Canucks Prospects Three Stars of the Month: October 2016

I started this series last season to shine some light on Canucks prospects that are impressing in each individual month of the season. I like to vary things up and acknowledge different prospects month to month, but at the start of the season, you’re likely to get a list of some of the best all around prospects.

At least one, if not two, of the prospects on October’s list fall into that category, but one of them is more of a surprise – one of the more pleasant surprises of the young season in fact.

Let’s countdown the three stars of October.

Brett McKenzie was clearly the aforementioned pleasant surprise of October. Selected 194th overall in 2016 in his second year of eligibility, expectations were tempered for McKenzie – if they existed at all.

He shot like a cannon out of the gate, with seven goals and 12 points in his first seven games. He’s continued picking up points at a respectable pace since then, prompting me to ask the question: how good is good in a draft-plus-two season? It turns out, even at his age, McKenzie’s production is still mighty impressive. If he can put up points at a rate that’s anywhere similar to what he did in October over the course of the season, the Canucks could have a real nice prospect on their hands. The OHL leading 79 shots on net that he put up in October are a good sign that this isn’t just an aberration.

Here’s a series of clips that I put together for that article, containing most of McKenzie’s October points.

Adam Gaudette had a quiet start to last season after being selected 149th overall at the 2015 NHL draft, but went on a tear to end the season, with 25 points in his final 23 games. He’s carried that production over to the 2016-17 season, starting the year with five goals and five assists in 10 games (only a couple points behind Boeser, a much more highly touted prospect) and finishing the month of October with goals in four straight games.

While some wonder whether Gaudette can keep up this pace of production, I look at his shot totals as an decent indication that he can. At the end of October, Gaudette led the entire NCAA in shots on net, with 43, as well as in shots on net per game, with 6.14, which is an insane rate of shots. My impression from watching him play is that those totals aren’t likely to regress much – the kid absolutely loves to shoot the puck, though maybe to a fault. He’s not much of a distributor, especially for a centre. Two of his most frequent wingers, Daniel Sikura and Lincoln Griffin, had 21 and 15 shots on net respectively in the month of October.

Of course, when he shoots the puck like this, it’s hard to blame him for wanting to keep doing it as much as possible.

It’s no big surprise that the player that we had (somewhat controversially) ranked as Vancouver’s number one prospect in our pre-season rankings had the best October of any future Canuck. Boeser kicked October’s ass with six goals (including a hat-trick) in six games. Despite going dry in the final two games of the month, Boeser finished October with the highest points-per-game of any Canucks prospect, and had far and away the best NHLe value.

While he didn’t lead the NCAA in any categories, he was close in a few, including points (12, third) and points per game (1.71, fifth, minimum 4 GP). His conference gave him some recognition, naming his the NCHC’s Player of the Month. The Burnsville, Minnesota native earned many such honours last season, including Rookie of the Month and Player of the Month for March/April and Co-Player of the Month in January.

As for his future as a Canuck, Boeser told the Province’s Steve Ewen that he hasn’t given it too much thought yet. Of course he’s exciting to be part of the organization one day, but for now he’s focused on getting North Dakota back to the NCAA Frozen Four. We saw a similar focus on college hockey from Thatcher Demko last season, shortly before he turned pro and signed with the Canucks. All signs point to Boeser making the jump to the NHL next season. In the meantime he’s taken on a leadership role – he’s first UND sophomore to wear an ‘A’ since Jonathan Toews ten years ago.

For your viewing pleasure, here’s a clip of Boeser’s hat-trick against Bemidji State.