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OHL Goalie Caps Off Ridiculous Regular Season

After going undrafted in the NHL, a young goaltender is dominating in the OHL.

Jon Alfano

NHL Puck - © Charles LeClaire-USA TODAY Sports
NHL Puck - © Charles LeClaire-USA TODAY Sports / © Charles LeClaire-USA TODAY Sports

The Ontario Hockey League is home to some of the NHL's top prospects, but one of the league's biggest stars this season is breaking the mold.

London Knights goaltender Austin Elliott, a 20-year-old from Strathmore, Alberta, had a historically dominant regular season. Not only did he lead the OHL with a .924 save percentage and a 2.10 goals against average, but he finished with an absolutely ridiculous record of 32-1-0-0 (the OHL counts shootout losses as their own category). His only loss of the season came against the Windsor Spitfires on Feb. 2.

Granted, Elliott is playing on an extremely dominant team. The Knights finished the regular season with a record of 55-11-2-0 for 112 points, earning eight more wins and 12 more points than any other team in the league. They also feature four NHL first-round picks on their roster in forwards Easton Cowan and Sam O'Reilly and defensemen Sam Dickinson and Oliver Bonk.

Elliott's partner in net, 17-year-old Russian Aleksei Medvedev, has also been dominant with a .912 save percentage, 2.78 goals against average and a 22-8-2-0 record.

That said, what Elliott has done this season is incredibly impressive regardless of the team around him.

“Lately, he’s been a rock back there for us – very solid and a calming influence,” Knights goaltending coach Dave Rook recently told the London Free Press. “He’s 30-1. Whatever team you play for, that’s quite an accomplishment."

With numbers like that, some fans will naturally be curious about when he could make the jump to the NHL level. However, those fans will be slightly disappointed to hear that it may take a while.

First, Elliott has already committed to playing next season at UMass-Lowell in the NCAA. Second, he's not even eligible for the NHL Draft anymore, as he turns 21 in May and North American players must be 20 or younger to enter the draft.

Elliott could still have a future as an undrafted free agent, particularly with goaltending talent being hard to come by. After struggles in the Western Hockey League, though, he's happy to finally find a situation where he can thrive.

“Something I’ve noticed is teams are a little less willing to take on a 20-year-old goaltender in the ‘Dub, (WHL)'” Elliott said. “I had a couple of Q (Quebec Maritime Junior Hockey League) teams reach out and one ‘Dub’ team after the waiver period. But once the Knights reached out, it was a done deal.

“I’m kind of lucky it all worked out here.”

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Jon Alfano
JON ALFANO

Jon is a lead writer for Baltimore Ravens On SI and contributes to other sites around the network as well. The Tampa native previously worked with sites such as ClutchPoints and GiveMeSport and earned his journalism degree at the University of Central Florida.

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