Boilard & Iginla shine as Team Red edges Team White at 2024 Kubota CHL/NHL Top Prospects Game
Raoul Boilard (Baie-Comeau Drakkar / QMJHL) registered three points, including a pair of goals, as Team Red defeated Team White 3-1 in the 2024 Kubota CHL / NHL Top Prospects Game in Moncton, N.B. For his efforts, Boilard was named the Jim Gregory Player of the Game for Team Red, while Tij Iginla (Kelowna Rockets / WHL) was recognized with the same award but for Team White.
Ben Danford (Oshawa Generals / OHL) tallied Team Red’s other goal, while Colton Roberts (Vancouver Giants / WHL) recorded two assists as Team Red snapped a three-game losing streak at this event. Liam Greentree (Windsor Spitfires / OHL) scored the lone goal for Team White.
In net, Lukas Matecha (Tri-City Americans / WHL) stopped all 19 shots that he faced and his fellow Team Red netminder Ryerson Leenders (Mississauga Steelheads / OHL) also made 19 saves to help Team Red to its first win at the Kubota CHL/NHL Top Prospects Game since 2018. For Team White, Dawson Cowan (Spokane Chiefs / WHL) turned aside 16-of-17 shots and Carter George (Owen Sound Attack / OHL) finished with 11 saves in just over 30 minutes of action.
The 2024 Kubota CHL/NHL Top Prospects Game marked the 28th edition of this showcase and represented the first time that this event has ever taken place in the province of New Brunswick.
Following last year’s 2023 Kubota CHL/NHL Top Prospects Game, 37 of the 40 CHL players who competed at that event in Langley, B.C., were among those selected at the 2023 NHL Draft last June in Nashville. It was a list that included first-overall pick Connor Bedard (Chicago Blackhawks/Regina Pats) and seven other CHL skaters chosen by NHL teams in the first round.
Since the event was first introduced in 1996, it has featured 16 players who were later selected first overall in the NHL Draft including Bedard (2023), Alexis Lafrèniere (2020), Connor McDavid (2015), Aaron Ekblad (2014), Nathan MacKinnon (2013), Ryan Nugent-Hopkins (2011), Taylor Hall (2010), John Tavares (2009), Steven Stamkos (2008), Patrick Kane (2007), Marc-Andre Fleury (2003), Rick Nash (2002), Vincent Lecavalier (1998), Joe Thornton (1997), and Chris Phillips (1996).
The CHL continues to be the top supplier of talent to the NHL. At the 2023 NHL Draft, 80 CHL players were selected (accounting for nearly 36% of all draft picks), the most of any hockey development league in the world. Dating back to 1969, the CHL has seen 10 or more of its players taken in the first round of the NHL Draft – a streak that now runs at 55 consecutive drafts.
For photos from today’s game and the 2024 Kubota CHL/NHL Top Prospects Game (credit: Daniel St Louis / CHL), please visit the following link.
(PHOTO CREDIT: DANIEL ST LOUIS / CHL)
