The year 2015 was a rollercoaster ride for Vaughan hockey player Michael Dal Colle.

The 19-year-old New York Islanders first-round draft choice had quite a calendar year, culminating last May when he was part of a Memorial Cup-winning team with the Ontario Hockey League’s Oshawa Generals. The Generals also won the OHL title beating Newmarket’s Connor McDavid’s Erie Otters in the final.

Dal Colle hoped to crack the Islanders in his second try this past October but was sent back to the Generals where, in his fourth season, they pasted the ‘C’ on his sweater. Expected to lead a rebuilding team, Dal Colle, perhaps a little disappointed at returning to junior, struggled a bit on a team that found wins hard to come by and after 30 games was on less that a point-per-game pace, below expectations for a player of his calibre.

But just as 2015 was to turn to 2016, Dal Colle caught a big break. He was traded from the OHL’S eastern conference eighth-placed Generals to the first-place Kingston Frontenacs.

He now joins elite goalie Lucas Peressini of Nobleton, last year’s OHL goaltender of the year and among this year’s best again, and has a chance to make real noise in the playoffs with Kingston. That wasn’t going to happen in Oshawa.

It seemed Dal Colle gained immediate life from the trade notching eight points in his first two games, including five against the Generals. He has 10 points in just four games with Kingston.

Peressini has already played 30 games for Kingston, has a .912 save percentage, with 17 wins in regulation, 10 regulation losses, two in overtime and one loss in a shootout. He is sharing the load a little more with his backup this year and will probably be a little more fresh for the playoffs this year. Last year he played 59 of Kingston’s 68 games.

Peressini had a long look at the Toronto Maple Leafs camp where he was a late cut but showed he has what it takes to play pro hockey particularly if he plays deep into the playoffs this coming spring.

Kingston could well be the team to beat in the Eastern Conference come May and it will largely fall on the shoulders of Dal Colle and Peressini to lead the charge.