Early this week the Saginaw Spirit made a trade with the North Bay Battalion that involved, among other things, the acquisition of a young goalie. The transaction immediately put my prospect radar on high alert since the Spirit already had 2 goalies, including starter and overage goalie Jake Paterson. The OHL overage player trade deadline is today at noon, and a few minutes before the cut off, the Spirit announced that they have traded Paterson to the Kitchener Rangers. The Spirit receive Kitchener’s 3rd Round pick in 2017 and their 2nd Round pick in 2018.
TRADE: Saginaw trades G Jake Paterson to Kitchener @OHLRangers in exchange for two OHL Draft Selections. Details to come.
— Saginaw Spirit (@SpiritHockey) January 8, 2015
The Spirit were interested in trading Paterson early in the season and going with their 2 young goalies, since they’re supposedly in the midst of a rebuild of sorts. Instead, they traded goalie Nikita Serebryakov and relied heavily on Paterson, with David Ovsjannikov backing him up. Saginaw has now traded away several roster players this season, including their Captain, and Paterson will play for an OHL team that’s not the Spirit for the first time in his career.
| Jake Paterson Regular Season | ||||||||||||
| Season | GP | GA | Mins | Saves | GAA | SV% | W | L | OTL | SOL | T | SO |
| 2014-15 | 24 | 82 | 1413 | 784 | 3.48 | 0.905 | 12 | 11 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| 2013-14 | 45 | 143 | 2518 | 1379 | 3.41 | 0.906 | 24 | 18 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
| 2012-13 | 50 | 170 | 2893 | 1541 | 3.53 | 0.901 | 25 | 18 | 3 | 2 | 0 | 1 |
| 2011-12 | 42 | 129 | 2265 | 1219 | 3.42 | 0.904 | 18 | 18 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 1 |
| 2010-11 | 5 | 15 | 303 | 147 | 2.97 | 0.907 | 3 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Total: | 166 | 539 | 9392 | 5070 | 3.44 | 0.904 | 82 | 65 | 7 | 6 | 0 | 5 |
| Jake Paterson Playoffs | ||||||||||||
| Season | GP | GA | Mins | Saves | GAA | SV% | W | L | OTL | SOL | T | SO |
| 2014 | 5 | 24 | 308 | 193 | 4.67 | 0.889 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2013 | 4 | 21 | 235 | 129 | 5.36 | 0.86 | 0 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2012 | 12 | 35 | 689 | 324 | 3.05 | 0.903 | 6 | 3 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2011 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Total: | 21 | 80 | 1232 | 646 | 3.89 | 0.89 | 7 | 8 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Paterson has always had a tough job in Saginaw, facing a lot of shots and often getting below average support from his team. Paterson is currently 11th in SV% in the OHL while facing the 7th most shots in the league. The Spirit currently sit in 3rd place in the West Division with 38 points and a 18-17-1-1 record. The Rangers are in 5th in the Midwest Division with 38 points and a 15-13-2-6 record.
I don’t know yet where Paterson will fit in on the team and how involved a role he’ll have because the Rangers now have 3 goalies on their roster as well. The other two goalies aren’t overage players, so the Rangers have until tomorrow at noon to make a move (that can’t involve any overage players). Matthew Greenfield and Dawson Carty have split time evenly for Kitchener and I have no indication which goalie they’ll be looking to move. Paterson joins the Rangers with the best SV% of the 3 goalies and significantly more shots faced.
| Name | GP | Min | GA | SO | GAA | W | L | OTL | SOL | SA | SVS | SAV% | |
| 1 | Jake Paterson | 24 | 1413 | 82 | 1 | 3.48 | 12 | 11 | 0 | 1 | 866 | 784 | 0.905 |
| 2 | Matthew Greenfield | 20 | 1029 | 61 | 0 | 3.56 | 8 | 7 | 1 | 3 | 480 | 419 | 0.873 |
| 3 | Dawson Carty | 21 | 1172 | 62 | 0 | 3.17 | 7 | 6 | 1 | 3 | 581 | 519 | 0.893 |
| Empty Net | 3 | 4 | 4 |
I hope the Rangers are better to Jake than Saginaw has been, and that he has a chance to show how good he really is. Rangers General Manager Murray Hiebert said in a radio interview (at the bottom of this article) that Paterson is an experienced goalie that everyone coveted and the Rangers see Paterson as kind of a key acquisition they needed in order to get the most out of their team. It sounds like the Rangers are pretty excited to get Paterson and I hope he’ll be a great fit.
We’ll keep you updated as any other news unfolds. Good luck in Kitchener, Patty!
