The Vancouver Canucks Could Go Back to the SHL at the 2019 Draft

The Canucks have been known to occasionally fall in draft lotteries, this team is statistically most likely to finish in the 23rd or 24th place in the NHL standings. That would result in them going into the draft lottery with the eighth or ninth best odds at winning the lottery and jumping into the top three.

Before I dive into “my guy” for the Canucks if they pick 8-10th ill give you who I think shakes down in the first eight picks, not exactly in this order but something close to it.

With only one defenceman going in my projected top eight, it gives me a reason to believe that there will be some strong options for the Canucks to draft. Whether you agree or disagree with my top eight, there will be plenty of articles on this site and others to come on the previously mentioned prospects, we will get to them.

I wanted to look at the player that I have been keeping a close eye on and watching consistently over the past couple months.

Söderström, my guy.

Söderström has been my guy since the first game I watched of him, the first thing that caught my eye was how much he was moving his head, constantly looking around, surveying where his teammates and opponents are on the ice. He is able to pinch at the right time at even strength and rotates well on the powerplay to find open space for himself.

Söderström is solid defensively in his own zone as well, he’s a right-hand shot defenceman who is probably a few years away from being in the NHL but his standout strength is his mental game, he thinks the game with the “one extra pass” mentality that we have recently seen from Elias Pettersson and Quinn Hughes.

That’s what brings me to the most interesting thing about Söderström, the ability to be Quinn Hughes’ future partner. Söderström can skate very fluidly but as I mentioned before his ability to rotate on the ice is tremendous, he rarely finds himself out of place and has a knack for knowing when to jump in on an odd-man rush.

Söderström seems to move the puck up ice similar to the way Hughes does, with some incredible patience and poise while also having the option to get the puck deep on his own stick if the defenders will give him enough space.

He is also able to throw his 5″11′, 180-pound body around.

Obviously the stats don’t pop off the page for Söderström, he had four goals and three assists in 44 games, but as a 17-year-old for most of the season, he was able to show that his future is extremely bright and there is good reason for some to believe that he could be a top 10 pick in the 2019 NHL entry draft.

Not everyone is sold on Söderström, some scouts have him outside of their top 20 and Craig Button of TSN has Söderström ranked as his fifth best defenceman in the draft.

If the Canucks are looking to add another puck-moving defencemen to their group they should look no further than Söderström, his ability to perform a quick deke while on the point to open up a shooting lane is elite when he is playing with his age group, making defenders look silly while quickly stick handling his way into the slot. His shot is above average in my opinion, he loves the one-time slapshot from the left side of the ice or on the top of the umbrella on the powerplay, which would be a nice little addition to Pettersson’s bomb from the right side.

It should be added that Söderström is likely one or two years away from jumping into the North American game, but when he arrives I’d expect his raw talent to be groomed nicely for his debut on this side of the pond.

Quick hands, good shot, solid defensively and smart as can be.

Söderström has a ton of talent and if the Canucks are stuck at ninth or tenth in the draft I would be keen on them picking up this right-hand shot defenceman as the next piece of the puzzle when building this Canucks team. The problem is that you want to draft the best player available and with some of the American forwards likely still available on the board at ninth or tenth it’s a tough call because I love guys like Trevor Zegras, Matthew Boldy and Cole Caulfield.

The Canucks should still draft for best player available, in my opinion, that’s what you should be doing with your first round pick every single year, but with the Canucks history of drafting Swedish players it makes me wonder if they have already seen enough of Söderström to believe that he is the right option at the time. This group still clearly needs some skilled wingers to add to their crop of prospects but another lacking area is right-hand shot defencemen.

The RHD is probably the position that is most difficult to find in free agency or via trade but at what point do you want to “reach” for a guy like Söderström? If you have Peyton Krebs, Cole Caufield and Victor Söderström sitting there at number 10 I don’t know if it’s too crazy to think that the Canucks would go for Söderström.

With the Anaheim Ducks and New York Rangers ahead of them in the current draft lottery rankings, it makes it hard to believe that those two teams will reach out of the projected top 10 unless they are interested in the electric but risky Arthur Kaliyev.

Makes you wonder.

Could we see the Canucks go back down the Swedish trail for another player or continue with their success out of the recent Americans. All I know is that Söderström would not be a mistake by anyone if he falls out of the top 12. In addition to all that, he makes the cut on the famous 51% CanucksArmy rule with his 0.16 PPG.

Let’s just keep hoping for a draft lottery win, then the debate is over.