{"id":16013,"date":"2016-12-07T17:08:05","date_gmt":"2016-12-07T22:08:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=16013"},"modified":"2016-12-07T17:08:05","modified_gmt":"2016-12-07T22:08:05","slug":"former-tiger-shortlisted-for-nhl-draft-first-round","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/former-tiger-shortlisted-for-nhl-draft-first-round\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Tiger shortlisted for NHL draft first round"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Jake Courtepatte<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>A key component of last season\u2019s Junior A Aurora Tigers squad has been projected by the NHL as one of the first thirty picks in the 2017 entry draft.<br \/>\nAlex Formenton, one of only two Tigers to suit up for all 54 games in the 2015-16 OJHL season, signed with the OHL\u2019s London Knights in the offseason. The King City native, a natural left-winger, joined the Tigers following a successful Minor Midget season with the AAA Misssissauga Rebels in 2014-15.<br \/>\nWith fourteen points through the first 27 games in the OHL, the 17-year old has been pegged as a first round candidate by the NHL\u2019s Central Scouting division.<br \/>\n\u201cI would say my game has definitely improved,\u201d said Formenton. \u201cI just try to play my game, and get lots of scoring chances.\u201d<br \/>\nFormenton recorded thirteen goals and thirteen assists in his one season with Aurora.<br \/>\nAlso making the list was Formenton\u2019s teammate Robert Thomas, a former member of the York-Simcoe Express now in his second year with the Knights. The Aurora native has been projected by the NHL as a second round draft pick in 2017, playing at over a point-per-game pace so far this season.<br \/>\n\u201cIt\u2019s always been a dream of mine to get drafted,\u201d said Thomas. \u201cI\u2019m just trying to work as hard as I can and play my best.\u201d<br \/>\nThe 5\u201911\u201d, 175-lb. Thomas has been cemented into the second line centre role in London since joining the Knights last season.<br \/>\n\u201cYou\u2019re going to get a lot of criticism, and people critiquing how you play, but you just have to focus on your game.\u201d<br \/>\nBoth players will be waiting to hear their names called in the draft in late June.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A key component of last season\u2019s Junior A Aurora Tigers squad has been projected by the NHL as one of the first thirty picks in the 2017 entry draft.<br \/>\nAlex Formenton, one of only two Tigers to suit up for all 54 games in the 2015-16 OJHL season, signed with the OHL\u2019s London Knights in the offseason. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":16014,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16013","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-sports","category-sports"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/2016-12-08-07.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16013","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16013"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16013\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16014"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16013"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16013"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16013"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}