NHL draft: Canadian teams faced with dearth of homegrown talent
Top 10 picks may include only 1 Canadian player
In one way, this bummer of a season for Canadian hockey fans will extend into the 2016 NHL draft on Friday and Saturday in Buffalo.
Sure, the blow of the seven Canadian-based NHL teams failing to make the Stanley Cup playoffs was somewhat softened when Connor McDavid and Canada won gold at the world championship in Moscow in May.
Sure, because the seven Canadian NHL teams were so awful, there will be plenty of fanfare on Friday evening when the Toronto Maple Leafs are expected to select Auston Matthews first while the Winnipeg Jets choose Finland sniper Patrik Laine second overall.
The Edmonton Oilers have the fourth pick, the Vancouver Canucks go fifth, the Calgary Flames sixth, the Montreal Canadiens ninth and the Ottawa Senators 12th.
Otherwise, though, this draft will be a downer for Canadian hockey because there may be as few as one player from Canada selected in the top 10.
That player is likely to be Pierre-Luc Dubois, a forward with the Cape Breton Screaming Eagles. There is an outside chance that Sarnia Sting defenceman Jakob Chychrun or Penticton Vees centre Tyler Jost or Calgary Hitmen defenceman Jake Bean could be chosen in the top 10.
The last time this few Canadians were taken in the top 10 was in 2004 when Cam Barker (Chicago) was selected third overall, Andrew Ladd (Carolina) fourth and Alexandre Picard (Columbus) eighth.
Hockey families
Dubois, Chychrun, Jost and Bean likely will be key players for Canada at the world junior championship in Toronto and Montreal at the end of the year. Dubois and Chychrun earned invitations to the selection camp last December, but did not make the final roster.
The two also come from hockey families. Dubois's father, Eric, won back-to-back QMJHL President's Cup championships with the Laval Titan in 1989 and 1990. He was drafted by the Quebec Nordiques in the fourth round in 1989 and currently is an assistant coach with the Rimouski Oceanic.
Pierre-Luc is a strong skater, a 6-foot-2, 201-pound playmaker and a left wing who is versatile enough to play all three forward positions.
Chychrun's father, Jeff, was a second-round selection in 1984 by the Philadelphia Flyers. A defenceman, he played three seasons with the Kingston Canadians before a 281-game combined regular-season and playoff NHL career with the Flyers, Kings, Penguins and Oilers.
He retired to Boca Raton, Fla., where Jakob was born. But the younger Chychrun came to Toronto to play bantam hockey before shuffling off to Sarnia for his junior career. His uncle Luke Richardson, a former NHLer and current coach with the Senators' AHL affiliate, has helped develop Chychrun into a sound two-way defenceman.
The 6-foot-2, 205-pound Chychrun's stock dropped in the second half of the season, but he's still considered a bright prospect.
Bean's father, John, is the chief operating officer of the Flames. The younger Bean is an underdog story. He went undrafted in the WHL, which allowed him to sign with the hometown Hitmen.
In his second season, the 6-foot, 173-pound Bean led all WHL defenceman with 24 goals and he helped Canada win the under-18 Ivan Hlinka Memorial tournament last summer. Bean not only has an excellent shot, but he's a good playmaker, too.
Jost was a teammate of Bean's at the Ivan Hlinka. But he put himself on the prospects map when he scored six goals and 15 points in seven games for Canada at the IIHF Under-18 World Cup in Grand Forks, N.D., a couple of months ago to surpass the team record set by McDavid (eight goals, 14 points) in 2013.
The 5-foot-11, 190-pound Jost of St. Albert, Alta. has committed to play at the University of North Dakota in the fall. He has an all-around game, plenty of hockey smarts and is considered a leader. He was captain of the Canadian under-18 team this spring.