The Barrie Colts added another big piece to their offensive attack on Thursday afternoon ahead of Friday’s OHL trade deadline.
The OHL club acquired forward Ben Wilmott from the London Knights in return for four draft picks and the rights to American forward William Moore, who is playing at Boston College.
Wilmott, a Knights free agent signee this past summer, has 12 goals and 22 assists for 34 points in 37 games this season.
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The 19-year-old, six-foot-one, 190-pound Seattle, Wash. native will play the left wing on a line with Cole Beaudoin and Emil Hemming and is expected to be in the Colts’ lineup Friday night in Guelph.
“We think it’s the perfect fit,” said Colts vice president and general manager Marty Williamson, who gave up second round (2026), third round (Niagara, 2029), fourth round (2028), and fifth round (Sarnia 2027) picks, along with Moore. “He does good things with the puck, and he’s a really smart player. We just think it’s a really good fit.”
Considering the earlier addition this week of overage forward Mason Zebeski and blueliner Parker von Richter from Brampton, the Colts believe they have a much deeper lineup that will help them take a run in this year’s playoffs.
“They’re 20- and 19-year-olds, and it really rounds out our team for the division we’re in and how we play,” said Williamson of the additions. “It really does check a lot of boxes. If you want to make a long run in the playoffs, you have to have some depth to your team, and we think we have it in every position.”
The Colts also made a couple of other moves on Thursday, dealing veteran forward Bode Stewart to Saginaw and releasing overage forward Alex Assadourian.
Moving the draft picks allows Barrie to hold on to a young core that they can continue to build around in the future.
“We’re pretty excited about that,” said Williamson of not having to give up his younger players. “To keep Aleksandr Sementsov, Eamon Edgar, Cole Emerton, Justin Handsor, and Joseph Salandra, and to have all these guys coming back here is exciting for us. [Draft] picks are commodities in our league. They go out, and they come back. For us, that we didn’t give up our players and weaken our team, and mess with our chemistry as far as guys going out, we’re pretty happy about it.
“We did lose a couple of guys with Stewart and Assadourian. They were good guys, but we brought in some quality guys.”
While there’s still time ahead of Friday’s noon deadline, Williamson expects that Barrie is likely done on the trade front.
“I think this will probably be it,” he said of deals. “You never say never until [Friday at] 12 p.m., but I don’t think I’ll be actively pursuing too much.”
With the added bodies up front, the Colts moved Stewart to the Saginaw Spirit in return for a 5th Rd. pick in 2026. Originally acquired from the Spirit in 2023, the Oakville native had 22 goals and 51 assists for 73 points in 158 games over three seasons with Barrie.
The move gives the veteran an opportunity for more ice time with a rebuilding team in Saginaw.
“We presented Bode with the options of being a smaller piece with us, or would he rather go to Saginaw and be a bigger piece, and we get an asset back in this draft,” said Williamson. “It’s an early fifth, so it was kind of a win-win for both of us.
“Bode was extremely happy, and he’s going back to somewhere that he knows. The trade just made a lot of sense.”
After the acquisition of Zebeski, the Colts were left with four overagers and had to get down to the maximum of three ahead of Thursday’s noonoverage deadline.
Williamson said they looked to move Assadourian, who was the odd man out, ahead of the deadline. The former Colt will join the Chicago Steel of the United States Hockey League before heading to Yale University on a scholarship next season.
“I’m happy he found a team,” said the Barrie GM. “He’s happy that he’s going to Yale University next year. It just was never really a fit with Alex, and more with us. He’s a power-play guy. He’s an offensive guy and we never really gave him that opportunity, but he was a good soldier and really never complained.
“When we got Mason, it was just we got one too many (overagers), and he was the odd man out.”
With the team leading the Central Division, Williamson is confident this roster will be able to make some noise come playoff time.
“We like our team an awful lot,” he said. “We play a good game, and we’ve got 30 or so games to jell in this second half, and put the pieces together, the power play and penalty kill, and all those things.
“We feel confident. We have a chance that this team can get on a run. We like our goaltending, we like our blueline, and we are deep in our forwards, so there are pretty good smiles on our faces right now.”
