn’t made up my mind whether I was going to go NCAA or OHL and usually teams want to know 100 percent if they’re going to take a first-rounder,” Akil told me.
The IceDogs began heavily wooing Akil Saturday. The young forward and his family met withWilliamson and some of the team’s players, including forward Josh Ho-Sang, a New York Islanders 2014 first-round draft pick. The team even gave Akil some of Ho-Sang’s sticks.
IceDogs’ Josh Ho-Sang, a N.Y. Islanders draft pick, met Akil Thomas after OHL draft.
Ho-Sang, 20, is in his final season with the IceDogs. Depending on how he does in training camp in September, he could wind up in Brooklyn with the Islanders or skating for the team’s American Hockey League farm team, the Bridgeport Sound Tigersinthe 2016-17 season.
“Our whole family met with him today,” Akil said of Ho-Sang, who also played minor midget hockey for the Marlies. “It was cool that I got to meet him. It’s kind of cool that maybe I could fill his shoes someday, if I were to play for the IceDogs.”
The IceDogs also drafted Akil’s best friend and Marlies teammate, defenseman Pierre-Luc Cote Forget, in the ninth round.
Akil comes from solid hockey stock. His father, Kahlil Thomas, was a right wing who played in 828 pro games for 13 teams in nine leagues in three countries from 1996 to 2008.
Thomas and his wife, Akilah, own the Oshawa RiverKingsof the Greater Metro Junior A Hockey League. Akil’s uncle, Leo Thomas, is a forward who split time this season between the MississippiRiverKings of the Southern Professional Hockey League and the ECHL’sFort WayneKomets.
Akil Thomas attended a different type of day care when he was little.
“At 2-3 years old, Akil used to come with me to every practice almost every day,” Kahlil Thomas, a retired minor league hockey player told me recently. “He was too young to go to a day care center. Our trainer didn’t mind when he came because he would just sit there for the whole hour and a half, except to go to the wash room, and watch practice up and down. That was his day care.”
When the Memphis RiverKings practices were over, young Akil would get on the ice and have practice sessions with his dad.
“I really don’t get enough of hockey,” Akil, now 16, told me. “You’ll see me after practice in my driveway, stick handling or something. My mind shifts to hockey 24/7.”
Saturday, Akil’s attention will shift to the Ontario Hockey League’s Priority Selection draft,where the high-scoring forward is projected to be a top pick.
Then there’s also the NCAA Division I college route, taken by NHLers like Jack Eichel, the Buffalo Sabres rookie forward, and Toronto Maple Leafs wing James van Riemsdyk. Several schools, including Arizona State University, the University of New Hampshire, Boston University, Penn State University, University of Michigan, and the University of Maine have inquired about Akil, his family said.
Akil Thomas of the Toronto Marlies hopes to make his way up the hockey ladder and be drafted by an Ontario Hockey League team. (Photo/Aaron Bell/OHL Images).
His stock has risen since his performance in last month’s OHL Cup Showcase tournament. He helped lead the minor midget hockey TorontoMarlboros to the finals against the York-Simcoe Express.
The Marlies lost the championship game 2-1 in double-overtime. But Akil led the tournament in scoring with 6 goals and 7 assists in seven games and was named to the Gatorade OHL Cup All-Star Team.
He posted 33 goals and 39 assists in 56 games last season for the Marlies.
“Akil, at his age, is a much better player than I was at his age,” said Kahlil, a right wing who played 828 games for 13 teams in nine leagues in three countries from 1996 to 2008. “He’s definitely going to go far. He definitely had more skill than I ever had.”
Akil says he’s patterned his game after his father’s, except that dad helped “make me a bit better than him.”
“I gave him pointers here and there, but I stress hard work more than anything,” Kahlil said. “Hard work can trump any politics in front of you any day – whether it’s the color of your skin, the politics with who knows who, who’s the sons of this or that.”
Akil Thomas’ family moved from Florida to Toronto to expose him to tougher competition (Photo/ Aaron Bell/OHL Images).
Akil began playing organized hockey in the United States. Scouts began noticing him after he helped lead a Florida AAA youth hockey team to a championship in Philadelphia in 2008 when he was eight years old.
As his game improved, Akil and his family faced a dilemma that most talented hockey players in Florida confront – whether to stay in the Sunshine State and be a big fish in a small frozen pond or relocateto where there’s a larger pool of competitive players to push you.
Hockey is the Thomas family passion – and business. Bottom left to right, Kahlia Rae, 19; Akyn Zion, 8; Kayah Sol, 10; Akil, 16. Top row, mother Akliah; Kayjah, 5; father Kahlil.
In 2011, the family packed their bags for Toronto – where Kahlil grew up – so Akil could play prep school hockey at Upper Canada College. This season, he skated for St. Michael’s College School and the Marlies.
“The toughest decision of my life,” recalled mother Akilah Thomas, who grew up in Silver Spring, Md.,and accompanied her husband on his hockey sojourn. “I’m such an American and we lived in the South. We moved from the sunshine to the snow.”
“The first year was extremely hard, but everything fell into place,” she continued. “I finally gave up thinking ‘Florida, Florida, Florida’ and just gave it my all and adjusted my mindset. This is where we need to be now – so suck it up, mamma!”
Kahlil doesn’t remember the decision to move being that difficult because “we were coming home to family, to a city that we knew.”
However, he confesses that “now I want to go back.”
“I miss Florida,” he said.
But Florida will have to wait. There’s just too much hockey going on. To say the Thomas household is a hockey household is an understatement. In addition to Kahlil’s hockey exploits and Akil’s budding career, Leo Thomas – Kahlil’s brother and Akil’s uncle – is wrapping up his playing career, splitting time this season between the Southern Professional Hockey League’sMississippi RiverKings and the ECHL’sFort Wayne Komets.
Forward Leo Thomas, Akil Thomas’ uncle, split the 2015-16 hockey season between the SPHL’s Mississippi RiverKings and…
the Fort Wayne Komets of the ECHL. This is Thomas’ 14th, and possibly, final season.
“To go out on top, to win a championship would be the ultimate goal,” Leo told me. “Afterward, I would love to get into some coaching, definitely do something in hockey. I’ve been playing this game since I was four years old. All us Thomas guys are lifers.”
Maybe he can work with his brother. Kahlil and Akilah became hockey team owners last year when they purchased the Oshawa RiverKings of the Greater Metro Junior A Hockey League with close friend and former hockey player Dave Nicholls.
Kahlil is general manager and head coach for the franchise. Akilah is the team’s sales and marketing manager.
“I just want to help kids who are late-developers or are overlooked” by major junior teams and college hockey programs, he told me.
Auston Matthews leads the Maple Leafs to the playoffs in his rookie year.
And players of color are in the thick of all these events. Of the 16 teams in the opening round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs, all but four – the Boston Bruins, OttawaSenators, Calgary Flames and Anaheim Ducks – have minority players.
And two of those teams have minority coaches. Sudarshan Maharaj, a Trinidadian raised in Toronto, is the goaltender coach for the Ducks and Paul Jerrard is an assistant coach for the Flames.
So who is playing in what series? Washington Capitals vs. Toronto Maple Leafs: forward T.J. OshieforWashington. ForwardsAuston MatthewsandNazem Kadri for the Leafs.
Pittsburgh Penguins vs. Columbus Blue Jackets: defenseman Trevor Daley for the Penguins. Defenseman Seth Jones and forward Brandon Saad for the Blue Jackets.
Chicago Blackhawks vs. Nashville Predators: Defenseman Johnny Oduya for Chicago. Defenseman P.K. Subbanskates for the Preds.
While NHLers battle for the Stanley Cup, teenagers from 10 North American and European nations are fighting for international bragging rights at the IIHF U18 World Championship.
Akil Thomas, a rookie forward with the Niagara Ice Dogs, is playing for Canada. The son of a Canadian career minor league hockey player and a mother from suburban Washington, D.C., Thomas had 21 goals and 27 assists in 61 games for the Ontario Hockey League team.
Forward Akil Thomas joined Team Canada for the IIHF U18 World Championship after his strong rookie season with the OHL’s Niagara Ice Dogs (Photo/Matthew Murnaghan/Hockey Canada Images).
He’s joined on Team Canada’s by another major junior rookie, defenseman Jett Woo of the Western Hockey League’s Moose Jaw Warriors. Woo collected 5 goals and 17 assists in 65 games with the Warriors.
Moose Jaw Warriors defenseman Jett Woo has been making waves at the IIHF U18 World championship with his solid play (Photo/ Matthew Murnaghan/Hockey Canada Images).
The 6-foot-2 NHL draft-eligible defenseman skates for the USA Hockey National Team DevelopmentProgram and is ranked as the 68th-best North American skater by the NHL’s Central Scouting.
Inamoto tallied 2 goals and 9 assists in 42 games for the U.S.’s Under-18 team in 2016-17. He had 2 goals and 5 assists in 17 games for Team USA in the United States Hockey League.
If Inamoto is drafted, the NHL will have to wait. He’s committed to play hockey in the fall for the University of Wisconsin Badgers.
“Inamoto is a predator,” Badgers Head Coach Tony Granato said in November. “He is a physical, hungry, intimidating player. He is a great athlete. He’s big, strong, and has a mean streak…He’ll be a physical impact player right away next year. He’s strong enough already to play a physical game at the college level.”
USA defenseman Tyler Inamoto is ranked as the 68th best draft-eligible North American skater by NHL Central Scouting (Photo/Len Redkoles).
While the Under-18 championship is going on, 16 countries are finalizing their rosters for next month’s IIHF World Championship, a tourney that will feature some NHL players whose teams didn’t make the Stanley Cup Playoffs or were eliminated in the early rounds.
Team Canada quickly snapped up forward Wayne Simmonds, who led the Philadelphia Flyers‘ in goals with 31 in 82 games.
Team USA named Boston University massive forward Jordan Greenway to its squad. Greenway, a 2015 Wild second-round draft choice, was a 6-foot-5, 230-pound force in January, powering the U.S. to a Gold Medal at the 2017 IIHF World Junior Championship in Toronto and Montreal.
Greenway scored three goals and five assists in seven games for the U.S. and was the team’s second-leading scorer. Two of his three goals were game-winners. He was BU’s fifth-leading scorer in 2016-17 with 10 goals and 21 assists in 37 games for the Terriers.
Despite his impressive season, Greenway has elected to return to BU for his junior year instead of trying to make the leap to the NHL.
“I have a great time here with my teammates, and BU has just been great to me,” Greenway told Boston Hockey Blog’s Jonathan Sigal. “I want to win a couple more championships here, so definitely one more year is what I’m going to do.”
I haven’t seen co-host country France’s roster yet for the Worlds, but you can bet that it will include Flyers forward Pierre Edouard Bellemare, who has become one of the best French-born players to skate in the NHL.
Pierre Edouard Bellemare is pumped about World Championship being in his home country, France.
A late bloomer, the 32-year-old defensive specialist tallied 4 goals and 4 assists in 82 games. The Flyers liked Bellemare’s grit and grace enough that they re-signed him for two years at $1.45 million per year and added him to the team’s leadership, making him an assistant team captain.
He’s as pumped about the prospect of playing in his home country during the World Championship as he was getting the new contract and the ‘A’ from the Flyers. France, whose men’s team is ranked 14th in the world, opens the tournament May 6against Norway in Paris.
“I think it’s going to be incredible,” Bellemare, a member of the French national team since 2004, told IIHF’s Lucas Akryod. “It is the first Worlds in France. I hope we will get a lot of fans for all the games, and that hockey will continue to develop in France.
And let’s not forget women’s international hockey. USA Hockey recently invited 42 players – including all 23 members of the 2017 Gold Medal-winning world championship team – for a selection camp April 30 to May 4 in suburban Tampa, Florida.
Kelsey Koelzer (Photo/Nancie Battaglia)
The camp is a prelude to developing a final U.S. a roster for the 2018 Winter Games in PyeyongChang, South Korea.
Kelsey Koelzer, a senior defenseman for Princeton University and the 2016 first overall pick of the
Hockey’s busy spring rolls into summer when the brain trusts from the NHL’s 30 teams convene inside Chicago’s United Center for the draft June 23-24.
The NHL’s Central Scouting released its final player rankings earlier this month and there are several players of color to watch in addition to Inamoto.
There’s Nick Suzuki, a 5-foot-10 center for the OHL’s Owen Sound Attack. Central Scouting ranks the London, Ontario, Canada native as the 10th-best North American skater. He was the Attack’s second-leading scorer with 45 goals and 51 assists in 65 games.
Owen Sound’s Nick Suzuki is ranked as the 10th-best North American skater eligible for the 2017 NHL Draft (Photo/Terry Wilson/OHL Images).
Then there’s Jason Robertson, a 6-foot-2 left wing for the OHL’s Kingston Frontenacs. Central Scouting ranks the Michigan native as the 14th-best North American skater. He led the Frontenacs in scoring in 2016-17 with 42 goals and 39 assists in 68 games.
Kingston Frontenacs left wing Jason Robertson jumped from 34th in NHL Central Scouting’s midterm rankings to 14th in its final listing before June’s NHL Draft (Photo/Aaron Bell/OHL Images).
Pierre-Olivier Joseph, a defenseman for the Charlottetown Islanders of the QuebecMajor Junior Hockey League. He’sranked as the 27th-best North American skater by Central Scouting.
The 6-foot-2, 161-pound 18-year-old notched 6 goals and 33 assists in 62 games for the Charlottetown.
Joseph is the younger brother of forward Mathieu Joseph, a sniper for the QMJHL’s Saint John Sea Dogs and a 2015 fourth-round draft pick of the Tampa Bay Lightning. He signed an entry level contract with the ‘Bolts prior to playing for Canada in the 2017 World Juniors.
Another potential 2017 draftee is Cole Purboo, a forward for the Windsor Spitfires of the Ontario Hockey League. He’sranked as the 189th-best North American skater. The 6-foot-3 Oakville, Ontario, Canada native scored 11 goals and 6 assists in 68 games for the Spitfires.
“I was hoping (to be) a little higher, but it’s alright,” Purboo told The Windsor Star last week of his Central Scouting rank. “It’s just people making a list…The same thing happened with the OHL draft. I don’t pay too much attention to them.”
Cole Purboo of the Windsor Spitfires (Photo/Aaron Bell/OHL Images).
Standing on the outside of top North American skaters on Central Scouting’s list is Elijah Roberts, a defenseman for the OHL’s Kitchener Rangers.
Elijah Roberts of the OHL’s Kitchener Rangers (Photo/Terry Wilson/OHL Images).
The 5-foot-8, 159-pound blue-liner, slipped from 208th in Central Scouting’s midterm list. He scored 4 goals and 14 assists in 65 games with the Rangers in 2016-17.
He’s considered undersized by today’s NHL standards, but his height hasn’t stopped him from excelling on ice. He was a major contributor for Team Canada in the World Under-17 hockey challenge.
“He’s a fast skater, very mobile, very aggressive on the ice,” one scout told Canada’s Sportsnet. “He’s been aggressive at the OHL level, too. He’s just a good kid; he skates hard and he works hard.”
Some NHL teams have drafted small D-men. The Vancouver Canucks took Jordan Subban, P.K. Subban’s 5-foot-9 younger brother, in the fourth round in 2013.
The diminutive defenseman was the sixth-leading scorer for the Utica Comets, the Canucks’ American Hockey League farm team, in 2016-17 with 16 goals and 20 assists in 64 games.
