What do you expect from the 7th Round of the NHL draft? Probably very little, or at least I hope it’s very little because you’re setting yourself up for extreme disappointment if you want honest to goodness NHL players to show up in that round. Now that’s not what I want to the players who are actually drafted in the 7th to feel, but for the rest of us drawing up future Oiler rosters I think we can generally forego the 7th round selections…Most of the time.
Here are a list of Oiler 7th round selections from 2003-2013
2003 - Kyle Brodziak 214th 2003 - Mathieu Roy 215th 2004 - Stephane Goulet 208th 2005 - Matthew Glasser 220th 2006 - NONE 2007 - NONE 2008 - Jordan Bendfeld 193rd 2009 - NONE 2010 - Kristians Pelss 181st 2010 - Kellen Jones 202nd 2011 - NONE 2012 - NONE 2013 - Greg Chase 188th
That’s a 10 year stretch in which the Oilers didn’t even bother to keep their 7th round selection in half the years. Conventional wisdom is pretty clear here, the 7th round isn’t the place where NHL teams will find a lot of NHL players, but that doesn’t mean it never happens.
In the 8 selections they did make, 1 became an NHL regular (Brodziak). The man Tambellini traded away to make room for MA Pouliot has appeared in 530+ games and has been a regular NHL player for 7 straight seasons and is the high water point for Oiler 7th rounders in the past 10 drafts, but since him there hasn’t been anybody who looks like they could be a player outside of perhaps Kristians Pelss but his tragic death robbed us of ever seeing the young man fulfill his true potential. The rest of the names were fringe guys who made it into a game or two more because of injury than anything else or never made it to the NHL at all. Some of them are already out of the game, others still play in the Central Hockey League or other outfits.
There just hasn’t been anybody else, that is, until Greg Chase was drafted last summer in 2013. Chase, taken 188th was playing for the Calgary Hitmen and just completed his 2nd full year with the WHL club. He is listed at 6’ 204 pounds and is a right shooting Center/Winger. He finished his draft year with 69Gp, 17, 32, 49 and 58 PIMs. Not bad, he finished 4th in team scoring for the Hitmen, albeit almost 30 points behind Brady Brassard in 3rd.
Fast forward to this season and it looks like Chase has exploded in offense. This season he is 2nd in Hitmen scoring (still trailing Brassard but now only by 3 points) with 68GP 32, 48, 80 and 75 PIMs on the season. He is 16th in WHL scoring and producing well ahead of others who were drafted long before him.
Chase plays with a physical edge and has transformed himself into a go-to guy for his club, and maybe a future NHL player. This young man is so early in his career, but he might just be the 2nd best player the Oilers drafted in 2013 despite the fact that he was the last player they drafted in 2013.
There’s a long way to go before he makes it to the NHL, but there’s every indication that he’s deserving of a shot at the professional ranks when he’s eligible to play in the AHL. Not bad for a 7th rounder.
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