(Buffalo) Drew Doughty, Victor Hedman and… Joel Edmundson? The players admired by the younger generation are not always those we would have thought!
Posted yesterday at 7:32 p.m.
Prospects parading behind the microphones at the NHL’s tryout camp are almost always asked who their role models are in the NHL. The defenders met this week have notably named Doughty, Hedman and Charlie McAvoy.
But Owen Pickering surprised us. “I try to play like Miro Heiskanen, he’s quite good. And I want to defend like Joel Edmundson,” said the 15e North American hope.
By his style without fantasy, Edmundson is rarely mentioned in this type of interview. Except he can be devilishly efficient in his own way, and he probably hasn’t made two finals in three years by chance.
The way to defend [d’Edmunson] is underestimated. He has a physical element that I want to develop. He is good at drawing opponents into tight spots and shutting down play, stopping puck flow.
Owen Pickering
For what it’s worth, another Canadiens defenseman was named this week. It is Alexander Romanov, adored by his compatriot Pavel Mintyukov, a Russian who plays in Saginaw and who is 6e North American hope. “I like his sturdiness, his checks,” Mintyukov explained. Note that both are represented by the same agent, Dan Milstein.
Most prospects went home after camp, but not all. Shane Wright and Juraj Slafkovsky were heading to New Jersey to tour the Devils facilities. Impossible to know if other hopes accompany them. The Devils have the 2e draft pick.
Teams are not permitted to submit players for physical evaluations if they have been invited to the NHL evaluation camp in Buffalo. But nothing prevents them from organizing such courtesy visits, in order to familiarize the players with the places.
The Canadian will hold its own evaluation camp this week in Brossard, with hopes that were not in Buffalo this week.
After Red Wings defender Moritz Seider, is there another hidden gem at Rögle BK Ängelholm?
It will be to follow, but Marco Kasper is obviously a phenomenon in his own way. On the ice, the NHL Central Scouting ranks him 5e European hope. The Austrian has scored 11 points in 46 games in the Swedish Premier League. But off the ice, the young man already lives alone, speaks fluent German and English and took six months to master Swedish.
“It’s important to communicate and integrate. So I wanted to learn Swedish as soon as possible,” he said. If he has to add French as a fourth language, the Canadian will have to make a trade, because it would be very surprising if Kasper were still available when the team exercised its second right to speak, at 26e rank.
Later in the draft, it will be interesting to see if Charlie Leddy will catch the attention of the Canadian.
This defender, listed at 117e rank among North Americans, is indeed a product of the Mid-Fairfield Rangers, one of the organizations where Martin St-Louis has coached in recent years.
Leddy says he met the Canadiens this week, and the team liked the comparison of his game to that of Brett Pesce of the Hurricanes.
I’m a 2004 and his guys were born in 2003 and 2005, so I didn’t have Martin as a coach. But my uncle played with him in Vermont and my dad coaches at Fairfield, so I know him. He’s a great guy and quite the trainer!
charlie leddy
His reaction when he knew that St-Louis was coming behind the Canadian bench? “I said to myself that my father could also be a coach in the NHL because he is the coach of our U15 team! “, he joked.
Fans will remember good old Dave Snuggerud with the Buffalo Sabers in the early 1990s.
We guess that poor Snuggerud does not carry the Canadian in his heart; in four seasons in the NHL, he made the playoffs twice, and both times the CH eliminated Buffalo in the first round. And that’s not the only misfortune Montreal has inflicted on the former striker.
“Patrick Roy has already severed his buttock, told Jimmy Snuggerud, a possible choice of 1er round. My father fell directly on his skate. »
Did he keep a scar? “I don’t know, I don’t really want to see that!” »