Spencer Martin, 17, is second in the OHL in GAA and save pct. (OHL Images)

Spencer Martin, unlike many promising puck-stoppers, doesn't have people guessing which version of him will be in net on a particular night.

The Ontario Hockey League's top goaltending prospect for the NHL draft is displaying why the Mississauga Steelheads organization (né Majors) spent a first-round choice on him in 2011. The 17-year-old Martin has been redoubtable by any standard as the Steelheads' starter during the first six weeks of the OHL season. He's used his big 6-foot-2, 192-pound frame to good effect, having yet to allow more than three goals through his first 10 starts for the blue and white. Granted, Mississauga has made its name(s) through airtight defence and goaltending, but that stat attests to why many believe Martin will be the second OHL goalie in as many seasons to be a NHL first-round pick. The Belleville Bulls' Malcolm Subban went No. 24 overall to the Boston Bruins in June.

"For goalies, everything changes day to day," Martin says of being focused on being consistent. "You come to to practice and, oh, you got beat, for instance, glove [side] the night before and you want to work on that for the next game. That changes pretty quick. I just want to get physically stronger off the ice and continue from there. If it's a certain area where you got beat once or twice, you make sure you make a few saves like those in practice and go from there.

"One of the most important things for a goalie is to show up consistently for his team."

Top American draft prospect Seth Jones (Getty Images)Don't worry, the diehards who passed on Halloween to watch the Portland Winterhawks play on Wednesday still something wicked — Seth Jones showing off hands that should be illegal on a 6-foot-4 defenceman who just turned 18 years old.

Many pundits believe Jones, who is in line become the first son of a former NBA player to make the NHL, has a case to be the No. 1 overall pick in next summer's draft. Against the Everett Silvertips, the big man reaffirmed why Sports Illustrated proclaimed him the next big thing in U.S. hockey back in 2009 when Jones was playing bantam hockey in Dallas. It was only his 13th game with the Winterhawks, but he pulled off a goal that bore the mark of a veteran who has figured out the league.

[Related: Seth Jones NHL draft tracker]

After the Silvertips — the franchise which originally drafted Jones out of minor hockey — turned the puck over, Jones joined the rush and gathered momentum through the neutral zone. Teammate Adam De Champlain set a pick, so to speak, at the blueline, and then Jones made this hesitation move that froze a 20-year-old defenceman, Landon Oslanski. Then he bested goalie Austin Lotz.

Portland Winterhawks' Chase De Leo (Marissa Baecker, Getty Images)

No. 1 star: Chase De Leo, Portland Winterhawks (WHL)

De Leo (1G-1A, +2) was pivotal during the four-goal second period (half of the second period, really) that vaulted the 'Hawks to a 5-2 win over the Everett Silvertips. Everett, which nearly upset league-leading Kamloops on Tuesday, nursed a one-goal lead into the second period before the 17-year-old De Leo scored a beauty goal on a wrist shot. Portland notched three more goals within the next 10 minutes. The big takeaway was that instead of Team Canada candidate Ty Rattie doing the heavy lifting, the rally was carried by De Leo, fellow 17-year-olds Oliver Bjorkstrand and Brendan Leipsic and top NHL draft prospect Seth Jones, the only one of the four who is old enough to vote in next Tuesday's U.S. election. (Okay, Leipsic is Canadian and Bjorkstrand is a Dane with an American father, but you get the drift). De Leo also made a great pass to set up Bjorkstrand's goal.

Former Saskatchewan captain Kyle Ross (left) played 10 years in the WHL and Canada West (The Canadian Press file photo)

Perhaps Canadians would not jump for the dangling carrot — major junior players being eligible for the NCAA — if the country's own brand post-secondary puck received its due more frequently.

Whatever becomes of those agitating for a union in the Canadian Hockey League in the name of education, education, education, remains to be seen. (In the wake of Tuesday's bombshells, one does wonder who would sign a  membership card furnished by a group  facing serious allegations about its spokesman's identity and past.) During all this tumult and shouting about the CHLPA, though, it's often been overlooked that Canadian Interuniversity Sport is already holding up its end of the bargain on helping junior grads combine a high calibre of hockey with higher education.

The dream-factory economics of developmental hockey in Canada, selling hope, dictates CIS players often perform in front of crowds a fraction of the size of what they experienced as teenagers in the CHL. But the ever-improving quality of play is undeniable. Perennial Top 10 CIS squads attract players who opted to use their junior-league education packages instead of trying their luck with an AHL contract.

The What Should Be — what if CHL grads could go to the NCAA? — is sexier. But let's give the What Is that is the upper echelon of CIS hockey its due.

Combing all corners of the country and the blogosphere for your junior hockey headlines ...

WHL

Columbus Blue Jackets No. 2 overall choice Ryan Murray is getting something from skating for the Everett Silvertips during the NHL lockout. (Sportsnet, Everett Herald)

The Kamloops Blazers' have matched the league's longest win streak in three seasons, although it took a third-period comeback and a shootout winner at Everett. (Kamloops Daily News)

The Spokane Chiefs scored eight goals on Tuesday while leading scorer Mitch Holmberg sat out with an upper-body injury. (Spokane Spokesman-Review)

Defending champion Edmonton now has points in nine of 10 games. The post-championship malaise might be lifting. Meantime, draft-year goalie Tristan Jarry is trying to make the most of his limited starts. (Sportsnet)

Prince Albert's German sensation, 17-year-old Leon Draisaitl, had family watching when he sniped the shootout winner on Tuesday. (Prince Albert Daily Herald)

Draft watchers are taking note of Swift Current's 6-foot-4 defenceman Dillon Heatherington. (WHL From Above)

OHL

None of the tall foreheads in North Bay are saying much about the Brampton Battalion possibly moving north, so are we to conclude something must be up? (North Bay Nugget)

The London Knights are 3-5 on home ice. Change the name of the arena back! (London Free Press)

Gary Jeffries (centre) in 2005, when Laurier ruled CIS football (The Canadian Press)

It is nothing shy of sad Wilfrid Laurier University's Gary Jeffries cannot go on his own terms when you remember the circumstances the coach inherited.

It comes as a no shock that the former Vanier Cup-winning coach is likely out after a total of 35 seasons with the Laurier Golden Hawks. Jeffries just presided over Laurier's first successive losing seasons in a decade, with this campaign concluding with a 34-0 first-round loss to Queen's that seemed all but an inevitability once the Golden Gaels' first touchdown was on the scoreboard. His presumptive replacement will be gifted with a grace period and a maturing roster, so it's understandable why Laurier athletic director Peter Baxter would believe the timing is right for a change. The program that regularly finished near the top of Ontario University Athletics football, winning Vanier Cups in 1991 and 2005, could use some fresh blood.

The sadness many who relish university football surely feel regarding Jeffries should come first. The buck stops with the head coach in football, but anyone with a heart and knowledge of the situation could sense how devastating it was for Jeffries, 66, to possibly go out on such a low note.

Is 18-year-old Brendan Gaunce better off in the AHL or OHL? (OHL Images)

According to the proposed Canadian Hockey League Players' Association, the Niagara IceDogs should just say no to Dougie.

So to speak.

After two months of sound and fury signifying mostly nothing, the group might have a point about the legal possibility of major junior players retaining their eligibility for the NCAA, as executive director Georges Laraque alluded to at some point in his rambling late last week. Just saying that needs to be copiously footnoted. It sounds extremely farfetched, for one thing. The NCAA would have to make that change and its wheels grind very slowly. Also, there's a potential unintended consequence, as Dean Millard noted last weekend, that achieving NCAA eligibility might leave many CHL players high and dry: if some players could get full rides south of the border, why would there have be education packages available for the rest of the 98 per cent who don't have a significantly long professional tenure?

Guy Flaming of Team 1260's The Pipeline Show in Edmonton has done some phenomenal legwork giving a fair portrayal of what the group wants. Its contention is that because Hockey Canada bylaws designate the Canadian Hockey League as amateur, it simply should have the moral fibre to turn away signed NHL draft picks. That might make sense to a lawyer, but it's enough to make others wonder about the group's grasp on how hockey works.

Apparently we're to believe, to use (sorry, eh) a few easy Ontario-centric examples, 18-year-old Vancouver Canucks pick Brendan Gaunce would be better off as an 18-year-old living in Chicago, playing against men with the AHL Wolves, rather than be in Belleville, a hour away from his family. Or that the aforementioned Dougie Hamilton should have gone directly to AHL Providence when the Boston Bruins signed him instead of playing for the IceDogs, not far from his family's Niagara Falls, Ont., home. To say nothing of less emotionally and/or physically mature players chosen later in the NHL draft; maybe they could go to the ECHL. Being blind to this is why the CHLPA undermines its own bid for credibility.

Combing all corners of the country and the blogosphere for your junior hockey headlines ...

WHL

Now that the national media that deigned to label the Kamloops Blazers a "no-name powerhouse," you just know their first regulation loss is coming up soon. It has to. (National Post)

Victoria Royals GM Cam Hope is dubious of the proposed Canadian Hockey League Players' Association. And he only worked for the players' union in the CFL. (Victoria Times-Colonist)

Winnipeg Jets second-rounder Lukas Sutter is hopeful of getting untracked in Saskatoon. The Blades need to get in a good head space soon. (Saskatoon StarPhoenix)

Tonight, the Vancouver Giants' rambunctious Kale Kessy faces the Lethbridge Hurricanes, who probably haven't forgot the checking to the head major he received against them earlier this season. (Vancouver Province)

The Portland Winterhawks have been more "clinical" throughout their 9-3-1-0 start, writes Dylan Bumbarger. (Oregon Live)

OHL

The OHL outdoor games slated for Dec. 29, three days before the NHL Winter Classic, could be finito by Tuesday. Saginaw Spirit president Craig Goslin: "As soon as another round of [NHL] games is cancelled, there's a likelihood the Hockeytown Winter Festival and the games around it will be as well."

Saying shame on the NHL does no good, because that's an emotion the league isn't capable of having. (Windsor Star)