Novotny (6-foot-1, 200 pounds) has been creating special moments ever since, too. He finished second in scoring for Peterborough with 65 points (34 goals, 31 assists) and 20 power-play points (eight goals, 12 assists) in 58 games in his first season in the Ontario Hockey League. The 18-year-old was selected No. 8 by the Petes in the 2024 CHL import draft and signed his OHL standard player agreement on July 9, 2025.<\/p>\n
“It was pretty hard to leave Czechia because you’re leaving family for the first time but I’m glad I made the decision because it’s helping me a lot,” he said. “I’m just playing hard and working hard and things are working out.”<\/p>\n
Novotny, No. 14 on NHL Central Scouting’s final ranking of North American skaters eligible for the 2026 NHL Draft, has twice represented Czechia at the IIHF World Junior Championship, winning a bronze medal at the 2025 WJC and silver medal at the 2026 WJC.<\/p>\n
“He had a great tournament (in January),” Czechia National Junior Team coach Patrik Augusta said. “He doesn’t put up the numbers, but he does the little things. He’s a very good character guy. He’s a powerful skater and is not afraid to go to the areas where it hurts … in the corners and in front of the net. He’s not afraid to take a hit, and he’s not afraid to give a hit.”<\/p>\n
Novotny had three assists and led his country with 34 shots on goal while averaging 17:44 of ice time for Czechia at the 2026 WJC.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“He’s grown more as a person and I think he’s got more confidence in his game because he’s playing against his own age group,” Augusta said. “It wasn’t easy for him playing back home against the men in the Extraliga but he’s developing and that’s what you want to see in a young player. He’s the guy every coach would like to have on their team.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Novotny (6-foot-1, 200 pounds) has been creating special moments ever since, too. He finished second in scoring for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":742106,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,575,85],"class_list":["post-742105","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/742105","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=742105"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/742105\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/742106"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=742105"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=742105"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=742105"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}