LEASON’S STOCK ON METEORIC RISE
Team Canada forward motivated after being passed over twice in NHL draft
The scouting report on Brett Leason reads as follows: “He’s a big guy who’s going to put up points. He’s going to be a power play guy. He’s got good hands. He can skate now and he can score. He’s persistent.”
That last word may as well be written in big, bold letters and underlined twice.
After all, there’s a ton of prospects who can skate, score and put up points. But there’s not a whole lot who after being ignored in back-to-back drafts and essentially told they would never play in the NHL, pick themselves off the ground and go to work on proving the hockey world wrong the way Leason has.
“This kid just didn’t give up,” said North American Central Scouting’s Mark Seidel.
“That’s one of the reasons why we’ve got him pegged in the first round. He’s willing to do anything to get better.”
Passed over in two consecutive drafts — he was told he was soft for a big man — Leason could have entered his final season in the Western Hockey League with the feeling it might be the end of the road. It’s one thing to get passed over by 31 teams. It’s another for it to happen twice.
Instead, the Team Canada forward took the opposite approach and entered the year with a boulder-sized chip on his shoulder.
“For the first time, it was in the back of my mind that I wanted to get drafted,” said Leason. “It’s been a dream of mine and I wanted to get it done. That definitely motivated me. It’s pushed me to have the year that I’m having.”
What everyone is seeing today is a player who is either a late-bloomer or someone who needed the right motivation to unlock his potential. Either way, there’s no way Leason’s going to get passed over this time around.
With 28 goals and 64 points in 31 games with the Prince Albert Raiders — including a 30-game points streak to begin the season — he was among the top three in Western Hockey League scoring ahead of Sunday ’s action. That hot start has continued into the world junior tournament, where Leason has three goals and five points in three games.
It’s a huge leap from a year ago, when he managed just 15 goals and 32 points after being dealt to the Raiders from the Tri-city Americans (he had one goal in 12 games with Tri-city). Then again, the Leason on display today looks nothing like one scouts saw a year ago.
“I watch him now and he doesn’t even look the same,” said Seidel, who had Leason ranked 28th overall as of this month.
“I see online that he should have been a draft pick last year. Nobody was talking about him last year. He was just a guy.”
How did Leason make the transformation from “just a guy” to potential first-round pick?
Well, working a summer job as a landscaper might have opened his eyes as to what the real world looks like.
Not wanting that for himself, the 6-foot-4 Leason went to the gym and aimed to get faster and stronger by adding much-needed muscle to his stork-like legs.
“I just really worked on strengthening my legs,” he said. “That’s given me the ability to gain an extra step this year. I just feel like I’ve really picked up on my skating. I’m more powerful, quicker, stronger and faster in all areas of the game. That’s what has really allowed me to take off and take the next step this year.”
It’s not often a player gets passed up in the draft and ends up in the first round the year after. Tanner Pearson, selected 30th overall in 2012, managed it after winning a bronze medal for Canada at the world juniors.
It’s even more rare for someone to go unnoticed in two drafts and then get picked. When that happens, it tends to be a European who was buried on some team and slipped through the cracks.
That’s not the case with Leason. Scouts would have seen him play 134 games when they said he wasn’t worth a pick for the second year in a row.
So the fact that he’s put it all together now has raised some red flags. There is concern his offensive outburst might be a by-product of being the older — and bigger — guy in a league that includes 16- and 17-yearolds. But it’s not a power game the 200-pound Leason is playing.
Rather, he’s a big guy who finally found his feet.
“He had good hands, but he gets there now and he’s able to get there because of his skating,” said Team Canada coach Tim Hunter, who has coached against Leason in the WHL for three years. “And that’s what brought him on the scene. We saw him in the Russia series and we watched his skating real close. Can he drive around a guy? Can he jump on loose pucks? Because the way I want to play, it’s about speed and can he keep up?
“And he can. He’s trending towards being in the NHL one day for sure.”
I see online that he should have been a draft pick last year. Nobody was talking about him last year. He was just a guy.