Bulldogs’ No. 44 will be No. 1
Who will be the first of the Bulldogs taken in next spring’s NHL draft? Don’t be shocked if it’s Mackenzie Entwistle.
Too many unexpected twists and turns can be just one shift away, too many bumps in the corner can end in a lingering injury and too many inexplicable slumps can destroy a player’s confidence over the course of the six-month-long Ontario Hockey League season to be making any real predictions only two games in. Here’s one anyway. When the NHL draft is held next June in Chicago, the first Hamilton Bulldog to hear his name called will be Mackenzie Entwistle. “I don’t think that would shock me at all,” associate head coach Troy Smith says.
It’s not that the 17-year-old is the best player on the team right now. Early on, Matt Luff holds that distinction. He’s not the biggest or the fastest player, either. He’s clearly not the flashiest. And he’s not even considered by many to be the top prospect.
It’s simply that nobody appears to have improved as much from his last year. Since pro teams like to project a player’s ceiling based upon his incremental steps, they’re going to love what they see. Not just because he netted his third goal of the young season on Saturday night, either, though that is a rather telling milestone.
After being chosen by the Bulldogs in the second round of last year’s OHL draft, the Georgetown native — who played on the same minor midget team as Bulldog teammate Matt Strome — struggled in his rookie season.
He didn’t score his first goal until the 11th game of the season in late November. That lack of production earned a slide down to the fourth line. With less ice time, he didn’t get another goal until midJanuary. No. 3 didn’t come until Game 49.
Yes, he always showed up at the rink with a smile on his face. Still, for a kid who’d scored a ton in minor hockey, this was lie-in-bed-atnight-and-stare-at-the-ceilingwondering-what-was-going-on time. “It was hard,” he admits. So having already matched what it took him five months to achieve last year — and bringing him halfway to last season’s eventual total of six — he’s feeling pretty darn good about things. Especially about the work he put in over the summer.
The six-foot-three forward, who looked like an exclamation mark on skates when he showed up last fall at a wispy 169 pounds, added 15 pounds of muscle over the offseason.
He’s still not huge but that’s made him stronger on the puck and able to do more on the ice without being banged around.
He also tinkered with his release to improve his shot and spent a lot of time on his other puck skills. Then got to work on his skating, which is really what’s most noticeable about him already this year.
All summer — minus the time he spent playing for Canada in the under-18 Ivan Hlinka Memorial Cup in Slovakia — was spent in power skating sessions, tweaking his technique, improving his stride and accelerating his first three steps. The idea was to enable him to get to loose pucks more quickly.
“It’s definitely a big change,” he says. “I feel faster and you can really notice it, for sure.”
Smith says the speed difference is obvious.
Will all this really be enough to make Entwistle the first Bulldog taken in the NHL draft? Let’s acknowledge right here there will be plenty of competition to make this prediction look silly. Strome will absolutely be a favourite to earn that spot. Rookie import Marian Studenic has a shot at that distinction. Isaac Nurse, Zach Jackson, Fedor Gordeev, Kaden Fulcher and Reilly Webb are all draft eligible. This number of prospects helps explain why FirstOntario Centre was crawling with scouts on the weekend.
But through training camp and the first two games of the year, Entwistle has simply looked so much different than last season. Which should give him a real shot at having his name called early. Possibly early enough to have the chance to pull on an NHL sweater in front of TSN’s cameras on the draft’s opening night.
Meaning Round One. “Exactly,” he says. “That’s my goal.”