Flint deals from draft depth
Dealing from depth via excess draft picks from earlier trades, Flint Firebirds have given up previously-acquired, second-and-third-round selections for the 2018 Ontario Hockey League draft to obtain highly-touted, 1999 birth-year forward C.J. Clarke from the Peterborough Petes.
The 6-foot, 200-pound Clarke was Peterborough’s second-round pick at the 2015 OHL draft. In modest duty with the Eastern Conference-contending Petes thus far this season, Clarke had 6 goals, 5 assists, 11 points in 27 games.
Flint general manager George Burnett said Clarke has the potential to be a “key member of our group moving forward.
“He is a young, skilled player caught on a veteran group in Peterborough who is excited to come to Flint,” Burnett told HockeyNewsNorth.com.
With a record above the .500 mark in the hotly-contested, 10-team Western Conference of the OHL, the eighth-place Firebirds are just a point back of the seventh-place Sarnia Sting and in current possession of the last playoff spot. Conversely, the Firebirds are just four points up on the ninth-place Saginaw Spirit.
PHOTO: C.J. Clarke is headed from Peterborough to Flint in an OHL trade. (Photo by Terry Wilson.)