Boston Bruins Prospects Dougie Hamilton, Jared Knight Face off in OHL Final

Dougie Hamilton, the Boston Bruins' top-ranked prospect, assisted on teammate Alex Friesen’s winning goal Friday night to help send the Niagara Ice Dogs to the Ontario Hockey League finals.

Abolishing the Ottawa 67s four games to one in the major-junior league’s Eastern Conference finals, the Ice Dogs will engage the London Knights in a battle for the Robertson Cup and a berth in the Memorial Cup. The best-of-seven league championship series will begin this Thursday at London’s John Labatt Centre and will alternate sites each game.

Opposing Hamilton on the Knights will be another budding Bruin in Jared Knight, ranked fourth on Boston’s prospects leaderboard by Hockey’s Future.

The Bruins’ second overall pick in the 2010 entry draft, a selection they garnered as part of the Phil Kessel trade, Knight is in his fourth and final major-junior campaign.

Having turned 20 in January, the winger will be ready to join Providence full-time in 2012-13. That is unless he makes a radiant impression at training camp and goes directly to The Show.

By all accounts, whether it is at the AHL or NHL level, Knight ought to be a welcome addition to the black and gold brethren. His success, which has translated to 102 goals and 107 assists in 250 career games with London, comes more from instinct, brawn and willpower than it does pure skill.

Knight’s productivity took a bit of a cutback from his career year of 2010-11, but that was chiefly because he missed 16 games due to injury. His two-way game, however, reached a new height, as evidenced by a career-best plus-23 rating in the regular season.

Knight, whose past London teammates have included John Carlson and John Tavares, will now have a chance to test his big-game aptitude. Standing in his way amongst the Ice Dogs will be Boston’s top pick in the 2011 NHL draft and the last piece of compensation for Kessel.

Hamilton, who will turn 19 in July, is eligible to remain in the Ontario League through next season. And the fact that Boston is heavily stocked with under-contract defensemen suggests he will use the 2012-13 campaign to keep fostering his game and padding onto his physique.

On the other hand, the 6'5", 193-pound blueliner may not have much more to hone and therefore not much left to prove in the junior ranks. Hamilton enters the championship series with a team-best plus-15 rating in the playoffs and is tied for second among all OHL defensemen with 19 postseason points.

Of those 19 points, 11 of them (two goals and nine assists) have come on the power play. And in the 2011-12 regular season, Hamilton tallied nine goals and a league-best 30 assists with the man-advantage. He also tied for third with a plus-37 rating.

The OHL finals will run no later than Monday, May 14, with the champion moving on to the four-team Memorial Cup in Shawinigan, Que.

Either Hamilton’s Ice Dogs or Knight’s Knights will commence their quest for the Canadian Hockey League’s national championship on Saturday, May 19 versus the Quebec League champions.