The North Bay Battalion has traded defenceman Tnias Mathurin to the Windsor Spitfires for multiple draft picks including a 2024 second-round pick, the Ontario Hockey League club announced Thursday.
For Mathurin and its 13th-round pick in the 2025 OHL Priority Selection, North Bay received a second-rounder in 2025 and fourth- and sixth-round choices in 2026, all conditional, as well as a 13th-rounder next year.
The selections are Windsor’s, except for the second-rounder, which originally belonged to the Brantford Bulldogs.
The trade reduces the Battalion’s potential overagers to six, with a team permitted to dress three in any game.
“Moving a really good player and good person like Tnias isn’t an easy decision,” said general manager John Winstanley in a release.
“As an organization, we have to start to navigate our overage players, and these decisions are difficult but necessary.
“We’d like to thank Tnias for everything. He wore the Battalion crest with pride. He’s left an impact not only with our team but in the community. Our entire organization wishes him good luck with Windsor.”
Adam Dennis, president and director of hockey operations, echoed Winstanley’s remarks.
“Tnias has been the ultimate Battalion, and we can’t thank him enough for his contributions. He’s been nothing but a true professional in his time here and has left a lasting impression on our community. We couldn’t have asked for a better person and player.”
Mathurin, a Toronto native who turned 20 on Jan. 15, was a third-round pick in the 2020 Priority Selection from the Ajax-Pickering Raiders minor midgets. The Detroit Red Wings took him in the fifth round of the 2022 National Hockey League Draft but didn’t sign him within two years, making him an NHL free agent.
Injuries were a factor in limiting him to 96 games over three seasons with North Bay in which he scored six goals and earned 26 assists for 32 points with 54 penalty minutes. He had three goals and 14 assists for 17 points in 51 games in 2023-24, when he was assessed 28 PiM.
In three playoff springs in which the Battalion advanced to the Eastern Conference final each year, Mathurin, a left shot who measures six-foot-three and 195 pounds, played 40 games, scoring one goal and adding 12 assists for 13 points with 16 PiM.
North Bay’s potential overagers number centre Dalyn Wakely, left wingers Owen Van Steensel, Andrew LeBlanc and Brice Cooke and defencemen Jacob LeBlanc and Trevor McDowell. Wakely was drafted by the Edmonton Oilers in the fifth round in June.
Three others who would be overagers this season have been drafted and signed by NHL clubs and are expected to play in the pro ranks. They are right winger Sandis Vilmanis, rearguard Ty Nelson and goaltender Dom DiVincentiis, with the Florida Panthers, Seattle Kraken and Winnipeg Jets respectively.
