American side of the OHL
The development path has taken a right turn as the game embraces more of an international look. First came the Canadian Hockey League import draft. Then, almost simultaneously, the National Collegiate Athletic Association changed its eligibility rules and the Ontario Hockey League started drafting and signing a record number of American born players.
Call it the new way of doing business. And, from an OHL standpoint, if more Americans means retaining calibre of play standards among young talent while losing some players to the NCAA ranks before their junior eligibility has expired, then so be it.
Nationality and birth place should matter little if the OHL wants its current 20 team membership to ice the best players available whether they have developed in the Greater Toronto Area, Eastern Ontario, Southwestern Ontario, Metro Detroit, the Midwest States, or somewhere in Europe.
To be sure, over both the 2025 and 2026 priority selections drafts, OHL teams have picked a record number of American born players. Among the just over 600 players that have been taken at the past two OHL drafts, more than 25 per cent are American.
HoneyBaked Harvest. An example of the top notch talent that is coming out of Michigan is the Detroit HoneyBaked team (in above photo) of 2010 birth year players that won the annual OHL Cup tournament in April of this year. In finishing first among the 25 teams that made it to the this year’s OHL Cup, HoneyBaked became the first American squad to win it all in the 23 year existence of the tournament. Of further note, HoneyBaked had three defensemen who were among the top 69 draft picks at the 2026 OHL priority selections. They are Max Lappan (first round, Niagara IceDogs), Ivan Belikov (second round, Sudbury Wolves) and Jake LaMontagne (fourth round, Windsor Spitfires.) All are clients of venerable player agent –and former National Hockey League goalie — Eddie Mio.
At any rate, both the Spitfires and Brantford Bulldogs are just two examples of OHL teams with a heavy accent on American players, either through the draft, free agent signing, or via the trade route.
American Spitfires. Signed up to play in Windsor in ’26-27 are 2008 birth year forwards Ethan Garden and Caden Harvey, 2008 birth year defensemen Drake Gram and Sam Wathier, 2008 birth year goalie Jake Windbiel and 2009 birth year forward Ty Bergeron. And two other American lads who could be wearing Spitfire jerseys are Windsor’s two fourth round picks from the 2026 OHL Draft, namely 2010 birth year defenseman Jake LaMontagne and 2010 birth year forward Ryan Hanutke.
American Bulldogs. Brantford has no less than 11 Americans signed for the ’26-27 OHL season. Notably, all 11 have future NCAA commitments. The list includes 2006 birth year defenseman Noah Lapointe, 2007 birth year defenseman Cam Merrick, 2007 birth year forwards Cooper Dennis and Jason Musa, 2008 birth year forwards Owen DeGraff, Nathan Hauad, Xavier Lieb and Jack Tor, 2008 birth year defensemen Abe Barnett and George Komadoski and 2010 birth year forward Aiden Kelly.
