With the 22nd overall selection in the 2023 Ontario Hockey League U18 Draft in the second round, the Erie Otters selected Soo U18 Greyhound netminder Maverick Fletcher.

The 6’1” and 172 lbs goaltender from Sudbury, Ontario who catches left played in 27 regular season games with the U18 Greyhounds in the 2022 – 2023 GNU18HL season. The Soo U18 Greyhound finished the regular season in Sault Ste Marie with a 1.60 goal against average in 900 minutes played along with a save percentage of .867 and allowing only 24 goals during the season. Fletcher also had four shutouts in regular season. In five postseason contests between the pipes for the U18 Greyhounds, the Sudbury goaltender played 218 minutes and had 11 goals against with a goal against avergae of 3.03. Mavrick also dressed for one Soo Thunderbird junior ‘A’ game where he had a goal against average of 1.93 and save percentage of .926 that led to a Thunderbird win.

Fletcher told Saultsports that “this is unreal. This is kind of something that you can only dream about. I played A and AA my whole life until my minor midget year. I didn’t get drafted in the u16 and I was very disappointed. I was very sad that I didn’t go but I knew that it wasn’t over yet. Jamie gave me a shot on the U18 Greyhounds program, and I wanted to walk into games proving teams wrong that’s they missed out on me.”

“Maverick came in really motivated this season to show he was one of the top undrafted goalies and he was our MVP all season. When the games were the most important at tournaments down south he stood on his head and gave us a chance to win every time he was out there. He was a tremendous teammate as well and a great mentor and goalie partner for our 07 Nathan Maguire,” added U18 Greyhound coach Jamie Henderson.