Steel eyeing shot at world juniors
After being cut last year, Sherwood Park native eager to suit up for Team Canada
He’s got one of the best names in hockey — Sam Steel. And his is a made-in-Canada story, in which he skated on a backyard rink the same size as the NHL variety built by his dad Larry at their spread in Sherwood Park.
He’s a first-round draft pick of the Anaheim Ducks, he quietly scored more points than anybody else in major junior last season with 131 in 66 games played for the Regina Pats, and the only thing missing from the 19-year-old’s individual resume is a centre spot on Canada’s 2018 world junior team, which will almost surely come this December.
He had a strong junior camp last year but was cut. Surprisingly.
“Hopefully, come Christmas time, I can earn my way onto that team,” said Steel, who was at the first two days of Perry Pearn’s 3-on-3 pro camp at Knights of Columbus Twin Arenas.
“It’s a pretty special opportunity that only comes around once or twice for guys in their junior careers,” said Steel, who took the first cut last December in stride. No sulking, no griping.
This will be Steel’s fourth junior year. He’s finished high school, the Pats are hosting the Memorial Cup, he’ll likely be named team captain, and his seat on the Pats’ team bus can’t get much better.
“I’ve moved my way back, not all the way because that’s for the 20s (overage juniors), but close. Feels like yesterday I was at the front of the bus with all the other rookies,” laughed the 6-foot, 180-pound, playmaking left shot, who scored 50 goals while adding 81 assists last season.
“He’s unreadable,” defenceman Josh Mahura, Steel’s Pats teammate and a fellow Ducks stablemate, told Anaheim writers this summer. “You never know what he’s going to do. You think you’ve got a guy covered, and all of a sudden, the puck’s in the back of your net.”
Trying to make the Ducks, who lost to the Nashville Predators in the Western Conference final, may be too big a task for Steel this year, but he’ll roll with it.
“There’s always room to improve (in junior), ” said Steel.
Pats head coach and general manager John Paddock spoke glowingly about Steel before the 2016 draft, but he was still there with the last pick in Round 1. The Ducks, who specialize in that sort of thing (they got Corey Perry at No. 28), jumped on him.
“I say this sort of half-jokingly, but not necessarily: They (NHL teams) should have just listened when they asked me (about Steel),” Paddock told Regina Leader-Post columnist Rob Vanstone.
“This is somebody who should have gone in the 15-20 range. They didn’t listen.”
The Ducks liked him, though. Now, he’s appearing on some significant stages.
He starred in the recent world junior showcase in Plymouth, Mich., on a line with winger Jordan Kyrou, a St. Louis Blues prospect.
He’s off to the NHLPA’s rookie showcase in Toronto next week, representing the Ducks, with 24 other drafted kids.
And he’ll be the centrepiece of Paddock’s Pats, who lost the Western Hockey League championship to Seattle last spring.