Best of the U16 goalies
Clearly, the puck stops more with Gavin Zuccato than it does with the fellow northerners in his 2009 birth year age group. As in, Gavin Zuccato of Sault Ste. Marie had the best numbers of any of the six goalies who minded the net for the three under 16 level teams of the Great North Under 18 Hockey League over the course of the ’24-25 regular season.
To be sure, it certainly isn’t easy being a U16 goalie in the Great North and routinely having to face shooters one and two years older in a nine team league where six of them are in the U18 classification.
However, Zuccato — who is somewhat on the small side but going through a growth spurt — was a big game goalie for the Soo U16 Jr. Greyhounds in ’24-25 Great North regular season play. As previously noted, Zuccato had the best numbers of any of the six 2009 birth year goalies of the Great North. And notably, all six goalies played a similar number of minutes on the teams of fairly equal ability.
To the numbers, which don’t lie.
Zuccato had the best goals against average of any of the six, a 3.69 mark. In fact, he was the only goalie of the six U16 2009 birth year puck stoppers to have a GAA below 4.00.
In order, Zuccato had a 3.69 GAA in 1,009 minutes of action. Then it was Zuccato’s Jr. Greyhound partner Tanner Carriere, who had a 4.10 GAA over 923 minutes. From the North Bay U16 Trappers, Bruce Laronde had a 4.19 GAA in 930 minutes of play while Grayden Joseph had a 4.45 GAA in 997 minutes of work. And from the Sudbury U16 Jr. Wolves, Tyson McMahon had a 4.51 GAA in 918 minutes of net time while Owen Lamothe had a 4.53 GAA over 1,020 minutes between the pipes.
Even more impressively, Zuccato moved up from the AA Under 15 level in ’23-24 to the AAA Under 16 level in ’24-25. And he has continued his eye opening play from the regular season into the Great North play-in and playoff tournament championships of the post season.
Just call him Gavin the ’09 goalie of the Great North.