Best Memorial Cup Prospects And Draft-Eligible Players
Courtesy of SportsLogos.net
The Memorial Cup has always been a tournament where players can either elevate their future draft status or cement a spot in the National Hockey League the next season.
As mentioned in our Memorial Cup preview from yesterday, top prospects Nathan MacKinnon and Jonathan Drouin led the Halifax Mooseheads over fellow top prospect Seth Jones and the Portland Winterhawks to win the tournament last year. In 2011, Jonathan Huberdeau‘s draft profile skyrocketed as he led the Saint John Sea Dogs to Atlantic Canada’s first Memorial Cup championship.
Of course, the Memorial Cup also served as the launching pad for Taylor Hall, who won most valuable player honours in both 2009 and 2010 in leading the Windsor Spitfires to back-to-back titles.
Now, we look ahead to this year’s tournament, kicking off tonight with the Val d’Or Foreurs playing the host London Knights. Every year has a crop of draft-eligible players who can really boost their stock with a strong performance over the next 10 days.
The Future
There are 26 players in this tournament who are draft-eligible and haven’t passed through an NHL Draft yet. Of those 26, six won’t be eligible until the 2015 NHL Draft, while Val d’Or forward Julien Gauthier is the only 2016 draft prospect competing in London. A late-1997 born player, Gauthier posted eight goals and 29 points in 62 games as a rookie with the Foreurs.
Here’s a scouting reel of Gauthier, put together prior to last year’s QMJHL Draft.
While Gauthier’s still a couple years away from the NHL Draft, there are some guys who are looking to boost their stock for next month’s draft in Philadelphia.
To this point, no player has done more to boost his profile than Guelph Storm forward Robby Fabbri. In his second season in Guelph, Fabbri scored 45 goals and 87 points despite missing 10 games, maximizing his ability to find open ice in prime areas. In the playoffs, Fabbri again missed some games, but he still led the OHL with 13 goals while finishing third with 28 points en route to the Wayne Gretzky 99 Award as the most valuable player of the OHL playoffs.
NHL Central Scouting had Fabbri as the 21st-ranked North American skater in its final rankings, likely equating to a late first-round pick. However, that came out last month before Guelph’s playoff run, and another strong performance at the Memorial Cup would probably shoot Fabbri up to the middle of the first round, somewhere between 11 and 15.
In Edmonton, all eyes are on Brett Pollock from a draft perspective. The Sherwood Park, Alta., native checked out 34th among North American skaters in the Central Scouting report, but a 19-point performance in the playoffs from the 18-year-old Pollock certainly helped an Oil Kings squad that wasn’t necessarily expected to be here.
Pollock has mostly played with Curtis Lazar and Henrik Samuelsson in the playoffs, both of whom are first-round NHL draft picks. He jumped from 37 spots from his midterm ranking with his performance, so if he can keep it going, he could potentially squeak into the tail end of the first round, but certainly early off the board in round two.
Meanwhile, Nicolas Aube-Kubel sits as Val d’Or’s top Central Scouting prospect here, ranking 40th among North American skaters. Aube-Kubel just turned 18 last Saturday, and his game took a step forward this season, posting 53 points in 65 games for the Foreurs this season. He was also a solid contributor in the playoffs, putting up 13 points to help Val d’Or advance to the Memorial Cup. What’s more, his production was timely, including a combined four assists in Games 6 and 7 to help eliminate the Halifax Mooseheads to advance to the QMJHL final.
I wouldn’t expect Aube-Kubel to be a first-round pick regardless of how he plays in London, but he could certainly help his cause.
Drafted Prospects
Sep 24, 2013; San Jose, CA, USA; Vancouver Canucks center Bo Horvat (53) looks on during the third period of the preseason game against the San Jose Sharks at the SAP Center at San Jose. The San Jose Sharks defeated the Vancouver Canucks 5-0. Mandatory Credit: Ed Szczepanski-USA TODAY Sports
The tournament also features 29 current NHL prospects, including nine first-round picks from the last two NHL drafts. Of the 19 NHL teams represented at the Memorial Cup, the Los Angeles Kings and Toronto Maple Leafs lead the way with three prospects apiece, while another six teams have two prospects in London.
All three Kings prospects (Justin Auger, Nick Ebert, and Zac Leslie) play for Guelph, while Toronto’s contingent includes Storm captain Matt Finn, London twin pest Ryan Rupert, and Val d’Or goaltender Antoine Bibeau, the most valuable player in the QMJHL playoffs.
London has four first-round picks from the 2013 NHL Draft on its roster in forwards Bo Horvat (Vancouver Canucks), Max Domi (Phoenix Coyotes), Michael McCarron (Montreal Canadiens), and defenceman Nikita Zadorov (Buffalo Sabres). A 2012 first-round pick from the Knights, defenceman Olli Maatta, would be eligible to play in this tournament if he hadn’t stuck with the Pittsburgh Penguins as a 19-year-old this season.
With that in mind, there are a few players who could parlay a strong performance in this Memorial Cup into a spot on their respective NHL rosters this fall.
Charles LeClaire-USA TODAY Sports
When you think of who could make the jump, Val d’Or sniper Anthony Mantha immediately jumps to the top of the list. It’s not often you say the Detroit Red Wings nail a first-round pick (it’s usually the later rounds, ask Pavel Datsyuk and Nicklas Lidstrom), but they may look back and say they stole Mantha, the grandson of former Montreal Canadien Andre Pronovost, with the 20th overall pick last June.
If you’re looking at finishers in this year’s Memorial Cup, the 6-foot-5 Mantha is head and shoulders above everyone else, with back-to-back 50-goal seasons to his name, eventually finishing with 81 goals in 81 games between the regular season and playoffs this season.
Red Wings head coach Mike Babcock reportedly flew to Val d’Or to see Mantha play Games 3 and 4 in the QMJHL final, meaning he may consider having Mantha bypass the Grand Rapids Griffins and join the big club right away to give Detroit a big goalscorer who can skate, something it hasn’t had in a long time.
The host Knights have a trio of players who could jump to the NHL next year. In fact, defenceman Nikita Zadorov started this season with the Buffalo Sabres before being returned to London, so the 6-foot-5 Russian with a heavy shot from the point is nearly assured of finding himself in the blue and gold in October, perhaps joining forces with another big blueliner in Finnish World Junior hero Rasmus Ristolainen.
Up front, Bo Horvat and Max Domi will also have legitimate shots at making their respective NHL clubs next season. For Domi, he may be the guy the Phoenix Coyotes rebuild themselves around as they rebrand to become the Arizona Coyotes. He’s an electrifying player, much moreso than his father, Tie Domi, and he can put up points in bunches, something the Coyotes are lacking as Keith Yandle led the team in scoring with 53 points.
Domi can add a threatening dimension while potentially helping Phoenix get more out of Mikkel Boedker, whose 51 points this season were a career-high, or maybe even Henrik Samuelsson, who he’ll meet on Sunday when the Knights play Edmonton.
In Horvat’s case, the Vancouver Canucks aren’t getting any younger, and Henrik and Daniel Sedin both took significant steps back last season, as did Ryan Kesler and Alex Burrows, whose game has dropped off quite a bit the last two seasons. Vancouver may need an injection of youth, especially with supporting players like Chris Higgins and David Booth both hitting age 30 this season, and while Jordan Schroeder may still be ahead on the depth chart, Horvat can change that by making some noise at his third Memorial Cup.
Noah K. Murray-USA TODAY Sports
Meanwhile, the Oil Kings will likely a pair of elite prospects in defenceman Griffin Reinhart and forward Curtis Lazar. Reinhart probably could have been on the New York Islanders blueline last season, especially after former captain Mark Streit signed with the Flyers as a free agent, not to mention the uncertainty that initially surrounded aging defenceman Lubomir Visnovsky when he was first traded to the Islanders.
Along with Radek Martinek, Visnovsky will turn 38 before the season starts, so it’s not impossible to see Reinhart join the youth movement on the Islanders blueline that currently includes Travis Hamonic, Calvin de Haan, and Thomas Hickey, all of whom are currently under the age of 25.
In Lazar’s case, he could become another building block among the embarrassment of young riches in Ottawa, with some people comparing his game to pending free agent Ryan Callahan, while Hockey’s Future thinks his game is like Milan Lucic. Lazar has gotten better offensively with every season he’s played in Edmonton, and now he’s at his second Memorial Cup, but he’s also done that while accepting more responsibility with the Oil Kings. He was also one of Canada’s most consistent players at the World Junior Hockey Championships, scoring a point in six out of seven games.
If rumours about captain Jason Spezza potentially leaving Ottawa turn out to be true, Lazar is a guy who could step into the Senators lineup and contribute. I wouldn’t put him directly in Spezza’s spot, but a third-line spot with some penalty-killing time under Paul MacLean could give the Senators a serious lift with the kind of game he plays.