3 Players the Canucks Could Select at 55th Overall
By J.D. Burke
6 years agoAfter months of speculation, TSN 1040’s Matt Sekeres confirmed that the Vancouver Canucks would receive the Columbus Blue Jackets’ second-round pick in this year’s draft as compensation for hiring John Tortorella while he was still under contract.
The addition of Columbus’ second-rounder brings the Canucks’ haul for the 2017 NHL Entry Draft to seven picks. You’d hope for more picks for a rebuilding team, but to the Canucks’ credit, they’ve four picks in the first three rounds. One should also consider they prioritized prospects rather than picks at the trade deadline, and did a hell of a job at that.
Now that the Canucks have confirmation the 55th overall selection is theirs, let’s take a look at three players they would be wise to choose with that pick.
Josh Brook
If Moose Jaw Warriors defenceman Josh Brook is still available to the Canucks with their second pick in the second round, they should sprint to the podium to stake their claim. Brook is a player who spent the season widely speculated as a third or fourth round selection, but a strong finish to his season and a premier role on Team Canada’s U18 team put him on the map.
Brook is 6’2″ right shot defenceman that can play well in all three zones of the ice. He’s a smooth skater who’s skills are most apparent in transition, whether it’s carrying the puck up ice himself or preventing an opposition entry at his own blue line.
In his last season with the Warriors, Brook contributed 40 points (eight goals and 32 assists) in 69 games. Brook was at his best in the playoffs, when he was a point per game player in the Warriors seven-game series against the Swift Current Broncos.
When we look at Brook’s last season, 36.7% of the players in his pGPS cohort developed into full-time NHL players. The successful members of that cohort carry an expected points per 82 games of 24.2. Brook’s pGPS career assignment is as a third pair defender.
David Farrance
The way the USNTDP has been churning out NHL talent over the years, I’m starting to think you can never go wrong picking from that team. Even in a down year for the development program, as this one arguably is, there’s still a fair amount of prospects worth looking at in the earlier parts of the draft. One such prospect is David Farrance.
I’ll just be honest; I’m biased towards players like Farrance. He’s a fleet of foot, agile, puck-moving defenceman who uses his intelligence and footwork to defend rather than brute force. Farrance has been a solid point producer for the USNTDP, but I still think he has room to grow in that regard. The way Farrance plays defence is the way the NHL is going.
Playing his second season with the USNTDP, Farrance was first among first-time draft eligible defenceman (second to 2018 NHL Entry Draft eligible Quinton Hughes) with 17 points (one goal and 16 assists) in 25 games of USHL action.
When we view Farrance’s season through the lens of pGPS, 25.3% of the players in his cohort developed into full-time NHL’ers. They carried an expected points per 82 games of 37.6, which is a high mark for a defenceman.
Robin Salo
I can’t say why, but it seems as though the scouting community underrates Robin Salo. When we view Salo’s draft season in a strictly quantitative lens, he checks out as roughly similar to Miro Heiskanen, a player many expect to go in the top five of this year’s draft. Salo, on the other hand, could drop as low as the third round. If the Canucks don’t take him with the 55th overall selection, that is.
Here’s an excerpt from Jeremy Davis’ profile of Salo:
Robin Salo is an interesting case. He spent his entire season in the top tier Finnish league . He was the only first time eligible Finnish besides the highly touted Miro Heiskanen to not spend any time in lower leagues, but he doesn’t get nearly the same amount of attention as Heiskanen does, likely owing to the fact that he didn’t get to represent Finland in any high profile tournaments. He was passed over for the World Juniors and, due to his October birthday, deemed to old to participate in the U18’s in Slovakia, where Heiskanen shined.From a numbers standpoint, I take issue with this. Performances at these international tournaments get weighted so heavily, despite clear flaws in such logic. They only last 5-7 games, and depending on the tournament and where the player is coming from, they could have significantly lower competition than the players get in their regular seasons. Coming from Liiga, I believe that to be the case with Heiskanen – seven games against 18-year olds (and not even the best 18-year olds, given that some were held out to play in their league playoffs) is inexplicably given more value than 40+ games of professional hockey against men in one of Europe’s stronger leagues.Which leads me to my actual point: Robin Salo may not have had any fancy international success this season, but his Liiga numbers are pretty damn good – comparable, and in some cases, superior to those of Heiskanen.
When we view Salo’s season through the pGPS lens, 36.2% of his cohort developed into full-time NHL’ers. I should add that he only has eight players in his cohort, but that’s because he’s a 17-year-old who played professional hockey among men — not many players are capable of that.
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