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2017 Draft - The Unknown Prospects |
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The NHL Final is in full swing and it has been a lot of fun to watch. I’ll play my hand here and let it be known I want the Predators to win. A mixture of hearing Montreal fans riot on the airwaves as if having Subban would make THEM win the Cup and that I want a team not named the Penguins, Kings or Blackhawks to win for a change. Just for variety…and to continue watching the weird Toews vs. Crosby debate, as if there is one. The Expansion Draft is also going to be stealing headlines and for the markets not contending for the Cup it already has. Listening to bores drone on about how hard it is to lose one of Chris Wideman, Dion Phaneuf or Mark Bororowiwicize has been painful. The NHL Entry Draft however, is where a lot of fans are looking as debating what horrendous mistakes “your” GM will make is some of the most depressing fun we can have.
There are always players that are intriguing that fly under the radar. It’s a fact of life and as predictable as a NBA season. Sometimes these players fly under the radar because of the league they are in, sometimes due to a large game flaw that requires major fixing. Later they will pop up as free agents and everybody will wonder where the heck they came from. This draft has been termed as “Not particularly strong.” I agree with this statement from what I’ve seen. When the “Taylor vs. Tyler” is a guy putting up numbers between Grigorenko and Ehlers vs. a guy with a thousand injuries and RNH numbers, it’s not exactly “sexy.” However that doesn’t mean that there aren’t quality players to be found.
I’ve always found it odd that teams are more interested in picking ex-NHL players sons or hulking 4th liner junior players that are 20 years old in the later rounds. The likelihood of getting an NHL player, let alone a quality one in the late rounds is very low. Why not pick the player with all speed and no hands? The player with no speed and all hands? A player with an elite shot and no defensive awareness? Pick somebody that you has a natural skill and hope you can teach/develop the rest of their game. When you really look at it, most fourth liners in the NHL were 1st or 2nd liners in junior anyways…so you’re basically throwing your pick in the dumpster.
Here are some interesting/obscure players that will almost certainly be around in the later rounds that might be worth a gamble.
Jan Drozg
6’0 168lbs, 18 years old, Leksands IF J18 in the J18 Elit Sweden
18gp 12g 16a 28p
Drozg is a Slovenian born player that decided to move to Sweden to play hockey. Like Kopitar before him and many European players from small hockey nations. Sweden has the most competitive junior hockey program outside of the CHL and draws a lot of talent that don’t want to be travelling by bus around Siberia. Drozg plays all three forward positions and is primarily a centre. He dominated the J18 Elit and Allsvenkan this season putting up 28 points in the Elit and 21 in 17 in the Allsvenskan. He also played extremely well in his SuperElit call up scoring 3 goals in 4 games and adding 5 points. In such a short sample, he oddly enough had the highest PPG of any draft eligible player from that league, but it’s a short sample. He was also named the Best Forward at the U18 B Tournament for the second season in a row. This is the tournament where Hungary, Slovenia and Austria etc. win every year to have the privilege of losing to France, Latvia and Norway in the A Tournament. He had 13 points in 5 games to help the Slovenians to Gold. At 16 he was playing in the top-tier Slovenian league scoring 7 points in 11 games. There is talk that he has already agreed to move to the QMJHL next season with the Rouyn-Noranda Huskies, which might help tempt a team to burn a 7th on him. If you watch his goals, almost all of them are from around the net and in tight. Showing a lot of hand speed and finesse. If I had a 7th round pick, I’d gamble on him before he goes to the Q and potentially plays well enough there to get drafted the next year. You’d hold his rights longer because he would still be under European rules and if he flops in the Q…well that’s what 7th round picks are for.
Kristians Rubins
6’4 216lbs, 19 years old, Medicine Hat Tigers in the WHL
49gp 3g 21a 24p
The Latvian born defender went a similar route as Drozg potentially will go as he moved to Sweden and then the CHL the year after his draft year. Rubins was expected to be drafted in the 2016 draft years before it occurred and found his name uncalled after a season that started with an injury. Rubins is a bit of an enigma. He’s an offensive defenseman that doesn’t put up a lot of points. He skates very well for a guy his size, he is an extremely effective puck carrier and zone exiter, but it doesn’t always translate on the score sheet. He’s known for his end to end rushes and getting in deep into the opponent’s zone, which is good…and bad. He’s not actually that bad in his own zone when he’s there and is known for his activity in the crease and around the net. However he tries to start rushes so often he might not even be there when the play is going the other way. With his size, mobility and ability to carry the puck, advanced statisticians will be happy to grab him and hope he can continue to develop the rest of his game.
Dmitri Samorukov
6’2 181lbs, 17 years old, Guelph Storm in the OHL
67gp 4g 16a 20p
Playing on a terrible team is hard. Playing on a completely different ice surface is hard. Adjusting to a new culture is hard. Being put into the top defensive role on your team when you are usually used as an offensive option is hard. Experiencing all of this at once is a hell of a time. Enter Samorukov who checks off all of those boxes this season for Guelph. While 2018 phenom Ryan Merkley was granted all the offensive zone time he could handle, Samorukov was used primarily in a defensive and 5 vs 5 role. Despite this, he still put up a lot of shot attempts and was certainly the more impressive two-way player than his partner Rhodes (started with Merkley for the first 10 games). When Samorukov dons the Russian sweater he is a very good player. He was the Russians best (all around) defenseman at both the Ivan Hlinka and U18’s this year. Showing smart physical play, solid puck movement and very crisp simple passing. Samorukov was one of the 16 year old players last year that were forced to play in the U18’s after the Russian team was thrown for “substance issues.” Even then, you could see that he had some strong qualities to his game and he had a strong tournament. Samorukov is a guy that I think teams will gamble on in the 2nd/3rd round, he’s certainly better than his numbers suggest.
Alexandre Texier
6’0 174lbs, 17 Years Old, Grenoble in the French Elite League
40gp 10g 9a 19p
Way back in November I joked about Texier and the fact that he was doing what no 17 year old has ever done in the French Elite League. Compete. The NHL doesn’t have a lot of French content and those that tend to make it are far from stars. Texier is hard to pin down, simply because of the league he plays in. Usually you have somebody to compare him to, but in the French League, there is nobody like this. Players simply don’t get drafted out of this league at 17. Even though he slowed down from a blistering start to the season (6g and 10p in his first 7 gp), he re-ignited for the playoffs scoring 5 goals and 10 points in 12 games. Which was good for 3rd on his team in goals scored. He was also the U18 A Tournament’s Best Forward and was a strong part of the one line French U20 squad. Texier is also one of the youngest players in this draft being born September 13th a few days off from the 2018 cut off. History would tell us to avoid taking a chance on Texier as France has developed very little talent. I think that using a 7th rounder on interesting players like him is what those picks are for. Taking chances on players you reasonably expect to never make it. Who knows? Maybe a CHL team drafts him and he goes over, smokes the league and everybody looks stupid because they need to waste a high pick on him when they could have got him for nothing.
Eemeli Räsänen
6’7 205lbs, 18 years old, Kingston Frontenacs in the OHL
66gp 6g 33a 39p
Regardless of the Kingston Curse, Räsänen will undoubtedly intrigue teams with his raw size. The kid is a giant. He’s an intriguing player because he is a Power Play Specialist who is 6’7. That’s pretty rare indeed. So much so that 4 of his 6 goals and 26 of his 33 assists came with the man advantage. That’s 77% of his production. His speed is rather deceptive. He’s fine when he gets going, but very slow taking that first step. That definitely hurts him as a transitional defender. If he doesn’t have to move in a hurry he’s extremely effective in both zones, hence why he’s so useful on the PP and on the PK. The issues tends to be translation to the NHL with regards to Special Teams specialists. Can he be effective at 5 vs 5 in the NHL when he was relatively weak at it in the OHL? It’s tough to say. With his raw size and raw talent, he will hear his name called and likely earlier than people expect.
I’ll have more draft thoughts as we go forward. Thanks for reading.
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