[{"id":44090,"date":"2026-04-21T17:03:16","date_gmt":"2026-04-21T21:03:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/ohl-spirit\/?p=44090"},"modified":"2026-04-21T17:03:29","modified_gmt":"2026-04-21T21:03:29","slug":"how-to-watch-spirit-alumni-battle-for-the-stanley-cup-watch-guide","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/ohl-spirit\/article\/how-to-watch-spirit-alumni-battle-for-the-stanley-cup-watch-guide","title":{"rendered":"How to watch Spirit Alumni battle for the Stanley Cup"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Seven Spirit alumni currently find themselves on Stanley Cup Playoff rosters. Below is a list of each currently scheduled Stanley Cup Playoff game featuring a Spirit alum.<\/p>\n<p><em>Note: Several teams are carrying Spirit alumni who have not yet dressed in the series. This list only reflects players currently playing in their respective series. As more games and start times become available, those will be reflected here.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tuesday, April 21st<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Buffalo (Ryan McLeod) vs Boston: Game 2 \u2013 7:30pm EST on ESPN<\/p>\n<p><strong>Wednesday, April 22nd <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Philadelphia (Owen Tippett) vs Pittsburgh (Ilya Solovyov): Game 3 \u2013 7:00pm EST on TNT, TruTV, HBO Max<\/p>\n<p>Edmonton vs Anaheim (Pavel Mintyukov): Game 2 \u2013 10:00pm EST on TBS, HBO Max<\/p>\n<p><strong>Thursday, April 23rd <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Boston vs Buffalo (Ryan McLeod): Game 3 \u2013 7:00pm EST on TNT, TruTV, HBO Max<\/p>\n<p><strong>Friday, April 24th<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Anaheim (Pavel Mintyukov) vs Edmonton: Game 3 \u2013 10:00pm EST on TNT, TruTV, HBO Max<\/p>\n<p><strong>Saturday, April 25th<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Philadelphia (Owen Tippett) vs Pittsburgh (Ilya Solovyov): Game 4 \u2013 8:00pm EST on TBS, TruTV, HBO Max<\/p>\n<p><strong>Sunday, April 26th<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Boston vs Buffalo (Ryan McLeod): Game 4 \u2013 2:00pm EST on TNT, TruTV, HBO Max<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Seven Spirit alumni currently find themselves on Stanley Cup Playoff rosters. Below is a list of each currently scheduled Stanley Cup Playoff game featuring a Spirit alum. Note: Several teams are carrying Spirit alumni who have not yet dressed in the series. This list only reflects players currently playing in their respective series. As more&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":243,"featured_media":44091,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"article","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[387],"tags":false,"class_list":["post-44090","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-article","category-387","description-off"],"acf":[],"featured_image":["https:\/\/media.chl.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/50\/2026\/04\/21165748\/Alumni-Watch-Guide.jpg",1920,1080,false],"hide_from_app_feed":false,"video":false,"gallery":null,"ht_game_id":0,"target_video":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/ohl-spirit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44090","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/ohl-spirit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/ohl-spirit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/ohl-spirit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/243"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/ohl-spirit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44090"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/ohl-spirit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44090\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/ohl-spirit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44091"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/ohl-spirit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44090"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/ohl-spirit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44090"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/ohl-spirit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44090"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":44088,"date":"2026-04-21T15:11:58","date_gmt":"2026-04-21T19:11:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/ohl-spirit\/?p=44088"},"modified":"2026-04-21T15:11:58","modified_gmt":"2026-04-21T19:11:58","slug":"from-echl-com-kansas-citys-crawford-named-echl-defenseman-of-the-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/echl.com\/news\/2026\/04\/kansas-citys-crawford-named-echl-defenseman-of-the-year","title":{"rendered":"From ECHL.com: Kansas City\u2019s Crawford named ECHL Defenseman of the Year"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Spirit alum Marcus Crawford was named the ECHL&#8217;s Defenseman of the Year after becoming the league&#8217;s first blueliner to lead the league in scoring<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Spirit alum Marcus Crawford was named the ECHL&#8217;s Defenseman of the Year after becoming the league&#8217;s first blueliner to lead the league in scoring<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":243,"featured_media":44089,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"link","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[418],"tags":false,"class_list":["post-44088","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-link","category-418","description-off"],"acf":[],"featured_image":["https:\/\/media.chl.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/50\/2026\/04\/21151116\/DSC_10023-scaled-e1776798702954.jpg",2560,1442,false],"hide_from_app_feed":false,"video":false,"gallery":null,"ht_game_id":0,"target_video":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/ohl-spirit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44088","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/ohl-spirit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/ohl-spirit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/ohl-spirit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/243"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/ohl-spirit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44088"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/ohl-spirit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44088\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/ohl-spirit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44089"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/ohl-spirit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44088"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/ohl-spirit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44088"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/ohl-spirit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44088"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":44083,"date":"2026-04-20T11:25:22","date_gmt":"2026-04-20T15:25:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/ohl-spirit\/?p=44083"},"modified":"2026-04-21T13:57:36","modified_gmt":"2026-04-21T17:57:36","slug":"levi-harper-makes-final-u18-world-championship-roster-for-team-usa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/ohl-spirit\/article\/levi-harper-makes-final-u18-world-championship-roster-for-team-usa","title":{"rendered":"Levi Harper makes final U18 World Championship roster for Team USA"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Bratislava, Slovakia \u2013 <\/strong>Spirit defenseman Levi Harper has been named to Team USA\u2019s final roster for the 2026 IIHF U18 World Championship. Harper will compete for gold beginning on Wednesday, April 22nd as the Americans open their preliminary round against Czechia.<\/p>\n<p>Harper has just finished a standout rookie season after the Spirit took him in the 3rd round of the 2025 OHL Priority Selection. A two-point performance in his September 19th OHL debut propelled him to a 12G-45A\u201457P season, appearing in all 68 games. His assist and point totals were both rookie records by a Spirit defenseman, overtaking the ones by Markus Niemelainen (26 assists) and Zayne Parekh (37 points).<\/p>\n<p>The Tampa, Fla. native led all rookie OHL defensemen in goals, assists, and points this season. He finished fifth in scoring (57 points) among the entire field of league blueliners and second in assists (45) to only Windsor\u2019s 2006-born Carson Woodall. Harper had three separate point streaks of five games or longer in 2025-26. On November 30th, he was named the OHL\u2019s Rookie of the Week thanks to a string of four assists in three games.<\/p>\n<p>Harper already has international hardware in his trophy case\u2014he was a key piece of Team USA\u2019s gold medal at the 2025 Hlinka Gretzky Cup with four goals and an assist in five games. No other defenseman had more goals in that tournament.<\/p>\n<p>Each of Team USA\u2019s preliminary games can be watched live on NHL Network (Spectrum Ch. 819, DIRECTV Ch. 215). For the full schedule at the 2026 IIHF World Championship, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.iihf.com\/en\/events\/2026\/wm18\/schedule\">click here.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The full release from Team USA can be found <a href=\"https:\/\/teamusa.usahockey.com\/news_article\/show\/1359711\">here<\/a>. Also of note, Spirit prospects Brady Knowling (Goaltender, 3rd round, 2024) and Tyler Martyniuk (Defenseman, 6th round, 2024) have been named to Team USA as well.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Team USA\u2019s Preliminary Round Schedule:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Wednesday, April 22nd vs Czechia (10:00am EST)<\/li>\n<li>Friday, April 24th vs Denmark (10:00am EST)<\/li>\n<li>Saturday, April 25th vs Sweden (10:00am EST)<\/li>\n<li>Monday, April 27th vs Germany (10:00am EST)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Bratislava, Slovakia \u2013 Spirit defenseman Levi Harper has been named to Team USA\u2019s final roster for the 2026 IIHF U18 World Championship. Harper will compete for gold beginning on Wednesday, April 22nd as the Americans open their preliminary round against Czechia. Harper has just finished a standout rookie season after the Spirit took him in&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":243,"featured_media":44085,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"article","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[387],"tags":false,"class_list":["post-44083","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-article","category-387","description-off"],"acf":[],"featured_image":["https:\/\/media.chl.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/50\/2026\/04\/21111805\/Harper-u18-web.jpg",1920,1080,false],"hide_from_app_feed":false,"video":false,"gallery":null,"ht_game_id":0,"target_video":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/ohl-spirit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44083","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/ohl-spirit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/ohl-spirit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/ohl-spirit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/243"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/ohl-spirit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44083"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/ohl-spirit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44083\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/ohl-spirit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44085"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/ohl-spirit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44083"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/ohl-spirit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44083"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/ohl-spirit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44083"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":44072,"date":"2026-04-16T11:47:03","date_gmt":"2026-04-16T15:47:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/ohl-spirit\/?p=44072"},"modified":"2026-04-16T11:51:04","modified_gmt":"2026-04-16T15:51:04","slug":"number-of-spirit-players-on-nhl-central-scoutings-final-rankings-in-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/ohl-spirit\/article\/number-of-spirit-players-on-nhl-central-scoutings-final-rankings-in-2026","title":{"rendered":"Four Spirit players on NHL Central Scouting\u2019s Final Rankings in 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>New York \u00a0\u2013 <\/strong>NHL Central Scouting released its final rankings ahead of the 2026 NHL Draft on Thursday morning. Four Spirit players were identified as top prospects heading to Buffalo for this June\u2019s draft.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>RW Nikita Klepov (#8 North American Skater)<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The OHL\u2019s leading scorer tops Saginaw\u2019s list of draft prospects. Klepov led the league with 97 points (37G-60A) as a rookie, the first to do so since Patrick Kane of the London Knights in 2006-07. Klepov was named the Emms Family Award winner earlier this week, becoming the second player in team history to be named the OHL\u2019s Rookie of the Year.<\/p>\n<p>Klepov was ranked #16 in Central Scouting\u2019s midterm rankings. Since that ranking came out on January 12th, Klepov was the most dominant skater in the OHL. He recorded 47 points and 33 assists, both the highest marks in the league through the end of the regular season, while adding 14 goals. Klepov added a goal and four assists in Saginaw\u2019s four playoff games.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>C Egor Barabanov (#43 North American Skater)<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Klepov\u2019s favorite center, Egor Barabanov finished second in team scoring with 91 points (28G-63A). Nobody in Saginaw had more assists than Barabanov this season, and only Brantford\u2019s Jake O\u2019Brien had more league-wide. His assist total was the fifth-best in one season by a Spirit player, and he was the ninth player in team history to break the 90-point mark. Barabanov added four points (1G-3A) for the Spirit in the playoffs.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>RW Brody Pepoy (#124 North American Skater)<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Brody Pepoy began the season as an undrafted invitee to Spirit training camp. He earned a Standard Player Agreement with his preseason play, and quickly became a middle-six staple for Saginaw in his rookie season. Pepoy played in all but one game for Saginaw this season, finishing the year with 16 goals and 13 assists for 29 points. Pepoy landed 20th among OHL rookies in scoring. Along with Nikita Klepov and Levi Harper, this gave Saginaw three players in the top-20 of rookie scoring for the first time since 2023 (Michael Misa, Zayne Parekh, Joey Willis).<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>G Stepan Shurygin (#13 North American Goaltender)<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Shurygin\u2019s play since the midterm ranking lifted him up the prospect board as well. He was left off of the preliminary watch list and debuted as the #16 ranked goaltender at the midterm. His 59 appearances were the most of any OHL goalie in 2025-26, where he picked up 24 wins. Shurygin also led the league in minutes (3417), shots against (1920), and saves (1704). He finished the year with a 3.79 GAA and .888 SV%, while his 12.4 GSAx (goals saved above expected) was the third-highest of all OHL goalies.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The 2026 NHL Draft is set for June 26-27 at KeyBank Center in Buffalo, New York.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Click below for each of NHL Central Scouting\u2019s full rankings:<\/p>\n<table>\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td><a href=\"https:\/\/nam11.safelinks.protection.outlook.com\/?url=https%3A%2F%2Flinks.us1.defend.egress.com%2FWarning%3FcrId%3D69e0fbcf0062c94aa819d201%26Domain%3Dgarberauto.com%26Threat%3DeNpzrShJLcpLzAEADmkDRA%253D%253D%26Lang%3Den%26Base64Url%3DeNolxtuaQkAAAOAnmhwK2btJUTMr6SDc-GYGSShymnn6vdj_6i_6_vMjSVlNntXi04H_NEW1YO9aYlKGJlnclGHi0J_z_XWC1I4edP3y7794E7bvr_r02O620koHFbF7GEM1SM8q0Aw5WSmDYznR9RXt8xTEdtlR3jfFsno_iDF6PjSL2sER9_i-hUv13jHupdeI-N-0tz-UYGQ7FhObg4-EY9lKMMZzHF7k4awRhvoqGmhNWSt2zsMGZehZVM-nUK_LBzYhaI8UwdGUk2r2d1mNaxevZzaH78ZAsNMVuE36TDfMYxMYuXJyvrnbyi1MsKL5Y5AtbzrZegFAEem844uLgax0LYdDN5luzbNV5M4pUbYNMz6Cnyky8PUyx6cUYNFUXDWtUyHABkKYJOCcBCL-A1T9eys%253D%26%40OriginalLink%3Demail.pr-email.nhl.com&amp;data=05%7C02%7Cdclark%40saginawspirit.com%7C9734303685ee446dd4a608de9bca3fc4%7Cd05517e756cf4d879c87029ac148ae74%7C1%7C0%7C639119490166774602%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&amp;sdata=iBBrCLtpzNWe5NsA46DR84%2FePvFnK463KKzp0wqGztU%3D&amp;reserved=0\">2026 NHL CS Final Rankings &#8211; NA Skaters.pdf<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td><a href=\"https:\/\/nam11.safelinks.protection.outlook.com\/?url=https%3A%2F%2Flinks.us1.defend.egress.com%2FWarning%3FcrId%3D69e0fbcf0062c94aa819d201%26Domain%3Dgarberauto.com%26Threat%3DeNpzrShJLcpLzAEADmkDRA%253D%253D%26Lang%3Den%26Base64Url%3DeNolxsmaQzAAAOAn6mKPuRGqi6idcfGRErW2ipKnn8P8p7-aptfP4VB02bPdv8bdf_qq3eOhO-BDcf0eaXC6f6niVMXZZ9V5bKLyeZ97CBm3IaH7G0CJ3F-2YZ31umDeV1ZEN9bk-_SRkh05PbMtEERtzPOPkY0JxTBOGlM3P-_LJMPVg4bD4qEOJqIKLX7XbkZQNLVDniFCNMPOXd5x2Ym_DHKxDV7UzLj3OeSPlw5zKJPDSQdwCWB6vGow3RaHAU5ztGRtxA5M40GiXnOTL7qwGl1FTxEpAYGL_wvt4iuOJWDlUtgCe67BsztHMauXei_EVmgsMV8wtu51-mtiOiNYY8Zq0cwhbdgBqCWS11KYI3GdZyuggvn4gLaGNFlCxvSXHnSCylUUqIqipamk5HGB_wD093vc%26%40OriginalLink%3Demail.pr-email.nhl.com&amp;data=05%7C02%7Cdclark%40saginawspirit.com%7C9734303685ee446dd4a608de9bca3fc4%7Cd05517e756cf4d879c87029ac148ae74%7C1%7C0%7C639119490166798240%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&amp;sdata=3nrYA918K%2BOmZ%2BX5R%2F1lVPYOvDxt5onM1LnktrCG2PE%3D&amp;reserved=0\">2026 NHL CS Final Rankings &#8211; ITL Skaters.pdf<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td><a href=\"https:\/\/nam11.safelinks.protection.outlook.com\/?url=https%3A%2F%2Flinks.us1.defend.egress.com%2FWarning%3FcrId%3D69e0fbcf0062c94aa819d201%26Domain%3Dgarberauto.com%26Threat%3DeNpzrShJLcpLzAEADmkDRA%253D%253D%26Lang%3Den%26Base64Url%3DeNolxslygjAAANAvirIFoTeUxYCAYFDhwhB2KosYG_Dr25m-02sonb6227LP2sdmmsF_huaxycd-m29Lm3EfbPnSqkW1f8QB8loWeN0kH9Crd0TBEBY_N06SXdvLlMAWX8Qjd8uyCqTAQWRkc6a8ceSaXeEIVD7PtKPILaVnc_TBaJcQWzo95YURFGHNFB_u6-lq3tQryvhLpDvfUNYdrZ-iSu-8jxDwI3vIO38KfmY2vklLiKWifp-Aw93Uz-CuZSCJRjfVKLkoWCOKStbY2ocrchWInl5AwAmfGdfpTO4aBArRgLla5URyhvV1U8J0RmqxM1ix-PFQOTDLb3NltmX6jjnIp0JoNXPpDR6D1-K5tBaNB4jnITnvaOkZg7emRQag-LrzdYKlVTHv2p80VUbR5Mkvg-B6NA%253D%253D%26%40OriginalLink%3Demail.pr-email.nhl.com&amp;data=05%7C02%7Cdclark%40saginawspirit.com%7C9734303685ee446dd4a608de9bca3fc4%7Cd05517e756cf4d879c87029ac148ae74%7C1%7C0%7C639119490166824443%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&amp;sdata=GATPF%2F6lJpMuI28kQcc92JGaT04ckipy9ztdasSsoTk%3D&amp;reserved=0\">2026 NHL CS Final Rankings &#8211; NA Goalies.pdf<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td><a href=\"https:\/\/nam11.safelinks.protection.outlook.com\/?url=https%3A%2F%2Flinks.us1.defend.egress.com%2FWarning%3FcrId%3D69e0fbcf0062c94aa819d201%26Domain%3Dgarberauto.com%26Threat%3DeNpzrShJLcpLzAEADmkDRA%253D%253D%26Lang%3Den%26Base64Url%3DeNolxtuaQkAAAOAn0kEW7Z2JkmNkyNz4GIMpRkUZnn4v9r_6m3F8_q7XpMtpu3q-hf-wpl3hvlvjNbGmzYK3H2nWYOCfWB2INggrdRQ1PvcUXbvHLYqzGjw8t1aObUGdrZKPZ6XKMY8qlMYWKReebitSFm3MkrtSyA7EnCqyOZTOWzUK_eCRsJ-6pkEFo_ws22HIklfr2b0FxgDuCQBhDs1JWvD-4aWun3SLw7is2gtLO3H-BhXoZZCoNlQveMZ6HKa-RpLTUINOVm47Z9bBdO2RcIN2PWNDQDXyT3Xs3R0hvhhilkWCJR2pFC_-uZxnMc45NNXK4sZ3nywHBtFzoDthx0z3LfB02UR8-hETtx9PboKUjNgIvq1s3PENxYr_kdvt9SMxrh--vJGiQdMuWUalJ3kFf2PPfpY%253D%26%40OriginalLink%3Demail.pr-email.nhl.com&amp;data=05%7C02%7Cdclark%40saginawspirit.com%7C9734303685ee446dd4a608de9bca3fc4%7Cd05517e756cf4d879c87029ac148ae74%7C1%7C0%7C639119490166851090%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&amp;sdata=lYFU7KcS7KPoToRqvVnKQZ2w%2BkhElZGumS%2BSDmvbnOo%3D&amp;reserved=0\">2026 NHL CS Final Rankings &#8211; ITL Goalies.pdf<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td><a href=\"https:\/\/nam11.safelinks.protection.outlook.com\/?url=https%3A%2F%2Flinks.us1.defend.egress.com%2FWarning%3FcrId%3D69e0fbcf0062c94aa819d201%26Domain%3Dgarberauto.com%26Threat%3DeNpzrShJLcpLzAEADmkDRA%253D%253D%26Lang%3Den%26Base64Url%3DeNolyseSgjAAANAvQooIujekizRBgl4ySJEaEDABvn53Zm_v8Mp5Hn5oOu-Sqt0NI_UPVLa7tO_olM4vhNkmzT1ukn92ZQQi6uOJ5r6e7bzw3tpUv6Uz7CU2ez4dIbnox_gVjOQk99exVsJCMXjYOW9hyUQGg0nkuRXdEEXwTewNy3Hi2OTUkuOfqaUa9vFyB8DTB45bhtZNuCmZu0pnXb7uujDBPhhbeC-2Q4CGfglVjto6TPqpvfWQ2DpRlK1xO3z2CSsTVz-fYksqK0DtkaWGsi_b0XKozOhvrg9HAvalVEYY4RMWV2pcgqb1zDJ5eNacpVcMGHQP46vqBB94TL_JUjyMOI20a4XE2gxm76vrp_2ag2rxqMnyNDyLcZPOTTauwWSUApSIJEFIxS-WEX4BbAJ6_g%253D%253D%26%40OriginalLink%3Demail.pr-email.nhl.com&amp;data=05%7C02%7Cdclark%40saginawspirit.com%7C9734303685ee446dd4a608de9bca3fc4%7Cd05517e756cf4d879c87029ac148ae74%7C1%7C0%7C639119490166883805%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&amp;sdata=hvF4keY6gbUky9ZfFcEoEHd11dY%2Fq4K%2B4K%2FQPaWQYOY%3D&amp;reserved=0\">2026NHLDraft_FinalRankings_041626.pdf<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td><a href=\"https:\/\/nam11.safelinks.protection.outlook.com\/?url=https%3A%2F%2Flinks.us1.defend.egress.com%2FWarning%3FcrId%3D69e0fbcf0062c94aa819d201%26Domain%3Dgarberauto.com%26Threat%3DeNpzrShJLcpLzAEADmkDRA%253D%253D%26Lang%3Den%26Base64Url%3DeNolxseSgjAAANAvUlgSinsLKkhHHMDhkgkdqaHL1-9h3-mV8zz8MkzWkqo5D-PpP13ZnJO-ZRIm0zf2iJVl-6Jn4ahd8QqpHKZTDdWSTEFIwz7TzBE5JJY5TTcHk78opEkxwLAfba8Egs-7T_aTc4V3uNrus2-HZcktHfrN2x8a2msolEKrFWpjtXLR3CM3G2SDWKJFbx9gTyibycVOjH6NxWdVNSBKmpRTSAQSQ7IvKr6u6Irv_Q5zKYDKXN0XlHMy3ZGJc_OoFeQJkfXaRiWEV6xYIdR9D7rB7i907d4sbc3TBhSDn1e7Axnx6TsQOzX4AdsSnCrHutaSq8cTMJptf7B8uQCLBlK3rJlp1TN4BPVEfyR3KOvjCzMEELphLGISctMfBoh2Zw%253D%253D%26%40OriginalLink%3Demail.pr-email.nhl.com&amp;data=05%7C02%7Cdclark%40saginawspirit.com%7C9734303685ee446dd4a608de9bca3fc4%7Cd05517e756cf4d879c87029ac148ae74%7C1%7C0%7C639119490166926111%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&amp;sdata=4nL9Gx035S8cpvfAYf8GERFSvUZqCEVmMRdPNrMu9NU%3D&amp;reserved=0\">2026_FinalRankings_Profiles.pdf<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>New York \u00a0\u2013 NHL Central Scouting released its final rankings ahead of the 2026 NHL Draft on Thursday morning. Four Spirit players were identified as top prospects heading to Buffalo for this June\u2019s draft. &nbsp; RW Nikita Klepov (#8 North American Skater) The OHL\u2019s leading scorer tops Saginaw\u2019s list of draft prospects. Klepov led the&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":243,"featured_media":44073,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"article","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[387],"tags":false,"class_list":["post-44072","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-article","video-channels-stepan-shurygin","video-channels-brody-pepoy","video-channels-egor-barabanov","video-channels-nikita-klepov","video-channels-nhl-central-scouting","video-channels-2026-nhl-draft","category-387","description-off"],"acf":[],"featured_image":["https:\/\/media.chl.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/50\/2026\/04\/16114646\/NHL-CENTRAL-SCOUTING-FINAL-RANKINGS-WEB.jpg",1920,1080,false],"hide_from_app_feed":false,"video":false,"gallery":null,"ht_game_id":0,"target_video":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/ohl-spirit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44072","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/ohl-spirit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/ohl-spirit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/ohl-spirit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/243"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/ohl-spirit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44072"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/ohl-spirit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44072\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/ohl-spirit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44073"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/ohl-spirit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44072"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/ohl-spirit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44072"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/ohl-spirit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44072"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":44067,"date":"2026-04-14T14:00:04","date_gmt":"2026-04-14T18:00:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/ohl-spirit\/?p=44067"},"modified":"2026-04-14T14:07:35","modified_gmt":"2026-04-14T18:07:35","slug":"saginaws-nikita-klepov-wins-emms-family-award-as-ohls-rookie-of-the-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/ohl-spirit\/video\/saginaws-nikita-klepov-wins-emms-family-award-as-ohls-rookie-of-the-year","title":{"rendered":"Saginaw\u2019s Nikita Klepov wins Emms Family Award as OHL Rookie of the Year"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Toronto, Ont. &#8211; <\/strong>\u00a0The Ontario Hockey League (OHL) announced Tuesday afternoon that Spirit forward <a href=\"https:\/\/chl.ca\/ohl\/players\/9385\/\">Nikita Klepov<\/a> has won the Emms Family Award as its top first-year player. This is Klepov\u2019s third award for the 2025-2026 season, along with the Eddie Powers Memorial Trophy (Top Scorer) and Jim Mahon Memorial Trophy (Top Scoring Right Winger).<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe highest compliment I can give Nikita is that he spent so much of the season making people forget he was a rookie at all,\u201d said Spirit GM Dave Drinkill. \u201cHe has put himself high in the NHL draft conversation while working very hard all season long to achieve this award. We are extremely proud of Nikita for everything he accomplished as a rookie in our league, and are very excited to watch his game continue to grow and evolve moving forward.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The 17-year-old led the league in scoring with 97 points (37G-60A), becoming the first to do so in his first two years of OHL eligibility since Jack Valiquette of the 1973-74 Soo Greyhounds. Klepov joins Valiquette and 18-year-old Patrick Kane of the 2006-07 London Knights as the only players in league history to capture both the Emms Family Award as its rookie of the year as well as the Eddie Powers Trophy as leading scorer in the same season.<\/p>\n<p>Klepov re-wrote a large portion of the Spirit record book during his 67-game rookie season. He overtook Spirit alum and Winnipeg Jets forward Cole Perfetti\u2019s rookie record of 74 points, set during the 2018-19 season. His 60 assists also eclipsed Perfetti\u2019s mark from that year, while the two now share a rookie Spirit record of 37 goals.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis season was definitely a special one for me,\u201d said Klepov. \u201cI\u2019d like to give a huge thank-you to the coaching staff for the opportunity and support they\u2019ve given me. I definitely wouldn\u2019t have been able to be at my best if it wasn\u2019t for my teammates and I am incredibly grateful for all of the people who surrounded me this year.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>After a furious start to his OHL career, Klepov was named October\u2019s Rookie of the Month with 23 points (10G-13A) in his first 15 games. He went on to win the honor two more times, (January, February) becoming the first player to be named OHL Rookie of the Month three times in one season since Ottawa\u2019s Marco Rossi in 2018-19.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNikita had an opportunity to do something special when he arrived in our league and he attacked it,\u201d said Spirit Head Coach Chris Lazary. \u201cHis preparation for games was as intense as his play, and that\u2019s one of the biggest reasons he was able to have such a historic season. I really enjoyed working with him and seeing him find new ways to develop this year.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Klepov finished the year with 26 multi-point outings in Saginaw, participated in the CHL USA Prospects Challenge, and was named MVP of the Connor McDavid OHL Top Prospects Game after a three-point (1G-2A) performance. He added five points (1G-4A) in four OHL playoff, and is the second player in Spirit history to win the Emms Family Award, following Michael Misa in 2023.<\/p>\n<p>Klepov is considered a top prospect for the 2026 NHL Draft, ranked 16th among North American skaters by NHL Central Scouting.<\/p>\n<p><strong>About the Emms Family Award<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The Emms Family Award is presented annually to the top first year Ontario Hockey League player as selected by the OHL general managers. The award was donated by Leighton \u201cHap\u201d Emms, former owner of the Barrie, Niagara Falls and St. Catharines OHL franchises. Hap Emms was also a long-time coach and general manager of Barrie, Niagara Falls and St. Catharines. He is 16th among all-time winningest OHL coaches.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Toronto, Ont. &#8211; \u00a0The Ontario Hockey League (OHL) announced Tuesday afternoon that Spirit forward Nikita Klepov has won the Emms Family Award as its top first-year player. This is Klepov\u2019s third award for the 2025-2026 season, along with the Eddie Powers Memorial Trophy (Top Scorer) and Jim Mahon Memorial Trophy (Top Scoring Right Winger). \u201cThe&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":243,"featured_media":44068,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"video","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[{"term_id":460,"name":"2026 NHL Draft","slug":"2026-nhl-draft","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":460,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":3,"filter":"raw","term_order":"17"},{"term_id":452,"name":"Emms Family Award","slug":"emms-family-award","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":452,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":2,"filter":"raw","term_order":"21"},{"term_id":441,"name":"Nikita Klepov","slug":"nikita-klepov","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":441,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":7,"filter":"raw","term_order":"27"},{"term_id":423,"name":"OHL Awards","slug":"ohl-awards","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":423,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":3,"filter":"raw","term_order":"46"}],"class_list":["post-44067","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-video","tag-2026-nhl-draft","tag-emms-family-award","tag-nikita-klepov","tag-ohl-awards","category-21","description-off"],"acf":[],"featured_image":["https:\/\/media.chl.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/50\/2026\/04\/14120458\/klepov-rookie-of-the-year-web.jpg",1920,1080,false],"hide_from_app_feed":false,"video":false,"gallery":null,"ht_game_id":0,"target_video":{"video_id":"2561125","partner_id":"31006","player_id":"47894","width":"16","height":"9","360p":"https:\/\/cdn.target-video.com\/live\/partners\/31006\/sd\/2561125.mp4","240p":"https:\/\/cdn.target-video.com\/live\/partners\/31006\/ld\/2561125.mp4","480p":"https:\/\/cdn.target-video.com\/live\/partners\/31006\/hsd\/2561125.mp4","1080p":"https:\/\/cdn.target-video.com\/live\/partners\/31006\/fhd\/2561125.mp4","hls":"https:\/\/cdn.target-video.com\/live\/partners\/31006\/streaming\/2561125\/2561125.m3u8","webp":"https:\/\/cdn.target-video.com\/live\/partners\/31006\/webp\/2561125.webp"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/ohl-spirit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44067","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/ohl-spirit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/ohl-spirit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/ohl-spirit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/243"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/ohl-spirit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44067"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/ohl-spirit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44067\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/ohl-spirit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44068"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/ohl-spirit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44067"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/ohl-spirit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44067"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/ohl-spirit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44067"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":44063,"date":"2026-04-13T09:46:05","date_gmt":"2026-04-13T13:46:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/ohl-spirit\/?p=44063"},"modified":"2026-04-13T10:50:40","modified_gmt":"2026-04-13T14:50:40","slug":"zhilkin-named-to-canadas-u18-world-championship-roster","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/ohl-spirit\/article\/zhilkin-named-to-canadas-u18-world-championship-roster","title":{"rendered":"Zhilkin named to Canada\u2019s U18 World Championship roster"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Calgary, AB \u2013 <\/strong>Hockey Canada announced its roster for the 2026 IIHF U18 World Championship in Trencin and Bratislava, Slovakia on Monday morning. Among the 23 players named to the initial roster is Spirit forward Dima Zhilkin.<\/p>\n<p>Named the team\u2019s 27th captain in January of 2026, Zhilkin finished his second OHL season with a career-best 36G-39A\u201475P in 59 games. Zhilkin had the third-best point total on the team, and 15th in the OHL in 2025-2026. He added three goals and an assist in four playoff games against the Kitchener Rangers in Saginaw\u2019s opening round series.<\/p>\n<p>This will be the Windsor, Ontario native\u2019s second appearance with Team Canada, having won a bronze medal at the 2025 Hlinka Gretzky Cup while wearing the maple leaf. Zhilkin scored three times in five games at last August\u2019s tournament, good for third on his team.<\/p>\n<p>The Spirit drafted Zhilkin 19th overall at the 2024 OHL Priority Selection. He went on to land on the OHL\u2019s First All-Rookie Team in 2024-2025. Zhilkin has 118 points (52G-66A) in 113 regular season OHL games with the Spirit.<\/p>\n<p>Team Canada will begin play in Slovakia on April 22nd. For more information, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.iihf.com\/en\/tournaments?tournamentType=WM18\">click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/hockeycanada.ca\/en-ca\/team-canada\/men\/under-18\/2025-26\/world-championship\/camp-roster\"><strong>Full Team Canada Roster<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Calgary, AB \u2013 Hockey Canada announced its roster for the 2026 IIHF U18 World Championship in Trencin and Bratislava, Slovakia on Monday morning. Among the 23 players named to the initial roster is Spirit forward Dima Zhilkin. Named the team\u2019s 27th captain in January of 2026, Zhilkin finished his second OHL season with a career-best&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":243,"featured_media":44064,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"article","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[387],"tags":[{"term_id":474,"name":"U18 World Championship","slug":"u18-world-championship","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":474,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":1,"filter":"raw","term_order":"1"},{"term_id":449,"name":"Dima Zhilkin","slug":"dima-zhilkin","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":449,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":4,"filter":"raw","term_order":"24"},{"term_id":203,"name":"Hockey Canada","slug":"hockey-canada","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":209,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":15,"filter":"raw","term_order":"204"}],"class_list":["post-44063","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-article","tag-u18-world-championship","tag-dima-zhilkin","tag-hockey-canada","category-387","description-off"],"acf":[],"featured_image":["https:\/\/media.chl.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/50\/2026\/04\/13104249\/zhilkin-u18web.jpg",1920,1080,false],"hide_from_app_feed":false,"video":false,"gallery":null,"ht_game_id":0,"target_video":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/ohl-spirit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44063","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/ohl-spirit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/ohl-spirit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/ohl-spirit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/243"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/ohl-spirit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44063"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/ohl-spirit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44063\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/ohl-spirit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44064"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/ohl-spirit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44063"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/ohl-spirit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44063"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/ohl-spirit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44063"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":44056,"date":"2026-04-06T16:33:21","date_gmt":"2026-04-06T20:33:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/ohl-spirit\/?p=44056"},"modified":"2026-04-06T16:34:35","modified_gmt":"2026-04-06T20:34:35","slug":"2026-ohl-awards-klepov-named-rookie-of-the-year-finalist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/ohl-spirit\/article\/2026-ohl-awards-klepov-named-rookie-of-the-year-finalist","title":{"rendered":"2026 OHL Awards &#8211; Klepov named Rookie of the Year Finalist"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>TORONTO<\/strong><strong> &#8211;\u00a0<\/strong>The Ontario Hockey League (OHL) today announced finalists for the Emms Family Award, presented annually to the OHL Rookie of the Year as voted by the League&#8217;s General Managers.<\/p>\n<p>Team nominees were required to receive 20% of the vote from General Managers within their own conference to advance to the final ballot as award finalists.<\/p>\n<p>This year&#8217;s Emms Family Award finalists include:<\/p>\n<p><strong>Caleb Malhotra (C, Brantford Bulldogs) &#8211; 67 GP, 29 G, 55 A, 84 PTS.<br \/>\n<\/strong>Everyone expected contributions from <a href=\"https:\/\/chl.ca\/ohl\/players\/9474\/\">Caleb Malhotra<\/a> in his first OHL season, but did we think he&#8217;d end up being this dominant as a 17-year-old? The 6-foot-2 pivot emerged as one of the best centremen in the OHL, diving right in with points in 10 of his first 11 games, including a five-point effort on Sept. 27th vs. Sudbury. When all was said and done, Malhotra had set a new single season mark for most points by a Bulldogs rookie while posting impressive peripherals like a plus-33 rating, eight game-winning goals and 30 points on the power play. The top NHL Draft eligible demonstrated that he could thrive playing between older, skilled players on a deep Bulldogs roster. Malhotra was a finalist in the best stickhandler category on the OHL Coaches Poll.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Nikita Klepov (RW, Saginaw Spirit) &#8211; 67 GP, 37 G, 60 A, 97 PTS.<br \/>\n<\/strong>Perhaps lesser known in Canadian circles than Malhotra entering the season, <a href=\"https:\/\/chl.ca\/ohl\/players\/9385\/\">Nikita Klepov<\/a> burst onto the scene in Saginaw and immediately provided the Spirit with front line scoring, potting three points in his OHL debut on Sept. 19th at Sault Ste. Marie before netting five points of his own on Oct. 4th at Owen Sound. Klepov would go on to lead the entire OHL in scoring, tying a Spirit rookie record held by Cole Perfetti with 37 goals. He finished the year with 38 points on the power play, and even scored three shorthanded goals. The NHL Draft eligible 6-foot, 180Ib. winger from Deerfield Beach, Florida, thrived alongside other Spirit forwards of Russian descent in Egor Barabanov and Dimian Zhilkin as Saginaw, despite finishing eighth in the Western Conference, managed to score 228 goals and owned the OHL&#8217;s fifth-best power play. Klepov was voted as the Western Conference&#8217;s most dangerous player in the goal area, as well as the best shootout shooter in the OHL Coaches Poll.<\/p>\n<p>The OHL will announce the winner of the Emms Family Award as Rookie of the Year on Tuesday, April 14th.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The OHL has announced finalists for the Emms Family Award, presented annually to the Rookie of the Year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":243,"featured_media":44057,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"article","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[387],"tags":false,"class_list":["post-44056","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-article","category-387","description-off"],"acf":[],"featured_image":["https:\/\/media.chl.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2026\/04\/06102059\/ROTY_Finalists-Web.jpeg",1920,1080,false],"hide_from_app_feed":false,"video":false,"gallery":null,"ht_game_id":0,"target_video":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/ohl-spirit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44056","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/ohl-spirit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/ohl-spirit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/ohl-spirit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/243"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/ohl-spirit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44056"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/ohl-spirit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44056\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/ohl-spirit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44057"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/ohl-spirit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44056"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/ohl-spirit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44056"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/ohl-spirit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44056"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":44052,"date":"2026-04-06T13:00:40","date_gmt":"2026-04-06T17:00:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/ohl-spirit\/?p=44052"},"modified":"2026-04-06T11:55:00","modified_gmt":"2026-04-06T15:55:00","slug":"2026-hockey-for-the-homeless-night-raises-record-113090-for-rescue-ministries-of-mid-michigan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/ohl-spirit\/article\/2026-hockey-for-the-homeless-night-raises-record-113090-for-rescue-ministries-of-mid-michigan","title":{"rendered":"2026 Hockey for the Homeless Night raises record $113,090 for Rescue Ministries of Mid-Michigan"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Saginaw, Mich. \u2013 <\/strong>The Saginaw Spirit and Rescue Ministries of Mid-Michigan partnered for their 14th Hockey for the Homeless Night earlier this season. Together, they raised a record $113, 090 in donations from fans, a broomball tournament, and specialty jersey auction.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is a testament to how God continues to bless Saginaw and how great things can happen when we all work together. This year\u2019s results are truly miraculous,\u201d said Spirit President, Managing Partner and Governor Craig Goslin. \u201cWe\u2019re proud of our staff, players, and partners that contributed to the Henry the Hockey Dog season-long project to raise dollars for people in our community that desperately need our love and support. The Rescue Ministries are doing such important work in the Great Lakes Bay Region and we are honored to continue standing side-by-side with them for Hockey for the Homeless.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left\">The Spirit wore specialty black jerseys for their February 28th meeting with the Peterborough Petes, a <a href=\"https:\/\/chl.ca\/ohl-spirit\/gamecentre\/28739\/\">5-2 win in front of 4,877 fans<\/a>. Their jerseys that night were designed with input from the players themselves and auctioned off immediately following the game. Saginaw\u2019s jersey auction alone accounted for more than $14,000 raised in support of Hockey for the Homeless.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_44055\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-44055\" class=\"wp-image-44055 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/media.chl.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/50\/2026\/04\/06115101\/7647863e-243c-41fd-98b5-8c5d03174ed1Saginaw-Spirit-vs.-Peterborough-Petes-2-28-26-0177-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" srcset=\"https:\/\/media.chl.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/50\/2026\/04\/06115101\/7647863e-243c-41fd-98b5-8c5d03174ed1Saginaw-Spirit-vs.-Peterborough-Petes-2-28-26-0177-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/media.chl.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/50\/2026\/04\/06115101\/7647863e-243c-41fd-98b5-8c5d03174ed1Saginaw-Spirit-vs.-Peterborough-Petes-2-28-26-0177-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/media.chl.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/50\/2026\/04\/06115101\/7647863e-243c-41fd-98b5-8c5d03174ed1Saginaw-Spirit-vs.-Peterborough-Petes-2-28-26-0177-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/media.chl.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/50\/2026\/04\/06115101\/7647863e-243c-41fd-98b5-8c5d03174ed1Saginaw-Spirit-vs.-Peterborough-Petes-2-28-26-0177-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/media.chl.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/50\/2026\/04\/06115101\/7647863e-243c-41fd-98b5-8c5d03174ed1Saginaw-Spirit-vs.-Peterborough-Petes-2-28-26-0177-2048x1365.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-44055\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Nikita Klepov celebrates his eventual game-winning goal on Hockey for the Homeless Night<\/p><\/div>\n<p>\u201cWe are so thankful for the entire Saginaw Spirit organization, as well as everyone who was part of this year\u2019s Hockey for the Homeless effort,\u201d said Rescue Ministries CEO Dan Streeter. \u201cOur sponsors, supporters, and the entire community truly come together each year to make this night very rewarding for everyone. We are grateful to the Henry the Hockey Dog season-long project as we had eight companies step up with matching dollars, and that was a major assist in the $113,090!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Hockey for the Homeless Night was one of several charitable nights by the Spirit and the Saginaw Spirit Charitable Foundation in the 2025-2026 season. Others included their annual Teddy Bear Toss, Food Drive, Shocks &amp; Saves Game, and more.<\/p>\n<p>Total funds raised through Hockey for the Homeless Nights over the past 14 seasons has now passed $780,000\u2014roughly 26,000 nights of shelter through the Rescue Ministries\u2019 various locations.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/rescuemidmichigan.org\/\">Click here<\/a> for more information about the Rescue Ministries of Mid-Michigan.<\/p>\n<p>Additional information about the Saginaw Spirit Charitable Foundation can be found <a href=\"https:\/\/chl.ca\/ohl-spirit\/foundation-overview\/\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Saginaw, Mich. \u2013 The Saginaw Spirit and Rescue Ministries of Mid-Michigan partnered for their 14th Hockey for the Homeless Night earlier this season. Together, they raised a record $113, 090 in donations from fans, a broomball tournament, and specialty jersey auction. \u201cThis is a testament to how God continues to bless Saginaw and how great&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":243,"featured_media":44053,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"article","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[387],"tags":false,"class_list":["post-44052","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-article","category-387","description-off"],"acf":[],"featured_image":["https:\/\/media.chl.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/50\/2026\/04\/06114612\/hockey-for-the-homeless-web.jpg",1920,1080,false],"hide_from_app_feed":false,"video":false,"gallery":null,"ht_game_id":0,"target_video":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/ohl-spirit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44052","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/ohl-spirit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/ohl-spirit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/ohl-spirit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/243"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/ohl-spirit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44052"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/ohl-spirit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44052\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/ohl-spirit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44053"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/ohl-spirit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44052"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/ohl-spirit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44052"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/ohl-spirit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44052"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":44048,"date":"2026-04-02T22:10:44","date_gmt":"2026-04-03T02:10:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/ohl-spirit\/?p=44048"},"modified":"2026-04-02T22:10:44","modified_gmt":"2026-04-03T02:10:44","slug":"spirit-unable-to-hold-off-rangers-in-game-4-see-season-come-to-an-end","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/ohl-spirit\/video\/spirit-unable-to-hold-off-rangers-in-game-4-see-season-come-to-an-end","title":{"rendered":"Spirit unable to hold off Rangers in Game 4, see season come to an end"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Photo: Eric Young<\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Saginaw, Mich. <em>&#8211;\u00a0 <\/em><\/strong>The Saginaw Spirit hosted the Kitchener Rangers at the Dow Event Center on Thursday night for Game 4 of the OHL playoffs. Facing a 3-0 deficit headed into the game, the Spirit&#8217;s season was on the line in a must-win Game 4. The Rangers would rally for four goals straight in the first two periods, and despite a late second-period goal from Dima Zhilkin, the Kitchener Rangers would eliminate Saginaw in a 5-1 Game 4 win.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Sam O\u2019Reilly opened the scoring for the third time this series on the breakaway, scoring his fourth of the playoffs on a wrist shot. O\u2019Reilly blocked a shot for the breakaway, scoring unassisted at 6:39 to make it 1-0 for Kitchener.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The Rangers extended their lead late in the first with Dylan Edwards scoring his first post-season goal blocker side from the left circle. Cameron Arquette had the primary assist, and Carson Campbell picked off a pass in the neutral zone for an odd-man rush for the secondary assist to make it 2-0 in favor of the Rangers at 13:25.<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>With 14.4 seconds left in the period, Dylan Edwards scored his second of the period on the power play, driving the net and maneuvering past Stepan Shurygin. Jack Pridham and Cameron Reid picked up the assists as the Rangers took a three-goal lead into the second.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>After 1: SAG 0 &#8211; 3 KIT (Total Shots:4 &#8211; 26)<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Christian Humphreys extended the lead for the Rangers after he fired in a shot down near the goal line over the shoulder of Shurygin for his third of the series. Luca Romano picked up the assist on the rush, giving the Rangers a 4-0 lead at 17:42.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Just 47 seconds later, Dima Zhilkin put the Spirit on the board on the power play, tipping in a pass from Nikita Klepov at the back door for his third of the playoffs. Carson Harmer picked up the secondary assist as the Spirit trailed 4-1 at 18:29.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>After 2: SAG 1 &#8211; 4 KIT (2nd period shots: 6 &#8211; 8 Total shots: 10 &#8211; 34)<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>With the net empty, Christian Humphreys picked up his second of the game after he broke loose to ice the game and the series for Kitchener. Jack Pridham picked up the assist for his second point of the game, as the Rangers led 5-1 at 14:33.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Final: SAG 1 &#8211; 5 KIT (3rd period shots 4 &#8211; 8, Total shots 14 &#8211; 42)<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Powerplays: SAG 1\/5 KIT 1\/4<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Goaltenders: SAG: Stepan Shurygin (34 saves, 39 shots) KIT: Christian Kirsch (21 saves, 25 shots)<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>With a loss tonight, the Saginaw Spirit are eliminated from the OHL playoffs. They hold onto the 6th overall pick in the OHL Priority Selection, which is set on June 12-13th in Kingston.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Photo: Eric Young &nbsp; Saginaw, Mich. &#8211;\u00a0 The Saginaw Spirit hosted the Kitchener Rangers at the Dow Event Center on Thursday night for Game 4 of the OHL playoffs. Facing a 3-0 deficit headed into the game, the Spirit&#8217;s season was on the line in a must-win Game 4. The Rangers would rally for four&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":243,"featured_media":44049,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"video","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":false,"class_list":["post-44048","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-video","category-21","description-off"],"acf":[],"featured_image":["https:\/\/media.chl.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/50\/2026\/04\/02220405\/vs-Kit-Game-4-scaled.jpg",2560,1707,false],"hide_from_app_feed":false,"video":false,"gallery":null,"ht_game_id":28916,"target_video":{"video_id":"2550882","partner_id":"31006","player_id":"47894","width":"16","height":"9","360p":"https:\/\/cdn.target-video.com\/live\/partners\/31006\/sd\/2550882.mp4","240p":"https:\/\/cdn.target-video.com\/live\/partners\/31006\/ld\/2550882.mp4","480p":"https:\/\/cdn.target-video.com\/live\/partners\/31006\/hsd\/2550882.mp4","1080p":"https:\/\/cdn.target-video.com\/live\/partners\/31006\/fhd\/2550882.mp4","hls":"https:\/\/cdn.target-video.com\/live\/partners\/31006\/streaming\/2550882\/2550882.m3u8","webp":"https:\/\/cdn.target-video.com\/live\/partners\/31006\/webp\/2550882.webp"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/ohl-spirit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44048","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/ohl-spirit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/ohl-spirit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/ohl-spirit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/243"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/ohl-spirit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44048"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/ohl-spirit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44048\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/ohl-spirit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44049"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/ohl-spirit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44048"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/ohl-spirit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44048"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/ohl-spirit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44048"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":44045,"date":"2026-04-02T10:23:17","date_gmt":"2026-04-02T14:23:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/ohl-spirit\/?p=44045"},"modified":"2026-04-02T10:23:17","modified_gmt":"2026-04-02T14:23:17","slug":"game-preview-saginaw-spirit-8-vs-kitchener-rangers-1-game-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/ohl-spirit\/article\/game-preview-saginaw-spirit-8-vs-kitchener-rangers-1-game-4","title":{"rendered":"GAME PREVIEW: Saginaw Spirit (8) vs Kitchener Rangers (1) \u2013 Game 4"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Saginaw, Mich. &#8211; <\/strong>The Saginaw Spirit (0-3) host the Kitchener Rangers (3-0) for Game 4 of their opening round playoff series on Thursday night at the Dow Event Center. The Spirit need a victory in order to continue their playoff run in 2026 as they trail the Rangers 3-0 in the series.<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Tonight&#8217;s Game:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Puck drop is at 7:05 pm.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Broadcast:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Radio: 100.5 FM WSGW, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.alphamediaplayer.com\/wsgwsports\">WSGW.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p>TV: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.flohockey.tv\/\">FloHockey<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Series So Far (KIT leads 3-0):<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The Rangers took Game 1 and Game 2 at home, with Sam O\u2019Reilly scoring twice in Game 1 and having the game-winner in Game 2. Kitchener trailed late in Game 1, but a three-goal third period would give them a 6-4 win. Headed into Game 2, Christian Kirsch would shine with a 14-save shutout victory.<\/p>\n<p>In their most recent matchup, the Spirit hosted the Rangers for Game 3 at the Dow Event Center. Nikita Klepov picked up his first OHL playoff goal, giving the Spirit a 3-2 lead in the third period, with Egor Barabanov picking up his second assist of the game.\u00a0 After a late goal from Gabriel Chiarot in the third to tie it, Luca Romano was the overtime hero for Kitchener to put them on the brink of an opening round sweep. Spirit goaltender Stepan Shurygin recorded just the fourth 50-save performance in team playoff history, stopping 50 of 54 Kitchener shots.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Players to Watch:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Overage defenseman James Guo scored his first goal of the series in Game 3, having a multi-point night in the 4-3 OT loss. Guo was named the third star of the game with a goal and an assist, and has now set a career high in playoff points with three (1G-2A) in three games against the Rangers this series.<\/p>\n<p>Scoring in Tuesday night&#8217;s matchup gave Nikita Klepov his first career OHL playoff goal and his second point of the game. The regular season point leader currently has four points (1G-3A) in three playoff games, and is tied with Egor Barabanov in points against the Rangers this postseason.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Saginaw\u2019s NHL-Drafted Players: <\/strong>Jacob Cloutier (WPG)<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>With an assist in Game 3, Christian Humphreys has taken the lead in points for the Rangers so far in this series. With two goals and four assists in three games, the Colorado Avalanche prospect is tied for seventh in points across the league in the playoffs. Humphreys had 85 (27G-58A) in 63 games this season, with two goals and three assists coming in four games against Saginaw.<\/p>\n<p>Alexander Bilecki picked up his first career OHL playoff goal in Tuesday&#8217;s matchup, giving him four points (1G-3A) in three games against Saginaw. The defenseman is tied for third across the OHL in points in the playoffs amongst defensemen. Bilecki had 29 points (9G-20A) in 66 games this season with the Rangers, setting a career high in points in his sophomore season.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Kitchener\u2019s NHL Drafted Players<\/strong>: Luke Ellinas (OTT), Gabriel Chiarot (VAN), Sam O\u2019Reilly (TBL), Jack Pridham (CHI), Christian Humphreys (COL), Matthew Hlacar (TOR), Luca Romano (NYI), Cameron Reid (NSH), Andrew MacNeil (MTL), Christian Kirsch (SJ), Matthew Andonovski (OTT), Jared Woolley (LAK)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Saginaw, Mich. &#8211; The Saginaw Spirit (0-3) host the Kitchener Rangers (3-0) for Game 4 of their opening round playoff series on Thursday night at the Dow Event Center. The Spirit need a victory in order to continue their playoff run in 2026 as they trail the Rangers 3-0 in the series. \u00a0 Tonight&#8217;s Game:&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":243,"featured_media":44046,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"article","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[387],"tags":false,"class_list":["post-44045","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-article","category-387","description-off"],"acf":[],"featured_image":["https:\/\/media.chl.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/50\/2026\/04\/02102250\/Game-Day-Web.jpg",1920,1080,false],"hide_from_app_feed":false,"video":false,"gallery":null,"ht_game_id":28916,"target_video":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/ohl-spirit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44045","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/ohl-spirit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/ohl-spirit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/ohl-spirit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/243"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/ohl-spirit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44045"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/ohl-spirit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44045\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/ohl-spirit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44046"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/ohl-spirit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44045"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/ohl-spirit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44045"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/ohl-spirit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44045"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}]