The glow might not be off the London Knights’ 2025 Memorial Cup championship, but the push toward next season and beyond is well underway.
On June 19, London acquired 17-year-old forward Max Crete from the Niagara IceDogs in exchange for Jacob Monks and a 9th-round draft pick in 2028.
Crete was selected 30th overall by the IceDogs in 2024 and played all 68 games for Niagara last year as a 16-year-old rookie.
Crete scored 11 times and added eight assists.
He is from Ottawa and played for the Upper Canada Cyclones growing up. He was the captain of the Cyclones in his U16 year and led them in scoring.
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Crete, who is five-feet-nine-inches tall and 182 pounds, is known as an excellent skater and playmaker who also has a scoring touch.
He joins Logan Hawery, Caleb Mitchell, Max Mews, Jaxon Cover and Eddie Hickson as prospects on the London roster from the 2024 draft.
Monks is also a skilled forward who was a fifth-round pick of the Knights in 2024 and spent last year split between the U.S. National Development Team Program and the Little Caesar’s U16 AAA team.
Monks also played one game with the Fargo Force of the North American Hockey League.
The Wyandotte, Mich., native is committed to Merrimack College for the 2027-28 season and has not signed an OHL Scholarship and Development Agreement to this point.
The Knights will open the season and raise their third Memorial Cup championship banner to the rafters of Canada Life Place on Sept. 19, 2025, against the Owen Sound Attack.
On June 1, London joined the Windsor Spitfires, the Kamloops Blazers and the Cornwall Royals as the only franchises to win the Memorial Cup three times since the tournament format was adopted in 1972.
The Knights defeated the Medicine Hat Tigers 4-1 in the final game in Rimouski, Que.
London has won two consecutive Ontario Hockey League titles.
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