A pre-season of movement for the London Knights

There isn’t a roster in the sports world that isn’t in some way, in flux. In major junior hockey it is a lot like trying to create an ice sculpture while sitting next to a fire pit. The pieces that make up your club are constantly melting away. Career lifespans have always been short. Three years. Four years. The select few may hang around for five.

They age out. They graduate, The best of the best make the National Hockey League as teenagers.

You always have to be adding pieces and trying to freeze them in place to give yourself the best chance to win.

And now with the flexibility players have to go and play NCAA as early as 18 or 19 it is like someone has added more logs that fire pit. It has turned up the heat.

So every general manager is constantly on the lookout for ways to make their team better but they need to cast their eyes in even more directions than ever before.

As the London Knights begin the 2026-27 regular season

From Sept. 3 to Sept. 16 London sent defenceman Linus Funck to Oshawa to open up an import roster spot for Anaheim Ducks first round pick Marcus Nordmark.

London received a 2nd round pick in 2027 and a 3rd round pick in 2028 in the deal.

The Knights later acquired Carson Harmer and a 4th round pick from the Saginaw Spirit for forward Braidy Wassilyn.

Then London brought in 19-year old defenceman Jonathan Kapageridis on Sept. 16 from the North Bay Battalion for a 4th round draft pick in 2029.

There were also two trades that will give now former Knights some opportunities that they would not have been able to get in London because of the depth that the Knights roster has.

“It’s kind of a new landscape,” describes Knights General Manager Mark Hunter. “With all of the new rules there are a lot of options for players and you need to manage that.”

NCAA eligibility rule changes have seen some players leave early from major junior hockey to go to U.S. Colleges. Conversely a number of players have been able to play major junior with an eye on preserving their NCAA eligibility. Something that wasn’t possible before the changes.

“Every player wants to play,” says Hunter. “If you’re not going to be able to play it isn’t fair to them to be sitting in the stands so we try to find them (a team) where they will get ice time.”

Winger Brody Cook is now in Kingston and defenceman Jacob Xu is in Peterborough.

Even with all of the early changes the London roster still has some questions to be answered in terms of who slots in where.

Much of that will be determined when players return from NHL training camps.

The L.A. Kings have to decide where to play Henry Brzustewicz. Being 19 years old and a first round draft pick Brzustewicz is now eligible to play in the American Hockey League.

Once Aleksei Medvedev comes back from Vancouver London will have to make a decision in goal as well.

Brian Cooke and Charlie Weiss are the other goalies on the roster.

But although depth can be a challenge it can never be seen as a problem.

It represents the next blocks of ice for that ice sculpture that roster building has become.

Lose that ice and you’re left with nothing but a puddle looking all wet.