WHA’S top picks Barzal and Musil Nhl-bound material

To hear John Batchelor tell it, the comparisons to Ryan NugentHopkins are just starting for Matt Barzal.

Barzal, who played bantam hockey this past season for coach Batchelor with Burnaby Winter Club, is expected to go first overall today to the Seattle Thunderbirds in the WHL bantam draft. Nugent-hopkins, the Edmonton Oilers wunderkind, was the opening selection in 2008 to the Red Deer Rebels.

Batchelor says that Barzal has onice vision akin to Nugent-hopkins, explaining “they see things very similar out there.”

What’s more, Batchelor believes that Barzal could also be an early arrival to the NHL.

He thinks the same of another BWC forward in today’s selection of 1997-born players, Adam Musil. The son of former NHLER Frank Musil and brother of Vancouver Giants rearguard David Musil is projected to go in the early picks as well.

Nugent-hopkins, of course, was one of the best Oilers this past year as an 18-year-old

“Both of those guys could be playing in the NHL at 18 if they continue to develop,” Batchelor said of Barzal, who is listed at 5-foot-10 and 159 pounds, and Musil, who came in at 6-foot-1 and 165 pounds at last measure. “It’s up to them, and how they end up being used by their NHL teams, but they both have the packages to be in the NHL at a young age.

“We’ll be paying to watch them play very soon.”

Musil could also slip in the draft today, too. There are rumours that he and his family want to be selected by either the Giants, the Calgary Hitmen or the Edmonton Oil Kings.

David Musil demanded to play for the Giants when his family moved to the Lower Mainland from the Czech Republic prior to the 2009-10 season, and, after the Kootenay Ice won his rights in a special draft, they dealt him to Vancouver.

The Giants are the first of those teams to be selecting today, with 15th overall choice.

Another BWC forward to watch for is Ty Ronning, the son of former Vancouver Canuck Cliff Ronning.

His scouting report reads much like his father’s, considering he’s smallish (listed at 5-foot-7 and 140 pounds) but hard working.

“You sometimes wonder if he wouldn’t be better if he was bigger, but then I think he wouldn’t have the same character,” said Batchelor, whose team, not surprisingly, won the Western Canadians this past season.

Today’s picks can only play five regular season games with their WHL clubs until their minor hockey seasons are complete. They can play regularly in 2013-14, when they are 16-year-olds.

You can follow the draft at www. whl.ca. It begins at 7:30 a.m.