The Barrie Colts bolstered their offence on Tuesday, but it came at a price.
In a swap of overagers with the Niagara IceDogs, the Colts acquired centre Alex Assadourian along with a fifth-round pick in 2027 (Sarnia) in return for defenceman Grayson Tiller.
With the need for scoring up front, general manager Marty Williamson says he looked at the depth on the left side of the blueline with Kashawn Aitcheson, Gabriel Eliasson, and Justin Handsor. He decided it was the right move to make, along with head coach Dylan Smoskowitz.
“We really want to get Handsor going,” said Williamson. “We believe we got a talent there. There was a glut of good defencemen.”
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Tiller, a St. Catharines native, was a stable force on the back end for Barrie, logging a ton of minutes and playing a key role on the penalty kill while finishing the season with a career-high seven goals and 13 assists for 20 points in 67 regular season games.
It's the first trade made by newly-named Niagara general manager Frank Evola since he was named to the position last week.
“Tiller played outstanding for us last year,” said Williamson. “He’s a tough piece to give up and a really good kid, but we lost a lot of scoring with the departure of (Anthony) Romani, (Dalyn) Wakely, (Beau) Jelsma, and that whole group. We’re able to replace it with Assadourian who our coach is familiar with.
“He’s really ready to prove something. He’s a point-a-game player and had six points (4-2-6) in five playoff games against us. We saw firsthand his speed was difficult to handle. Frank and I talked in Niagara, and this is a good hockey trade.”
Originally a second-round pick of the Sudbury Wolves in the 2021 OHL Priority Selection, the speedy centre had 14 and 18 assists for 32 points in 38 games during an injury-plagued season.
“He’s got that speed that really puts fear (in the opposition) and that’s something that Dylan and I talked about that we wanted to add to our team to kind of replace what we lost with a Beau Jelsma,” said Williamson. “A guy that can kind of just skate by people.”
Assadourian was out from late October to early December last season with an undisclosed injury and missed some 23 games in 2023-24, but Williamson said the Stouffville native is healthy and ready to go.
“His first two years he was healthy as an ox,” the GM said of the five-foot-10, 172-pound forward. “He played 66 games, and he’s had trouble his last couple of years, but he’s feeling 100 per cent. He believes he didn’t quite let the injury heal. The team was doing so well in Niagara when he got hurt and then they went on a tailspin, and there was a lot of pressure to get back in the lineup and he didn’t give his injury enough time to heal so then it lingered all season, and it got worse.
“We feel pretty confident that he’s a healthy body coming in and is hopefully going to give us 60-plus games.”
Williamson sees Assadourian sliding into that second-line centre role and believes he’ll be able to produce with options surrounding him like Brad Gardiner, Bode Stewart, Carter Lowe and Riley Patterson.
“We strengthened our top-six from where it was at the end of the season,” he said. “We put a nice piece into our lineup.”
Tiller gets to move close to home and play a big role with a Niagara team that has plenty of young talent.
“It’s nice for him and he’ll play a big role for that team,” said Williamson. “He’ll be in that top pairing, so it’s a really good opportunity for him. He and I have had some really good talks, and he totally understands, and he really appreciates that we could get him close to home.”
Tiller is committed to Brock University following his final OHL season and didn’t want to stray too far from home.
“He wanted to play in the league, but he didn’t want to play in a lot of situations that just weren’t going to be (for him),” said Williamson. “Even with us, we’re fairly close to home. His dad loves coming to all the games, so it really was a win-win for everything.
“I called him (Tuesday), and he’s excited for the opportunity and was grateful for everything we gave him in Barrie too.”
Williamson says he doesn’t expect any other moves over the summer before camp opens in late August.
“I don’t think so,” he said. “We’re still at two overagers and we do have room for another one, but we want to take a look at a lot of these kids.”
The Barrie GM says he’s excited about seeing the progression that defencemen like Ethan Armstrong and Handsor have made over the summer and getting a closer look at young prospects up front like first-round pick Alexander Sementsov.
“I think we’re just going to wait and see if everything pans out the way we think it’s going to,” said Williamson. “See if there are NHL guys who come back and cross our fingers, we get all our guys back.”
