The Barrie Colts and the Kingston Frontenacs have become familiar trading partners in recent days.
With the Ontario Hockey League's trade deadline set for noon today, the Eastern Conference rivals made a trade that will see hard-nosed defenceman Braden Hache come to Barrie in exchange for draft picks.
Hache, a 19-year-old Newmarket native, was selected by the Florida Panthers in the seventh round (210th overall) of the 2021 NHL Entry Draft.
The left-handed defender is listed at six-foot-three and 210 pounds. He has one goal and eight assists in 36 games this season with the Frontenacs to go along with 46 penalty minutes and a minus-4 rating. Hache is in his third OHL season.
“Braden has developed into one of the top shutdown defenceman in the league," Barrie Colts head coach and general manager Marty Williamson said in a release.
"He’s a hard player to play against and we feel he fits well into our team for the rest of the season and into playoffs," Williamson added. "We’re looking forward to start working with Braden.”
Barrie sends a pair of second-round picks (North Bay 2024, conditional Saginaw 2026), a fourth-rounder (Barrie 2025), and two fifth-round picks (Mississauga 2024, conditional Barrie 2024) back to Kingston to complete the transaction.
The two clubs also made a deal on Jan. 4 that saw Colts defenceman Ian Lemieux head to the Frontenacs in exchange for a sixth-round pick in 2026.
The Hache deal also comes one day after Kingston made a blockbuster trade that sent forward Shane Wright, fresh off captaining Team Canada to a gold medal at the world junior tournament, to the Windsor Spitfires for Ethan Miedema, Gavin McCarthy and a slew of draft picks.
