The Sarnia Sting declined to make a selection in Thursday's Canadian Hockey League Import Draft.
The team was scheduled to pick 56th and 116th overall but decided to pass.
GM Nick Sinclair says both of their imports, Adam Ruzicka and Hugo Leufvenius, will be returning for the upcoming season.
"We think they're both two of the top import players, if not beyond that, as far as across the league goes," says Sinclair. "We're excited to have Hugo and Adam back for the 2018-19 season, and they're going to be a big part of our team. In saying that, we weren't able to pick because of the two import limit."
Sinclair says he was surprised that Leufvenius wasn't chosen in the recent National Hockey League Draft.
"There was a lot of NHL interest towards Hugo throughout the season, especially in the last couple of months," says Sinclair. "He had a really good playoffs for us, and was one of our top players through the two rounds. There was a lot of interest and phone calls from NHL teams. You never know with the draft, weird things can happen with staffs on draft day.
We think he's really close to being an NHL pick. Just in talking with him in the past few days, he's taking everything in stride and with the right outlook. He really motivated to come in and continue from where he was in the playoffs."
CHL teams were allowed to choose goalies in the import draft for the first time since 2013, but Sinclair says that wasn't in their plan.
"We've got a couple of younger goalies coming through our system that we believe in," says Sinclair. "Aidan Hughes has played significant games over the last couple of years, and has kind of been in Justin Fazio's shadow. We think he can take a big step this year and be a number one guy in the league. With a couple of the other goalies we have signed, we think one of them will step up and solidify our goaltending."
Past import draft selections made by the Sting include Pavel Zacha, Nikolay Goldobin, Nail Yakupov, Ludvig Rensfeldt, Nick Latta, Ivan Novoseltsev, and Patrik Laine.
The Sting open their season on Friday, September 21 in Sault St. Marie.
They'll host the Flint Firebirds in their home opener on September 28 at Progressive Auto Sales Arena.