Ethan Miedema’s only 19 years old, but he knows all too well about the ups and downs of team hockey.
The 2023 Sabres fourth-round pick has been on first-place teams, middle of the pack teams, and teams that haven’t made the 16-team playoffs in a 20-team league during his four seasons in the OHL with the Windsor Spitfire and Kingston Frontenacs.
Now, he’s on the first line for Kingston after slowly helping the Frontenacs make their way up the OHL standings season by season. He’s taken a veteran role with the team, helping lead them to the top of their conference and fifth place in the league while registering 31 points (11+20) in 27 games, including a nine-game point streak in which he’s recorded three goals and 10 assists.
“I'm an older player and it comes with those high expectations for myself and within the group that your older players are the ones leading, producing, doing things that maybe you wouldn't understand from a young age,” Miedema said. “You learn that as you come up and grow in the league and you know you’ve gained so much experience. It's cliche to say but as you get older in the league, that's just how it is with the expectations.”
After spending his first season and a half with Windsor on a top-of-the-league team, one that was a game away from winning the OHL Playoffs in his rookie season, Miedema went from the top of the standings to the bottom of the standings in the middle of the 2022-23 OHL season.
Ten hours before the trade deadline on Jan. 9, 2023, Miedema was traded to Kingston as part of a package for Shane Wright, the fourth-overall pick in the 2022 NHL Draft.
The trade took him by surprise. Suddenly, a 17-year-old Miedema had to pack up and leave everything he knew for the previous two years, leaving high-school friends behind along with his old billet family to play hockey in a new place with new faces.
While it put him in a closer proximity to his family and friends, it also messed with the routine that he had going on, playing hockey while living with a familiar set of faces and going to high school with friends in Windsor.
More importantly, he started to get more ice time on a rebuilding Kingston team that he wasn’t getting on a Spitfires team that was trying to compete for a title.
“I had a really good support group there with my billet, friends, teammates. I went to high school there for two years. Even just being there for two years, growing up really,” Miedema said. “Then the transition, going from a one seed to a team that doesn't make the playoffs, that's probably the biggest thing. When I got traded in Windsor, I wasn't necessarily a go-to guy just because there were so many drafted, talented, high-end players, and then when I got traded, I got all these opportunities.”
While he wasn’t being asked to contribute immediately on the first line in Kingston, he was acquired by the team to potentially fill that role down the line and help them make the playoffs.
In 100 games for Kingston in the 2022-23 and 2023-24 seasons following the trade, he had 62 points (27+35) while trying to develop as a player and mature as a person. Thanks to putting in the time with Kingston, and playing on the lower lines, it’s helped him be ready for his first-line role this season.
“When I was younger, even a little bit last year, I was playing lower in the lineup, just learning how to play in different roles, in different situations,” Miedema said. “I’ve played on every line, first through fourth now, and not that your game necessarily changes depending on the line, but it's more just knowing other factors like time in the game if you're going to make a play like that or not turning the puck over at this time of the game.”
Miedema’s development convinced Kingston head coach Troy Mann that he could depend on Miedema as a leader on the ice. Mann specifically pointed to Miedema’s performance in the playoffs as a sign of growth.
“He gave me good confidence going into the offseason in terms of building our team, that he would be part of it,” Mann said. “He is 19 and they claim that the CHL is a 19-year-old league, so he needed to be one of our best players and he needed to be a guy that we can rely on. So far, him and his line have been pretty effective for us.”
With Miedema turning 20 in March, his time in the juniors will come to an end after this season. According to Mann, who has 13 years of AHL coaching experience, Miedema has already developed some professional training habits.
“Learning to be a pro and being consistent on a day-to-day basis is not an easy thing,” Mann said. “But I will say, Ethan's one of those guys that puts the work in terms of his off-ice preparation and, whether it's dynamic stretching or doing his workouts, he's very consistent with that.”
