The North Bay Battalion have pulled off another big trade sending defenceman Cam Dineen to the Sarnia Sting.
Heading to North Bay in the deal is defenceman Braden Henderson as well as a 2nd Round Pick (SSM) 2019, 4th Round Pick (FLT) 2019, 4th Round Pick (SAR) 2020, 2nd Round Pick (SAR) 2021, 6th Round Pick (SAR) 2022, as well as 2 conditional draft picks.
Henderson was selected by the Sting in the 6th round of the 2016 OHL Priority Selection.
Henderson, 17, is a five-foot-nine, 168-pound left shot from Baxter, Ont., a community in the Township of Essa, 10 kilometres southwest of Barrie.
In 19 games this season he has five assists and six penalty minutes.
“He’s a skilled defenceman who was a point-a-game player in junior B last year,” Stan Butler, Battalion director of hockey operations and head coach, said of Henderson.
“We hope, with the way the game is going with puck-moving defencemen, that he can fit into that role here.”
Some OHL scouts consider Henderson a defenceman who could fit into the mold of a Cam Dineen in the future which is good news for the Battalion.
Henderson is expected to be in the lineup when the Troops play host to the London Knights at 2 p.m. Sunday.
The day after the McKenzie-Struthers trade, Dineen took questions about the possibility of leaving North Bay for what will likely be his final few months of major junior hockey.
“I have heard the rumours that are out there, seen them and stuff like that,” Dineen told the media last Wednesday.
“I have just been in talks with my agent and with Stan a little bit. I am not really thinking about it but if those guys thought something was best for the team here then maybe I would consider it but so far I haven’t been thinking about it at all.”
In 136 games over two-plus campaigns, Dineen, five-foot-11 and 185 pounds, has scored 30 goals and added 79 assists for 109 points with 36 PiM. In 11 playoff games in 2016, he recorded eight assists without a penalty.
Selected by the Troops from the New Jersey Rockets under-19 team, Dineen became a third-round choice, 68th overall, of the Arizona Coyotes in the 2016 National Hockey League Draft and signed a three-year entry-level contract last May 1.
He was second in scoring among OHL rearguards in his rookie season of 2015-16, netting 13 goals and adding 46 assists for 59 points in 68 games. He was named to the first all-rookie team and tied Mikhail Sergachev of the Windsor Spitfires for second place in rookie-of-the-year voting behind winger Alexander Nylander of the Mississauga Steelheads.
Dineen was limited to 29 games last season after suffering a knee injury on Dec. 9, 2016, in a 5-2 loss to the host Oshawa Generals, requiring surgery in Arizona and missing the rest of the schedule. He had six goals and eight assists for 14 points in the shortened season.
“Cam was a fixture here,” said Butler in a team release today.
“He’s a high-quality young man, as high as any we’ve ever had in our organization. He’s an exceptional player, and it was no easy decision to move him. We were fortunate to have him in our program, and we wish him nothing but success in all his future endeavours on and off the ice.”
