Draft Derby – The Race is on for the WHLers to Impress NHL Teams
The are the WHL players garnering the most interest from on particular group of observers this season – NHL scouts. A handful of draft-eligible WHLers are on the radar of those scouts as potential high first-round selections.
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Brett Connolly of the Prince George Cougars is the league’s top NHL draft prospect. That big spot in the middle of the radar screen that draws in all eyes? That’s Connolly, and everywhere that spot moves, eyes will be following.
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Connolly, who turned 17 in May, is arguably the best pro prospect to ever lace up for a Prince George franchise that lays claim to stars like Eric Brewer, Dan Hamhuis, Dustin Byfuglien and Devin Setoguchi. As a pure rookie, Connolly scored 30 goals — the first time a 16-year-old had accomplished that feat in the WHL since Patrick Marleau, circa 1995–96 — and Connolly was the landslide winner of both the WHL and Canadian Hockey League’s rookie honours as the 2008–09 season drew to a close.
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The residuals from an award-winning debut meant that NHL scouts were drawn in — think moths to a bright light — to watch Connolly from the get-go. No fewer than six NHL teams dispatched talent-seekers to Prince George, the northwest outpost of the WHL, to gauge his play on the opening weekend, and more than a dozen teams were represented in the upper seats at Pacific Coliseum when the Cougars played in Vancouver a week later.
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Despite returning from a nagging hip flexor injury that prevented him from playing in pre-season, the rangy, 61 Connolly did not disappoint and scored a spectacular goal in the first game — dangling through a defenceman, falling to his knees, then getting up and deftly chipping a shot past Spokane goaltender James Reid.
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Tom Thompson, the veteran NHL scout who covers the western half of the continent for the Minnesota Wild, saw enough in Connolly’s game to cement his status.
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“He’s a heckuva player — he’s got good size, he’s rangy, can really skate, he’s skilled, he makes little tap passes back and forth, and he’s going to score goals at the next level,” said Thompson, the assistant general manager and director of player personnel for the Wild.
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“He’s got to get a little stronger so when he’s driving to the net he can establish his position. But what will be interesting to see is where he stacks up against the other top guys in the draft.
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“I’m sure he’s a first-round player, and likely in the first half of the first round.”
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With the Cougars making an early playoff exit, Connolly was included on the Canadian under-18 team last spring as an under-aged player, a rarity for that program. But it was during his tour of duty with Canada at the Ivan Hlinka Memorial Tournament in August that he first encountered the hip problem, one that had him leave a home game against Lethbridge in early October and struggle out of the building on crutches. The hip flexor woes continued into the new year and he’s played less than half of the Cougars’ games as the calendar turned to 2010.
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The injuries aside, some lists have Connolly slated as high as fifth overall for the 2010 draft. At this point the upper reaches of that group include Taylor Hall and Cam Fowler of Windsor, Plymouth’s Tyler Seguin and Russian winger Kirill Kabanov, who recently started playing for Moncton of the QMJHL before having injury problems of his own.
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None of the interest from scouts comes as a surprise to Connolly, whom the Cougars nabbed with the 10th overall choice in the 2007 bantam draft, leaving the nine teams that passed wondering how they missed the boat.
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“You’ve got to work as hard as you can and let the chips fall where they may,” said Connolly. “You have to kind of think [the scouts are] not even there and just go out there and play your game.”
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Connolly isn’t the only WHL player who will get serious consideration as a first-round prospect, not from a league that, in a down year numbers-wise, last summer produced five of the 30 first-round selections, including four of the first 10 choices: Evander Kane, Vancouver Giants, was chosen by Atlanta fourth overall; Brayden Schenn of Brandon went a pick later to Los Angeles; Schenn’s Wheat Kings teammate Scott Glennie was taken by the Dallas Stars at eighth overall; and big blueliner Jared Cowen was the ninth pick, by the Ottawa Senators.
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Edmonton Oil Kings defenceman Mark Pysyk is the best defenceman in his age group in the WHL, while Moose Jaw Warriors forward Quinton Howden, the first-overall choice in his bantam year, two spots ahead of Pysyk, is off to a tremendous start and could now be nosing his way into the top half of the first round if he continues the inspired play.
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“It’s in the back of my mind,” said the Oak Bank, Man., native. “It’s every kids dream to get drafted …but I came back from the U-18s after playing with all those great players from across Canada and wanted to show (I deserved it).”
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“I’m playing with more confidence, I’m a year older and (Moose Jaw) have a few new guys and we are just more of a team, playing well.”
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After registering 30 points as a rookie last season, Howden is using his 6’3”, 190-pound frame effectively and was on a point-a-game clip early on.
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Seattle Thunderbirds goaltender Calvin Pickard, already in his second season as a WHL starter, appears to be everything his older brother Chet turned out to be. Calvin, 17, would do well to follow Chet, a Nashville Predators first-rounder, went 18th overall in 2008 and was twice named the WHL’s top netminder while backstopping the Tri-City Americans after that club lost all-world junior Carey Price.
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Other players to watch include slick-skating Chilliwack Bruins forward Kevin Sundher; Red Deer Rebels defenceman Alex Petrovic, who scouts like for his 64frame; tough winger Charlies Inglis of the Saskatoon Blades; and full-package winger Curtis Hamilton, a 62, 211-pounder from the Blades who has a late 1991 birthday and was not eligible last June. Hamilton, the son of Kelowna Rockets owner/GM Bruce Hamilton, had 48 points in 58 games as a 17-year-old, and has Team Canada experience from last spring’s under-18 tournament in Fargo, North Dakota.
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Editor’s note: a version of this story first appeared in the 2009-10 Winter issue of Prospects Hockey.
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Photo by Marissa Baecker