Storm slowly approaching


By
March 8, 2017

Guelph Storm will miss the Ontario Hockey League playoffs for a second straight season. But the Storm is poised to once again become a Western Conference factor.

General manager Mike Kelly — the Storm-bringer of Guelph’s OHL championship team of 2013-2014 and 80-point season of 2014-2015 — will retire following the 2016-2017 campaign. But the 66-year old Kelly will depart the Storm with sunny days ahead in Guelph.

The Storm stands to return eight of its 10 leading scorers from this season to next including franchise defenseman Ryan Merkley and winger Givani Smith.

A 2000 birth-year rookie and the first overall pick from the 2016 OHL draft, Merkley is Guelph’s leading scorer, averaging close to a point-per-game from his blueline post.

And Smith, who has a 1998 birth date and is an emerging top prospect of the National Hockey League’s Detroit Red Wings, will surpass the 25-goal mark this season and looms as a major impact player in the OHL for the 2017-2018 campaign.

Others with a high ceiling who have considerable combined OHL eligibility remaining after this season include 20-plus goal-scorer Isaac Ratcliffe and double-digit net-finders Nate Schnarr and Matt Hotchkiss.

Then there is 1999 birth-year defenseman Nolan Makkonen, a rookie who just joined the Storm in January from the Soo Eagles of the Northern Ontario Jr. Hockey League.

Makkonen, with a steady approach that combines skill, smarts and strength, has quickly earned the trust of the Guelph coaching staff and plays major minutes on the Storm blueline.

A ninth-round pick by Guelph at the 2015 OHL draft on the recommendation of its Sault Ste. Marie-based scout Jimmy Mancuso, Makkonen is turning into a steal-of-a-selection by the Storm.

Makkonen’s Sault Ste. Marie-based representative, Kevin Cain of JDM Sports, noted that all reports he has received from the Storm on his client have been “positive and encouraging. They are really happy with Nolan as a player and a person.”

Meanwhile, another Mancuso draft pick from Sault Ste. Marie could also be part of the future Storm watch in Guelph.

Lanky winger Keegan Stevenson was Guelph’s fifth-round pick from the Soo major midgets at the 2016 OHL draft and has apprenticed and developed this season with the NOJHL’s Soo Thunderbirds as a kid who did not turn 16 until December 31. Stevenson has impressed as the youngest player in the NOJHL and the Storm has closely followed his progress.

In fact, the aforementioned Kelly was in Sault Ste. Marie recently to check up on Stevenson amid glowing reports from Mancuso on the young winger’s development.

As Kelly prepares to retire from the Storm as the most-successful GM in franchise history, he will leave his successor with plenty of promising talent.

Kelly, who is expected to remain with the Storm in an advisory capacity, has reportedly recommended three candidates to ownership who could potentially replace him as GM.

A well-supported franchise with a good OHL history dating back to when Kelly first took over as the GM in Guelph in 1991 — he left in 1997 only to return in 2010 — the Storm certainly seems to have the slow-but-sure rebuild on course.

A distant Storm is approaching from Guelph into the Western portion of the OHL.

And the long-range forecast is good.

PHOTO: Sault Ste. Marie’s Nolan Makkonen is a rookie defenseman with the Guelph Storm. (Photo by Ali Pearson.)


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