The View from Section 2, December 23, 2025

The View from Section 2, December 23, 2025

Sudbury Wolves Mid-Season Report Cards

By T Puck

The Sudbury Wolves go into the Christmas break on a high note, having won four games in succession.

The team has a 13-19-1 record and a .409 winning percentage. They sit ninth and currently out of the playoffs in the Eastern Conference.

The improved recent performance of the team has put a better spin on what has been a dreadful first half of the season.

The team winning percentage reflects a failing grade for the Sudbury Wolves in the first half of the season. Imagine your children or grandchildren telling you they got 41% in their math test? What would you do? Imagine that your electrician what wired your house told you that he got 41% in his final exam. Would you be concerned?   

Today, we will evaluate the players, the coaching staff and the General Manager of the Sudbury Wolves.

A word on the grading. T Puck is a tough grader. A grade of C means that the players playing up to his potential. A 16-year-old and a 19 or 20-year-old are graded differently. The 16-year-old players are rookies, and we are working with a small sample size. The older players generally have an established level of performance, and they are graded on past and present performance.

Goaltenders

The Wolves have used six goaltenders the season. With the exception of Paolo Frasca, who has played just one game, the collective goaltending has ranged from below the league average to abysmal. Out of town broadcasters are all stunned. Six goaltenders? If another goaltender comes to town, the Wolves goaltending will become a obligatory punchline. The collective OHL save percentage is .895. Finn Marshall was given a ticket out of town, and an F from this grader, and deservedly so. Jason Tremblay had a cameo so short that if you blinked you missed it. Young Owen Leonard had some bright moments, but he was wisely given a ticket back to Tier 2 for more seasoning. As a rookie, Leonard would have received a C grade. He has a bright future.

#1-Karsen Chartier. Chartier has seen more action than probably even he expected. He is 2-8-0 and he has a 3.63 goals against average. He has a .886 save percentage. Chartier turns 20 New Year's Day. You wonder if this is the end of the line for this young man. He has had some good moments when he has been called upon. Grade: C-.

#31 Bjorn Bronas. This 18-year-old was recently brought in from Tier 2. Bronas has had some good games. He is 5-1-0 and he has a 3.46 goals against average in seven games.. He has a .890 save percentage. It is difficult to get Bronas a definitive grade, so he receive a Grade C for his work so far this season.

Goaltender coaches: Grade D-. It seems to T Puck that we have a chicken and egg situation going on here. You wonder if the goaltenders that the Wolves have used do not have the ability to adequately play the position, or whether the coaches can not teach the proper techniques about how to play the position to the goaltenders. The Wolves have allowed over four goals-against per game this season. This is unacceptable. There has been no consistency whatsoever in the goaltending this season. The goaltenders have looked bad on numerous goals this season. That is on the coaches. If T Puck was in power, he would have not hesitate to find new goaltender coaches.

Defencemen

General Manager Rob Papineau has assembled a defensive unit full of third pairing defenders. They fit the mould of Larry Goodenough. Yes, they are good enough to play on your team, but ultimately, where will they take you? The defensive unit have taken their lumps this season. Unfortunately, this unit is neither young, nor is it skilled. The bottom line is that you have a second division team when you have a group of second division defenders.

#4 Trevor O'Dell. O'Dell is a defensive defender. He is 19 years old. He has one goal and four assists in 25 games. He competes reasonably well. He has very limited offensive capability. O'Dell is a capable third pair defenceman that is miscast by the Wolves farther up the defensive pairings. He is treading water. Grade: C.

#7 Gavin Ewles. Ewles is a 20-year-old overage player. He has received plenty of ice time as the most experienced player on a very inexperienced Wolves defence. He has three goals and three assists in 32 games. He competes reasonably well. He has limited on offensive capability. He is a bit short in hockey IQ. He is another capable third pair defenceman horrendously miscast by the Wolves further up the defensive pairings. If he had more ability, he would be a desired commodity at the trade deadline, but T Puck does not expect any takers. If there is an interested team, get what you can for him. Grade: C.

#13 Hudson Martin. Martin is an 18-year-old player in his first year of full-time OHL competition. He is the son of former Wolf Neal Martin. Martin has a decent head for the game. He tends to make the right plays. He has a decent compete, but he is held back by his small size. He has zero goals and eight assists so far this season in 30 games. T Puck believes that there is some offense inside this player. He has been a pleasant surprise. Like father, like son. Grade: C+.

#18 Liam Ladds. Ladds is a late birthdate 19-year-old, who was acquired from the Peterborough Petes for a draft pick when the Wolves defence looked like a fire station in a training drill. In 19 games, he has two goals and one assist. Ladds is another in the long line of third pairing defencemen acquired by Rob Papineau. He has limited offense ability, a reasonable compete and limited hockey IQ. He is also treading water. Grade: C.

#57 Brady Smith. Smith is a 17-year-old rookie that has been out of the lineup the season. He has no scoring points in 17 games. He plays a rugged, physical style of hockey. He is offensive ability is limited. This hockey IQ is yet to be determined, but a three-game suspension imposed earlier this season does not reflect well upon him. The team needs to make a decision as to what they see is his development path. Grade: C.

#74 Zach Wilson. Wilson was recently acquired from the Saginaw Spirit for a draft pick. He has seen limited action, playing on only nine games. He has recorded no scoring points. He is another defence-first defender with limited offense ability. He is 18 years old. He projects as a player that will be in and out of the lineup for the rest of the season. If the Wolves upgrade their defence, he may not have a future with the team. Grade: C-.

#84 Artem Gonchar. Gonchar is a late birthdate 19-year-old, drafted in the third round of the NHL draft by the New York Rangers. T Puck recommended to the Wolves brass that they should look into drafting this player in the 2025 CHL Import Draft, because the defence had an acute lack of puck moving D. Gonchar's first half season has been a tale of two seasons. In the first 15 or so games, Gonchar looked lost. He was horrendous defensively, and he looked like he was struggling hard trying to adjust to it different league and a different ice surface. He was probably one of the better players in his age group in Russia, and the Russian system leans heavily toward offensive hockey. It is probably likely that Gonchar never needed to play defence hockey. He has extremely limited command of the English language which made life even more difficult for him. Fortunately for the Wolves, Artem's uncle, longtime NHL star Sergei Gonchar, came to Sudbury to help his struggling nephew. Since uncle Sergei showed up in Sudbury, Artem Gonchar has been a completely different player. It looks like he has found his game. Gonchar is an excellent skater and a good puck mover. His defensive decision-making reminds longtime fans of the high-risk defensive decision of Jamie Rivers. He has excellent offensive instincts and his defensive play is gradually improving. He has done a decent job running the Wolves power play. T Puck looks for Gonchar to have a big second half of the season. Grade: B-.

#93 Luca Blonda. Blonda represents a cautionary tale of the high risk of drafting an undersized offensive defenceman. He has had a very up and down season. On the positive side of the ledger, in 28 games, he has no goals and 14 assists. He has almost passed his scoring totals for his rookie season. On the other side of the ledger, Blonda has not played well defensively. He is -18 so far this season. T Puck believes that someone needs to sit young Luca down and tell him that he needs to get out of his own way and, at the same time, that the coaching staff will give him greater freedom and stay out of his way. Blonda lacks confidence. He is not skating as well as he should be. He is not rushing the puck as much as he should be. He looks like he is hesitating with his decision-making. T Puck believes that the coaching staff is trying to make Blonda a something that does not suit his style of game. Blonda tries to compete, but he lacks upper body strength, and he is consistently pushed off the puck. Blonda is an excellent skater, and the coaching staff needs to be astute enough to understand that they need to emphasize the strengths in his game, and try to hide his weaknesses. He would benefit from being paired with a more skilled defensive defender. There is probably some gold here, but one wonders if the Wolves will be able to find it from Blonda. T puck would not be surprised if Blonda asked for a change of scenery. This may do him and the club a lot of good. Grade: C-.

Defensive coaching. Rob Papineau set this unit up for failure at the beginning of the season by having only one experienced OHL defender in his defensive unit. The Wolves have spent most of the season looking for experienced blueline help. They have acquired placeholders to stabilize the situation. Nonetheless, the defence allowed over four goals against per game. That is not a formula for winning hockey games. The Wolves are a very soft defensive unit, despite the fact that they have height on the backend. The team lacks physically strong defenders to move forwards from the front of the net. Defence has changed in modern hockey. It is now much more important to have good body and stick positioning. The Wolves are a work in progress in that area. Last year, the Wolves allowed four goals per game against. It looks like we have changed the deck hands, with no real difference. It is may be am opportune time to take a serious look at changing the coaching of the defence. Grade: D.

Forwards

The Wolves have two very high-end forwards in Nathan Villeneuve and Kieron Walton. Rowan Henderson is developing quite well. The rest of the forward crew is a lot like the defence. It is not young, and it is not very skilled. The team scores just over three goals per game. The team has only players with over 10 goals. That is not enough to successfully compete in the OHL. There are not a lot of exciting forwards coming up in the system. The Wolves offensive attack scares no one. The Wolves need to bring in young, dynamic forwards to give the fans something to cheer about in the future.

#9 Chase Coughlan. Chase Coughlan is another Wolves overage player. His production has tailed off this season. Last season, he prospered because he was with better offensive players. Coughlan plays the game with a physical edge, but he takes many questionable penalties. He is an average player, compete well, but does not have much hockey IQ. He has nine goals and seven assists in 28 games. He will need to have a big second half of the season to duplicate his 43-point pace of last season. T Puck would expect that Coughlan is available at the Trade Deadline. There may be some interest in this player. If there is interest, the Wolves would be smart to move on from this player, who has given them great value over the years. With the impending arrival of Carter Kostuch and the likely arrival of Adam Nemec in the New Year, Coughlan may be better off finding a new OHL address. Grade: C-.

#11 Ethan Dean. Dean is a 17-year-old sophomore forward. He has one goal and four assists in 32 games. Dean usually plays on the fourth line, and he can be an effective penalty killer. He is a 2024 second round pick of the Wolves. He has three goals scored in 1.5 seasons. He has cost owner Dario Zulich approximately $30,000 to comply with his OHL Scholarship and Development Agreement. Let T Puck do the math for you. That is a cool $10,000.00 per goal. Even Elon Musk would think that was expensive. Dean competes hard, and he gets chances to score, but he can not put the biscuit in the basket. Dean is still in the early post-gestation phase of his OHL career. Could you imagine if women had a 15-month gestation period? Mankind would probably be extinct. Grade: D.

#19 Blake Clayton. Clayton is a late birthdate 18-year-old player. He has four goals and seven assists in 33 games. Clayton is an excellent penalty killer, and he is highly valuable in that role. He is very consistent performer, and you know what you will get from him every night. He is a hard worker. T Puck believes that Clayton would be better served looking for more offense in his game, and that he has the ability to score more goals. He is probably deserving of more ice time. T Puck likes the way that Clayton is trending, he is trending up. Grade: C+.

#21 Alex Pharand. T Puck was criticized for being mean to Pharand in a blog a few weeks ago. Pharand is a 5^th year OHL player and a 20-year-old overage player. When you are a fifth-year player and you are supposed to be one of the leaders of the team and you are not producing, you can expect to be called out. Fast forward to what took place four games ago when Pharand was benched by the Wolves coaching staff. Pharand admitted that the benching ticked him off. Poor Alex. To his credit, he took it like a man, and he has produced five goals in seven points in the last three games. His season totals of eight goals and 14 assists in 33 games is still well behind his pace of last season. Pharand is hot and cold, so continued good production is a risky proposition. He is available at the Trading Deadline. If the Wolves could get some assets for him, they would be wise to do so. Grade: D.

#22 Kieron Walton. Walton is an excellent player, but he can also be infuriating. He currently ranks third in OHL scoring with 21 goals and 27 assists in 28 games. He feasts on the power play. He is a high volume, relatively low percentage shooter. He is the one player on the Wolves that really scares opponents. He has imposing size and very good speed and makes him hard to handle for defenders. Walton finds the OHL easy for him as a 19-year-old, and strangely, that is his greatest problem. Walton is often content to cheat defensively, and he often floats on the periphery of the play. He does not play the game with a physical edge, because he does not have to. Walton is not a competitor. He does not compete, because he feels that he can dominate in the O with his size and skill. That is now, but T Puck expects that Walton will receive a rude awakening when he moves on to professional hockey next season. Walton will have to use his physicality to be successful at the next level and in the Show. The Wolves coaching staff needs to encourage Walton to dominate games physically in the second half of the season, because the Wolves need everything that he can bring to the table. The easy thing to do would be to give Walton an exceptional grade, but his indifferent defensive play and soft approach knocks is grade down to a B.

#26 Jan Chovan. Chovan is an 18-year-old Wolves Import draft pick. He did not demonstrate great offensive pedigree while playing in Finland last season. Chovan got off to a slow start on both sides of the puck this season. He has played better in recent weeks. He has seven goals and 11 assists in 29 games. He is an ugly -19 for the season. Chovan has good size, and he has a good head for the game. He often gets to the right spots in good scoring areas. He needs to demand the puck more in those good scoring areas. He also needs to increase his physical play. He could be a real force both in front of and behind the opposition goal. T Puck hopes that Chovan will be able to increases on offensive numbers in the second half of the season. He will be an important player for the team moving forward. Grade: C-.

#44 Daniel Berehowsky. Berehowsky is a 19-year-old who made the Wolves as a free agent. Berehowsky has decent hockey instincts. He can score the occasional goal. The defence is a work in progress, as evidenced by his -17+/- rating. He has six goals and seven assists so far this season. Unfortunately, that is not good enough for a 19-year-old player. Berehowsky needs to pick up his overall game in the second half of the season. He has been playing better in recent weeks, and he will need to continue his recent improvement. Grade: C-.

#72 Brayden Bennett. Bennett is the Wolves first-round pick from last season. He has been brought along slowly, as reflected by his modest scoring totals of two goals and three assists in 31 games. He has shown flashes of effective play this season. This is an and other chicken and egg scenario for the Wolves. Bennett needs playing time to develop, and is it worth sacrificing his crucial development time to sneak into the playoffs by playing on older players? He has good size, and it looks like she could be a good offensive player. He also seems to have good hockey instincts. His defence is a work in progress. This is a no-brainer. T Puck would give Bennett more ice time, at the expense of some of the Wolves veterans. Grade: C.

#77 Rowan Henderson. Henderson is a late birthdate 18-year-old player, who is NHL Draft eligible. Henderson has been an excellent penalty killer for the Wolves in his career. He has good competitiveness, and he is responsible defensively. He is also an excellent skater, who can create chances off the rush. Henderson is improving seemingly with each game, and the improvement has not gone unnoticed. Henderson received an invitation to the OHL Top Prospects Game in January. His offensive numbers are modest. He has eight goals and eight assists in 33 games. Henderson is one of the most complete players on the Wolves. T Puck believes that Henderson will have an increase in production and a good second half of the season. Grade: B-.

#89 Nathan Villeneuve. Wolves’ fans, T Puck wants to show you something. It is a normal OHL development progression. Nathan Villeneuve's point totals over four seasons, 22, 50, 70, 41 points in 25 games. This does not happen for two reasons. Firstly, the Wolves like to draft rookies and sophomore players that are older than their age cohort. Secondly, quite often, players do not stick around the entire four years to see the normal point progression take place. Villeneuve has 15 goals and 26 assists. There is nothing that Nathan Villeneuve will not do to win a game. Block a shot? Check. Punch another player in the face? Check. Go to the dirty area of the net? Check. A Seattle scout mentioned to Dario Zulich recently that he thought that Villeneuve was a unicorn. That is an accurate description of Villeneuve. Coaches love Villeneuve for just that reason. Villeneuve gets abundant scoring chances, and he needs to be more ruthless in front of net, and he needs to finish more of them for goals. He also needs to cut down his undisciplined penalties. Villeneuve has very good hockey skills, ultimate competitiveness and an average hockey IQ which would be better if he was more disciplined. He is a player that almost every OHL team would like to have. As T Puck stated when he was drafted, Nathan Villeneuve was the player that could do everything for the team that needed everything. Grade: B+.

#91 Hudson Chitaroni. Chitaroni is an 18-year-old second-year forward. He is this year's version of the forgotten man. His first half of the season was marred by concussions. It is not known when he will return to the lineup. He has four goals and two assists in 14 games. T Puck will give him a C and a wish for good health so that he can return to the Wolves lineup soon.

#97 Vladimir Provorov. Provorov is a 17-year-old rookie, who played in New Jersey last season. He is the younger brother of Ivan Provorov of the Columbus Blue Jackets. Provorov has been a disappointment this season. One goal, six assists in 33 games and a whopping -22 as a 17-year-old. That is ugly. Rob Papineau must have nightmares thinking about that. He has been of help to the team.by acting as Artem Gonchar's translator. Thank you for that. His decision-making ability is painfully slow. If you want to play at Ohio State, if you want to one day play in the Show, then you need to play much better. You have some hockey IQ, but you are not showing your skills and you are not competing hard enough. Maybe Ivan can come to Sudbury to help you so that you can have hockey career. T Puck hopes that it happens for you. Right now, Ohio State looks like a fantasy. Grade: D.

Coaching: the Wolves had a decent power play. It is hard to evaluate the offensive coaches, because frankly, outside of Walton and Villeneuve, they do not have a great deal to work with. The Wolves forwards need individual skill work in the worst way. The coaches need to work extra hard to get production out of this group. Grade: C-.

Head coach Scott Barney. Scott Barney is the kind of coach that you want to root for. He is the ultimate player’s coach. He cares about his players. He gets on his players because he cares about them. He is patient to a fault with his players. He has perspective. This season has been a difficult season for Scott Barney, as he integrates many new players into the Wolves squad. Things hit a low point when he went to the World Under-18 Challenge, but he appears to have righted the ship. Looking at the talent on the Wolves roster, it is hard to imagine that any coach could get much more out of this team then Scott Barney has. Scott Barney skills as a coach will be put to a true test in the second half of the season, as the Wolves contemplate a future without one or both of Kieron Walton and Nathan Villeneuve. The bottom line is that the Wolves are out of the playoffs, and management will expect that Barney will get them to the post-season. Grade: C-.

General Manager Rob Papineau. Rob Papineau is the Richard Kimball of General Managers. Papineau always seems to be managing with one arm tied around his back. Unfortunately for Wolves fans, Papineau has made a lot of mistakes recently. He ties his own arm behind his own back. Trades for Henry Mews and Noah Roberts, who are both no longer in Sudbury, have backfired. The draft cupboard virtually bare, with no second-round selections in 2026, 2027 or 2028. This is high risk, low reward trading. He was bound and determined that Finn Marshall could be a number one goaltender, even though Marshall had lousy numbers the previous season. He has spent a great deal of time and energy trying to paper over those mistakes, bringing in marginal players, at the cost of even more draft picks. Papineau likes to swing for the fences in his draft picks and player acquisitions, believing that he sees things and players that no one else does. Paolo Frasca, the goaltending saviour? Vladimir Provorov? Ethan Dean has three goals in 1.5 seasons. The latter two players are Rob Papineau's 2024 and 2025 second round picks. Let us look for a moment at the player selected in the second round of the 2024 OHL Priority Selections. JC Lemieux, Patrik Babin, Carter Hicks, Lucas Ambrosio, Nolan Buttar, Kent Greer, Max Crete, Alexander Bilecki, Blake Gowan, Troy Patton, Carter Stevens, Gavin Betts, Brooks Rogoski and Caleb Mitchell have all had far more productive careers to date than Ethan Dean. The Wolves last two drafts have been an exercise in high-risk, low reward drafting. The Wolves did not get any assets for Quentin Musty at the trade deadline last season. Did Rob Papineau win the battle, at the expense of losing the broader war? Return assets may have helped the rebuild. Let us talk about .409. That is your winning percentage so far this season. There's nothing significant in that number, but here is a number that a significant, .406. That decimal was Ted Williams’ batting average in 1941. Here is the point. A bating average of .406 is fantastic in baseball, but in hockey, basketball and football. as a winning percentage, it stinks. Fans of the Sudbury Wolves are paying the price for Rob Papineau. They are the people indirectly paying his salary. T Puck knows that it is a contract year for Rob Papineau, but that really does not matter, but he is failsafe. The Sudbury Wolves continue their march to nowhere under Rob Papineau. Grade: D-.