Big-stage tournament success won’t alter Canucks’ draft list
A month from the NHL draft, scouts are wary of what value to place on top prospects who have excelled, or are excelling, in major May tournaments.
This is of critical importance to the Vancouver Canucks. The Fab Four of Rasmus Dahlin, Andrei Svenchnikov, Filip Zadina and Brady Tkachuk could be selected in that order June 22 in Dallas. After that it gets interesting for the Canucks, who need to bolster their back end.
They hold the seventh overall selection and with four defencemen expected to go in the top 10 — Evan Bouchard, Quinn Hughes, Noah Dobson and Adam Boqvist — the poise of Hughes at the recent world championship and Dobson’s fast start at the Memorial Cup could factor into draft-day strategy.
Or not.
How much of a premium do you place on a tournament versus an entire season? Hughes was the youngest competitor at the worlds and looked comfortable playing against men while Dobson has been dominant against age-class peers at the Memorial Cup.
“It’s what the player does over the course of the season and with those particular guys (Hughes, Dobson), they finished off real strong,” Canucks general manager Jim Benning said Tuesday. “When we make evaluations, I don’t know if it changes that much just because a player has a good tournament.
“It’s more figuring out what he’s going to be four years from now when he’s fully developed. We’re trying to predict and that’s the tricky part of amateur scouting.”
It can be just as tricky to expect draft dominoes to fall in an expected order.
In a TSN mock draft, Hughes was tabbed to go fifth to the Arizona Coyotes, Bouchard sixth to the Detroit Red Wings, Dobson seventh to the Canucks and Boqvist 10th to the Edmonton Oilers. If the Canucks are really high on Hughes — a projected power-play quarterback — they would have to trade up and that’s costly.
“We’ll see what it takes, but it seems like it’s hard to move up,” admitted Benning. “We’re confident we’re getting a good payer at No. 7, but we want to do the exercise of seeing what it takes to move up or down and add another pick or prospect.”
If the projected pecking order stays the same on draft day the Canucks are likely to land a defenceman they’ve been keen on in the six-foot-three, 180-pound Dobson.
“It’s just his overall game,” said Benning. “He’s a good heads-up player and it’s his ability to read the game and move the puck up fast with good offensive instincts. He seems to find the holes and he’s got a good shot.”
At the Memorial Cup, Dobson had five points in his first two games for Acadie-Bathurst Titan — including four (2-2) Sunday against host Regina — and is building on a strong QMJHL season. The Summerside, P.E.I., native was second in blue-liner scoring with 69 points (17-52) in 67 games.
Dobson patterns his game after Seth Jones of the Columbus Blue Jackets and the Canucks can only salivate at what a right-shot who skates well, can run the power play and has two-way awareness would mean.
However, a wrinkle could develop if somebody goes off the draft board, or if Dobson goes earlier or if somebody falls.
“We have to be prepared if a player we like drops to seventh,” said Benning. “You need to be dialed in and you don’t want to panic. If there’s a reason they’re slipping, you have to know why.”
Hughes could move up or down and is clearly intriguing.
At the world championship, he showed explosiveness in transition and proved he can play with elite players, even at the age of 18. The University of Michigan product had but two power-play assists in 10 games and averaged 12:20 of ice time for the bronze-medal winning Americans. But he constantly teased of prime NHL potential.
“The way he skates, it helped him on the big surface because he could get back and carry the puck up ice and it was just magnified on the big ice,” said Benning. “We thought he was real good.”
In the preliminary round, the five-foot-10, 170-pound Orlando, Fla. native led in passing efficiency at 74.29 per cent. It will be hard for anyone needing a fleet defenceman to drive the play from the back end to pass on Hughes.
Hughes had 29 points (5-24) in 37 games and in the NCAA Frozen Four, he helped Michigan beat Northeastern 3-2 and Boston University 6-3 before falling to 3-2 to Notre Dame.