kingston frontenacs need for blueline help might time well with 2026 ohl priority selection's talent pool
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kingston frontenacs' matthew henderson (77) battles sarnia sting's brenner lammens (93) at progressive auto sales arena in sarnia, ont., on sunday, jan. 11, 2026. mark malone/chatham daily news/postmedia network
when the kingston frontenacs are on the clock at the ontario hockey league’s priority selection at slush puppie place in june, don’t be surprised if they buck a trend and wind up tapping a defenceman.
“last year, there weren’t a lot of defencemen selected in the first round,” frontenacs head scout aaron van leusen said. “you started to see more selected in the second half of the second round. how that plays out is different year to year, class to class. you’ll probably see more of a balance this year — more (defencemen) drafted in the first half of the first round.”
according to the rankings of the hockey website eliteprospects.com, six of the projected top 25 prospects ahead of the priority selection are defencemen.
that might not seem like a big number, but it nonetheless stands in sharp contrast with the 2025 draft, a bump if not spike: the first 13 picks last year were forwards and only three defenceman were selected in the back half of round 1 (brampton selecting peter green at no. 14, kingston taking matthew henderson at 17, and brantford picking david buchman at 20, the end of the round.).
last year, kingston had two first-rounders and with the first, the ninth overall, the team selected centre aleks kulemin — the team landed the pick as compensation for caleb malhotra, their first-rounder from 2024 declining to sign with the team. thereafter, henderson became only the second defenceman that kingston has chosen in the priority selection’s first round since 2015, the last prior being jake murray, the 13th overall pick in 2018.
if the frontenacs go the blueline route again, that might seem like they’re simply trying to address a crying need, given the graduation of their two overagers from the 2025-26 season maleek mcgowan and will bishop. those are two holes to fill next fall, though captain vann williamson will presumably be a candidate. and the season after that, the frontenacs would have to fill in for vacancies as a result of williamson’s aging out and andre mondoux’s commitment to notre dame.
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kingston’s lack of depth on the back end was a bit of an issue last season — if the frontenacs had somehow managed to extend their first-round playoff series against the ottawa 67’s a few weeks back, they’d have been going without the services of williamson, who was walking around with his arm in a sling after game 4.
the aforementioned henderson played a full season as a 16-year-old with the frontenacs and the sarnia native took a turn in hockey canada’s under-17 tournament alongside kulemin. by season’s end henderson established himself on the point of kingston’s second power-play unit. fifth in the mix this past season with all hands available, he projects into top-four and maybe even in first pairing.
the frontenacs will likely be slotting in dante d’andrea, their fourth-rounder from the 2025 priority selection, who had been henderson with the huron-perth lakers u16 team. kingston called up d’andrea when injuries, illnesses or suspensions thinned out the ranks and he appeared in five games with the club, but spent most of the season in the milton menace in the junior a ranks.
other later picks from the 2025 priority selection might earn a place in training camp — mondoux is a shining example of a longshot landing a place. still, there’s no banking on lightning striking twice, at least so soon.
if adam goljer, a 2025 second-round pick in the canadian hockey league import draft, can be convinced to come to sign with kingston and join fellow slovak alex misiak, he’d fill one slot in the six. counting on any immediate help from this year’s import draft in july would be like pushing a stack of chips on a draw to an inside straight — a good fit would have to line up with a willingness to come and a readiness to step in.
at the top of the list are jaden licastro, the toronto marlboros u16 captain who’s already pro-sized at six-foot-two and 190 pounds, and drew daley, a connecticut native, who was a lead figure for the shattuck-st mary team that won the usa hockey tier i u18 tournament in march. according to eliteprospects.com, licastro and daley are respectively the third- and fourth-ranked priority selection prospects among the 2010 birthdays and thus it’s a longshot that they’ll be still be available for the frontenacs when their pick comes up at no. 10.
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that said, those players and their advisers might have let some teams know that they’re not on the wish list — that the prospects would sooner consider their options other than the ohl in a less than desired situation. daley would certainly fall into that category, either staying on at shattuck-st mary’s or opting for a united states hockey league team or usa hockey under-18 program.
a little farther down the hockeyprospects.com list are a couple of intriguing possibilities: maxwell fransen of upper canada college’s prep team, at no. 12, and adrian sgro from the vaughn kings u16 triple-a team at no. 15.
whoever the frontenacs pick and whatever position the prospect plays, the no. 10 pick won’t be made on a whim. according to van leusen, he viewed kulemin’s games with the don mills flyers 40 times in the 2024-25 season. he couldn’t estimate the number of times members of his scouting staff sat in on kulemin’s games, but they’d almost certainly be counted by the dozen.
van heusen, who has been on the frontenacs staff for 14 years, said he hadn’t seen henderson in person so often, but caught him at the sliver stick tournament and backed up his scouting staff’s reports with “a lot of video views.”
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