PICKING WHL SCORING CHAMP STEEL OF A DEAL FOR DUCKS
Pats offensive dynamo doesn’t get credit for emerging as premier two-way player
Sam Steel is living up to his surname, albeit with one minor spelling alteration.
The Regina Pats centre looks like the steal of the 2016 NHL entry draft after going on to register 50 goals and a WHL-best 131 points and earn Eastern Conference player-of-the-year honours.
The Anaheim Ducks, who claimed Steel with the 30th (and final) pick of the first round, must be ecstatic.
As for some other NHL teams, well, there should be some sombre second-guessing.
“I say this sort of half-jokingly, but not necessarily: They should have just listened when they asked last year,” Pats head coach and general manager John Paddock said.
“The kind of year he had — 131 points — is surprising, because that’s a lot for anybody, but they should have listened when I said that he would have had 85 points (last season) if we’d had (highscoring right winger) Cole Sanford all year. This is somebody who should have gone in the 15-20 range. They didn’t listen.”
Steel was highly topical Saturday after helping the Pats defeat the visiting Calgary Hitmen 5-1 and assume a 2-0 lead in a bestof-seven Eastern Conference quarter-final. He figured in all five of his team’s goals, registering four assists before finding an empty net.
Afterwards, Paddock was asked if Steel’s excellence this season might have prompted some NHL general managers to wish they could conduct a re-draft.
Leading up to the annual lottery, Paddock had this to say to any NHL type who asked about Steel after his 23-goal, 49-assist sophomore season with the Pats: “Don’t draft by points. Draft by the 200-foot player.”
Those words proved to be prophetic, given Steel’s emergence as a premier two-way player.
“He can do it all,” Pats defenceman Connor Hobbs said. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but he’s hitting guys more than in the regular season and really buying into the playoff atmosphere.
“Lots of guys look up to that. When they see a guy like Sam Steel finishing his checks and blocking shots and doing those kinds of things, it really reflects on the rest of the boys. Good for him, and it has been a good first two games for us as a whole.”
In the opening game, Steel deftly stole the puck from Calgary centre Matteo Gennaro in the slot before feathering a short saucer pass to Bryan Lockner, who found a wide open net to help Regina win 5-2.
Then came Saturday’s fivepoint gem, after which Dawson Leedahl — who had two goals and an assist — was asked to describe life on Steel’s line.
“It’s awesome,” Leedahl said. “Anytime you get to play with someone as gifted as him, you pretty much have to get open and he’s going to put the puck on your stick.
“It makes it a lot easier when he opens up the ice for everyone out there.”
Despite those abundant skills, Steel sat through nearly all of the first round before being drafted last year. And then, despite a scorching start to the 2016-17 WHL season, he wasn’t chosen to play on Canada’s world junior team.
Some athletes use actual or perceived slights as fuel. Not Steel.
“I just go out there and do what I love to do, and that’s play hockey,” said Steel, who on Monday was named the WHL’s player of the week. “I don’t like to waste too much negative energy on that kind of stuff.”
This season, nobody in the WHL has played the game any better.
When they see a guy like Sam Steel finishing his checks and blocking shots and doing those kinds of things, it really reflects on the rest of the boys.