OHL Alumni Central

On Monday, Ontario Hockey League Alumni Mark Fraser and Kurtis Foster were involved in a trade between the NHL’s New Jersey Devils and Anaheim Ducks. Fraser moves to the Ducks and Foster goes to New Jersey. Both are big, stay at home defensemen with Foster having the edge in National Hockey League experience.

Mark Fraser with the New Jersey Devils.

Mark Fraser played two seasons in the Ontario Hockey League, 2004-05 and 2005-06, with the Kitchener Rangers. In his final season, he was the captain of the Rangers. After his first year in the OHL, Fraser was taken by the Devils in the third round of the 2005 NHL Entry Draft, 84th overall.

Since 2006-07, Mark has played in 98 NHL games with New Jersey. His most complete season came in 2009-10 when he played 61 games. This season, he has appeared in four for the Devils. The rest of his professional hockey career has been spent in the American Hockey League with the Lowell / Albany Devils.

Kurtis Foster played 256 regular season Ontario Hockey League games over five season with the Peterborough Petes from 1997-98 to 2001-02. At the 2000 NHL Entry Draft, Foster was taken in the second round by the Calgary Flames, 40th overall. Kurtis never played for the Flames but has appeared in 340 regular season NHL games with the Atlanta Thrashers, Minnesota Wild, Tampa Bay Lightning, Edmonton Oilers and Anaheim.

A proponent of eliminating touch icing from the game, Foster broke a leg in an icing incident during the 2007-08 season which not only nearly cost him his career, but his life due to complications on the operating table. He returned to play a full season with the Tampa Bay Lightning in 2009-10 and played 74 games for the Edmonton Oilers in 2010-11. This year, Kurtis has dressed for nine games with the Ducks.

Kurtis Foster with the Minnesota Wild.

Maxim Rybin is now in his tenth season of play in Russia’s RSL/KHL since graduating from the Ontario Hockey League. Add that to the three partial season that Rybin played in the RSL before playing in the OHL and you have a 29 year old veteran of professional hockey with twelve seasons under his belt. Before coming to the OHL, Rybin was named the RSL Rookie Forward of the Year for the 1998-99 season.

Rybin played two seasons with the Sarnia Sting, 1999-00 and 2000-01. In his first season with Sarnia, Maxim was second on the team in points and goals to Jeff Heerema with 56 points and 29 goals. In his final season, he led the Sting in goals with 34 and was second to Eric Himelfarb in points with 70.

Maxim was taken by the Anaheim Ducks in the fifth round of the 1999 NHL Entry Draft, 141st overall. He never played a single game of professional hockey in North America, instead returning immediately to Russia.

Rybin is teammates with another Ontario Hockey League grad, Alexei Semenov. Semenov played three seasons with the Sudbury Wolves from 1998-99 to 2000-01. The two players were featured in yesterday’s post at OHL Alumni Central, naming the eleven players that will be playing for the five teams competing against Team Canada at the 2010 Spengler Cup in Davos, Switzerland.

St. Petersburg has competed in the Spengler on several occasions in the past and were champions three times. The team is home to former NHL stars Maxim Afinogenov and Alexei Yashin. The team currently sits third in their conference in the KHL standings.

Check out Maxim Rybin’s profile page at the SKA St. Petersburg official website.

Ontario Hockey League alumnus Mark Popovic has left the NHL behind for a second time to test the European waters. In 2008-09, Popovic ventured to Russia to play for St. Petersburg of the KHL. This season, 2010-11, he has landed in Switzerland to play for HC Lugano of the Swiss National League A.

Mark played four seasons in the Ontario Hockey League from 1998-99 to 2001-02, all with the Toronto St. Michael’s Majors. In his final two seasons in the OHL, he was a member of Team Canada at the IIHF World Junior Hockey Championships. In 2001, Canada won the Bronze Medal and the following season they won the Silver.

In his final two seasons with the Majors, the team advanced to the Eastern Conference finals before being beat out 4 games to none both seasons. In 2000-01 the defeat was at the hands of the Ottawa 67′s, a team the would be the eventual Robertson Cup champions. In 2001-02 the Barrie Colts swept the Majors en route to a Robertson Cup loss to the Erie Otters. In that final season, Popovic was selected to the CHL Third All-Star team.

Mark was selected by the Anaheim Ducks in the second round of the 2001 NHL draft, 35th overall. He appeared in one game with Anaheim and over four seasons with the Atlanta Thrashers appeared in an additional 80 games.

In the off-season, Mark runs a hockey camp in Midland, Ontario. Check out the website for more information.

Check out Mark Popovic’s profile page at the National League A official website.

Mark appears in this previous post at OHL Alumni Central listing the St. Michael’s / Mississauga Majors that played professionally in 2009-10.

Danny Syvret played in the Ontario Hockey League from 2001-02 to 2004-05, although his first season had him see only one game. His entire Ontario Hockey League career was played with the London Knights, culminating in a season 99.999% of us could only imagine in our wildest dreams.

In his final season in the OHL, Syvret scored 23 goals and added 46 assists for 69 points in 62 games on the blueline for the Knights. The Knights, of course, won the Robertson Cup as playoff champion in the Ontario Hockey League and won the Memorial Cup on home ice at the Labatt Centre in London.

He was a part of Canada’s gold medal winning team at the 2005 IIHF World Junior Hockey Championships when Canada downed Russia easily, 6-1, in the final played at Grand Forks, North Dakota. That was just the beginning.

Syvret was awarded the Max Kaminsky Trophy as the OHL’s most outstanding defenseman. A fine stepping stone to being selected the Canadian Hockey League’s Defenseman of the Year. Danny’s +70 was the league’s best plus/minus. He was also a Canadian Hockey League and Memorial Cup tournament all-star.

Despite this amazing success, Syvret was not picked until the third round of the 2005 NHL draft by the Edmonton Oilers, 81st overall. Danny saw 26 games with the Oilers over his first two seasons. The rest of his time was spent in the American Hockey League with the Hamilton Bulldogs and Grand Rapids Griffins.

2007-08 was a step back as Syvret didn’t appear in any NHL games and split his season with the AHL’s Springfield Falcons and Hershey Bears.

The past two seasons, Danny has been in the Philadelphia Flyers organization. He appeared in 23 NHL games with the Flyers over the two seasons and spent the rest of his time with their AHL affiliate, the Philadelphia / Adirondack Phantoms.

Syvret has been picked up by the Anaheim Ducks organization for the 2010-11 season. It would be nice to see Danny become a regular with the NHL team but there’s a good chance he’ll play a portion of his games in Syracuse with the AHL Crunch.

Danny Syvret is not up on the Anaheim Ducks or Syracuse official websites yet, but his AHL profile can be found here.

They didn’t all play together at the same time and only two were brothers, but the London Knights had three Perrys play for the Ontario Hockey League team in the 2000′s. All three are still active in professional hockey.

Brothers Corey and Adam (A.J.) Perry and unrelated Todd Perry all played prominant roles for the Knights over the team’s decade of non-stop success. The brothers were both Knights in 2004-05 when the team won the OHL championship then went on to win the Memorial Cup.

Todd Perry played three seasons in the OHL from 2004-05 to 2006-07. His first two season were with the Barrie Colts and his last was with, of course, the Knights. A solid defenceman, Todd played a season with the Columbia Inferno of the ECHL before spending the past three seasons with the Toronto Marlies of the AHL.

Adam Perry played four seasons in the OHL from 2004-05 to 2007-08. He was with the Knights until halfway through the 2007-08 season when he was traded to the Belleville Bulls. He helped the Bulls make a long playoff run which would see them eventually lose out to the Kitchener Rangers in the OHL finals. Adam’s best season was 2006-07, with the Knights, when he scored 45 goals and added 42 assists for 87 points.

Adam split the 2008-09 season between the San Antonio Rampage of the AHL and the Arizona Sundogs of the CHL. This season he is having a great year with the Utah Grizzlies of the ECHL.

Corey Perry played his OHL career with the Knights from 2001-02 to 2004-05. In 2003-04, he was second in league scoring behind

Adam Perry with the Belleville Bulls

 Corey Locke of the Ottawa 67′s with 113 points. That total was enough to win him the Jim Mahon Memorial Trophy for most points by a right winger.

In 2004-05, Corey would put in 47 goals and add 83 assists for 130 points which would easily make him OHL scoring champion. Of course, this would make him again the Jim Mahon Memorial Trophy winner. Other accolades would include the Red Tilson Trophy as OHL MVP and the Wayne Gretzky 99 Award for OHL playoff MVP.

Corey has gone on to be a top player on the Anaheim Ducks of the NHL and was an integral part of the recent Team Canada goal medal performance at the 2010 Winter Olympic Games.

Interestingly, there was a fourth unrelated Perry that played for the Knights in the 1993-94 season. Sean Perry played just 22 games in the OHL and his professional career would end in 2002-03.

View Todd Perry’s profile page at the Toronto Marlies official website by clicking here.

View Adam Perry’s profile page at the Utah Grizzlies official website by clicking here.

View Corey Perry’s profile page at the Anaheim Ducks official website by clicking here.