{"id":20718,"date":"2018-05-31T09:31:17","date_gmt":"2018-05-31T13:31:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=20718"},"modified":"2018-06-06T19:39:54","modified_gmt":"2018-06-06T23:39:54","slug":"auroras-thomas-named-ohl-playoff-mvp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/auroras-thomas-named-ohl-playoff-mvp\/","title":{"rendered":"Aurora\u2019s Thomas named OHL Playoff MVP"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Jake Courtepatte<\/strong><\/p>\n

Robert Thomas can add one more physical piece of evidence in cementing his name as a future NHL leader.
\nThe 2017 first-round draft pick of the St. Louis Blues capped off an incredible Ontario Hockey League season as the leading scorer of the Hamilton Bulldogs, leading to hearing his name called as the league\u2019s Most Valuable Player following the Bulldogs championship title.
\n\u201cIt definitely feels really good,\u201d said Thomas. \u201cWhen you get into that situation where a team trades for you, for that reason, it feels like your job to do it.\u201d
\n\u201cWhen I came in I was welcomed with open arms by everyone, the management, all my teammates\u2026it really made my job really easy.\u201d
\nThomas was leading the OHL\u2019s London Knights in scoring when he was traded to the Bulldogs in a blockbuster in January, setting up Hamilton for their successful run.
\nThough the Bulldogs were forced to give up a promising prospect, four second round draft picks, and a third round pick to acquire the prized centreman, the Aurora native led his team the remainder of the season in putting up four goals and 25 assists in 22 games with his new club.
\n\u201cThe thing with us, is a lot of the guys didn\u2019t have a lot of playoff experience,\u201d said Thomas. \u201cWe just seemed to get better and better, and the further along we got we became closer and closer as a team, and I was happy to be a part of that.\u201d
\nThe Bulldogs went on to take the J. Ross Robertson Cup over the Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds in six games, with Thomas netting the go-ahead goal in the sixth game to clinch the title.
\n\u201cIt was pretty special,\u201d said Thomas. \u201cIt was an awesome goal for me to get, it was awesome. A lot of fun.\u201d
\nNamed the \u201cWayne Gretzky 99 Award\u201d, Thomas is the second Blues prospect to win the league MVP title in five years, after current Blues mainstay Dante Fabbro won in 2013.
\nFinding themselves facing the best-of-the-best in Canadian junior hockey as the Ontario representatives in last week\u2019s Memorial Cup, the Bulldogs fell in the semifinal, though Blues Director of Player Development Tim Taylor was on-hand to keep tabs on his future star.
\n\u201cHe reminds me of Patrice Bergeron,\u201d Taylor told NHL.com, referencing the two-time Olympic gold medal winner. \u201cHe does everything on the ice. He\u2019s always in the right place at the right time.\u201d
\nThomas spent the better part of three OHL seasons with the Knights, catching the eye of scouts after a successful stint in the York-Simcoe Express minor system.<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Jake Courtepatte Robert Thomas can add one more physical piece of evidence in cementing his name as a future NHL leader. The 2017 first-round draft pick of the St. Louis Blues capped off an incredible Ontario Hockey League season as the leading scorer of the Hamilton Bulldogs, leading to hearing his name called as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":20722,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[24,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20718","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-sports","category-sports"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/2018-05-31-06.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-5oa","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-16 12:08:29","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20718","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=20718"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20718\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20722"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20718"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20718"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20718"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}