OHL Alumni Central

Ontario Hockey League grad Nate Kiser began play with the Plymouth Whalers the season after yesterday’s featured player, Jason Ward, finished up his OHL career in Plymouth. Kiser played four seasons with the Whalers from 1999-00 to 2002-03.

In his first season with Plymouth, the Whalers pushed the Barrie Colts to the seventh game of the Robertson Cup finals.

Nate was selected by the Phoenix Coyotes in the fifth round of the 2000 NHL Entry Draft, 160th overall. With exception of eleven games in the AHL, Kiser has spent all his professional hockey career in the East Coast Hockey League. Seven of those eight seasons have been in a South Carolina Stingrays jersey.

The Stingrays lost in the ECHL’s American Conference Finals in 2007-08 to Cincinnati. The following season, South Carolina won the Kelly Cup with a four games to three victory over the Alaska Aces.

Kiser currently sits in third place on the Stingrays all-time list for games played. On the team’s all-time penalty minutes list, Nate is in second.

Check out Nate Kiser’s profile page on the South Carolina Stingrays official website.

Ontario Hockey League grad Jeremy Akeson was recently given a new chance to participate in the ECHL playoffs for the 2010-11 season. Akeson began the season with the Trenton Devils. The Devils are in last place in the ECHL’s Eastern Conference and an impossible distance from the eighth and final playoff spot. His new team, the Wheeling Nailers are poised to take one of the final playoff seeds in the East.

Akeson played four seasons in the Ontario Hockey League from 2001-02 to 2004-05, all with the Ottawa 67′s. Twice with Ottawa, Jeremy played in the Robertson Cup finals to decide the playoff champion of the OHL. Twice, the 67′s were defeated in the final. In 2002-03, they were beat out by the Kitchener Rangers and in 2004-05, they fell to the London Knights. Both the Rangers and the Knights went on to win the Memorial Cup in those seasons.

Because of the timing of his career in Ottawa, Akeson played nearly a full season’s worth of games over his four seasons due to Ottawa’s playoff success. Jeremy graduated with 63 playoff games under his belt.

After leaving the Ontario Hockey League, Akeson chose the Canadian University route. Jeremy played three seasons with St. Francis Xavier University.

2010-11 was Jeremy’s third season with the ECHL’s Trenton Devils and he wore an ‘A’ on his jersey this season through 54 games before being traded. His top offensive season in the ECHL to date was his first when he scored 17 and added 25 assists for 42 points in 60 games.

Check out Jeremy Akeson’s profile on the ECHL official website.

Thanks to the Inside The Trenton Devils website for the above picture.

A few months ago, this Ontario Hockey League grad was featured in our Back to School Mondays post on the Carleton Ravens. With the Ravens being eliminated from the OUA playoffs, Brad Good is taking more than a reading week vacation in Florida. Brad is the latest aquisition of the ECHL’s Florida Everblades.

Good played four seasons as a stay-at-home defenseman in the Ontario Hockey League from 2003-04 to 2006-07, all with the Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds. Brad scored three goals over the four seasons and topped out in points with 11 in each the 2004-05 and 2005-06 seasons. However, his specialty isn’t scoring goals, it’s preventing them.

In his four years with Carleton, Brad was the team captain in each. During the 2009-10 season, he was voted the Ravens top defenseman as well as the team’s most dedicated player. This year, Good was selected to the OUA’s second all-star team. The team finished third in the ten team Eastern Conference this season and was ranked 10th in the country.

His new team, the Florida Everblades are sitting in fifth place in the eleven team Eastern Conference. Only five points seperate them from ninth place.

Check out the article on the Florida Everblades official website, announcing the signing of Brad Good.

Photo is from a 2009 article from The Charlatan – Carleton’s newspaper. Read article here.

Ontario Hockey League grad Mike Wilson has played just seven games over the past four seasons. After not playing for the first half of the 2010-11 season, Wilson has been picked up by the Toledo Walleye of the ECHL and has one goal in his first two games with the club.

Wilson played three seasons in the Ontario Hockey League from 1992-93 to 1995-96, all with the Sudbury Wolves. In his final season, he contributed 47 points from the blue line in 64 regular season games. The Wolves made it to the Robertson Cup semi-finals that season before losing to the Detroit Junior Red Wings in seven games. He was selected to the CHL All-Rookie Team in his first season.

Mike was taken by the Vancouver Canucks in the first round of the 1993 NHL Entry Draft, 20th overall. The Canucks traded his rights in the summer of 1996 to the Buffalo Sabres as part of the deal that brought Alexander Mogilny to Vancouver and placed Mike Peca in a Sabres uniform.

Wilson has played a total of 336 regular season games in the NHL with Buffalo, the Florida Panthers, Pittsburgh Penguins and New York Rangers. He was a part of Buffalo’s 1998 team that made it to the Eastern Conference finals.

Beginning with the 2004-05 NHL lockout season, Wilson spent two seasons playing in several locations in Europe. Mike played games for teams in Norway, Austria, Switzerland and Finland.

After taking 2006-07 and 2007-08 off, Wilson played five games with the ECHL’s Trenton Devils in 2008-09, with an additional five games in the playoffs. He played just two games with the Toledo Walleye in 2009-10.

Check out Mike Wilson’s profile page at the Toledo Walleye official website.

Check out these previous articles on Wilson’s teammates with the Sudbury Wolves:

Jamie Rivers

Zdenek Nedved

Yesterday, we featured three first year players for the Kalamazoo Wings of the East Coast Hockey League that were recent grads of the Ontario Hockey League. Today, we look at a fifth year ECHLer who’s got their backs.

Darryl Lloyd played three seasons in the Ontario Hockey League from 2001-02 to 2003-04, all with the Windsor Spitfires. Not a giant at 5’10″ (some sources say 5’11″) and 195, but Darryl can certainly hold his own when the gloves are dropped. Lloyd is no stranger around the opposition’s net either, popping 21 goals in his final season in the OHL and 2o last season with Kalamazoo.

Darryl spent his first two seasons of professional hockey in the Central Hockey League with the Laredo Bucks and Youngstown Steelhounds. In his second season, he had a five game call-up to the AHL’s Cleveland Barons. After three years with the ECHL’s Victoria Salmon Kings, Lloyd found his way to Kalamazoo for the start of the 2009-10 season.

Lloyd scored Kalamazoo’s first ever goal in the ECHL. The team has been around since 1974 as a team in the IHL, UHL and new IHL. They were in their first year as an ECHL club in 2009-10. Darryl was voted by the fans of the Wings as the team’s Unsung Hero last season. It was his best offensive output of his pro career with 20 goals and 44 assists in 64 goals. Darryl also sat out 157 minutes in the sin bin.

 Check out Darryl Lloyd’s profile page on the Kalamazoo Wings official website.

Darryl drops the gloves….

Darryl scores a sweet shootout goal…

Yes – OHL Alumni Central is on Facebook!

…And Twitter as well!