Most of Winnipeg’s top-end talent is currently paying dividends on an NHL roster that is emerging as one of the league’s best. But although so much of the contrubution up there is coming from youngsters, there is still more talent in the pipeline.
In this month’s Jets prospect report, we’ll focus on picks made in the 2017 NHL Draft, and look at a couple players who may play for their countries at the upcoming World Junior Championship. So while you won’t see Tucker Poolman or Jack Roslovic in this piece, here is an update on how the most recent picks are doing, led by one player who is expected to be a big-time contributor in Buffalo at the WJC.
Kristian Vesalainen, 18, LW/RW, HPK
Drafted: First round, 24th overall, 2017
Season to date: 25 GP | 8 G | 11 A | 19 P
Reason for optimism: As a late first-round pick, Vesalainen brings an exciting combination of size (6-foot-4, 209 pounds) and skill, but while he more often than not put up strong point totals against his own age group, when tested at higher levels his offensive game tended to level off.
This year, that looks to be changing. Playing in Finland’s top professional league with HPK, he leads his team in scoring and is top 20 in the league, though currently he is out due to an injury.
As long as he’s not out for too long, Vesalainen figures to be a central part of Finland’s offence at the World Junior Championship. He’ll look to bounce back from his own mediocre totals in last year’s tournament (two points in six games) and help Finland return to prominence after they were threatened with relegation and finished ninth in 2017.
Generally regarded as a 19-year-old’s tournament, it wasn’t odd to see a draft eligible player like Vesalainen put up those kind of numbers at last year’s WJC, but as a draft-plus-one returnee with overwhelming size, the expectation is that he’ll have a significant presence in Buffalo later this month.
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Dylan Samberg, 18, D, University of Minnesota-Duluth
Drafted: Second round, 43rd overall, 2017
Season to date: 17 GP | 0 G | 4 A | 4 P
Samberg is considered a “raw” prospect, but at 6-foot-3 and 190 pounds, he has good size as athleticism. He is one of five players from the University of Minnesota-Duluth to make the list of 28 players invited to Team USA’s WJC selection camp, though as the third-youngest defenceman invited, a spot on the final roster may be an uphill battle.
He is an NCAA freshman this season after moving right out of high school hockey in 2016-17, where he had 28 points in 25 games for Minnesota’s Hermantown High. His best asset right now is his strength, but he doesn’t bring a whole lot of offensive pop at this level yet. He is a long-term prospect for sure, but if he is selected to represent the USA at the world juniors, it would be a surprising and exciting development for the Jets and their fans.
Jonathan Kovacevic, 20, D, Merrimack College
Drafted: Third round, 74th overall, 2017
Season to date: 14 GP | 1 G | 9 A | 10 P
After being passed over by every NHL team at the 2016 draft, the 6-foot-4, 208-pound Kovacevic was scooped up by the Jets as a third-rounder in 2017. You’ll notice that the Jets have a bit of a trend picking large defencemen at the draft table — only two of the past seven defencemen they’ve taken come in under 6-foot-2. Turns out, Kovacevic, a Grimsby, Ont., native, wanted to be taken by the Winnipeg Jets.
Kovacevic is also somewhat of a long-term prospect for the Jets and is currently a top 10 scorer among defencemen in Hockey East, even though his Merrimack team sits last place in the standings with just two wins. As a 20-year-old, he is not eligible to play in the WJC.
Santeri Virtanen, 18, C, Dubuque Fighting Saints
Drafted: Fourth round, 105th overall, 2017
Season to date: 9 GP | 2 G | 5 A | 7 P
A shoulder injury severely hampered Virtanen’s development last season as he was only able to get into five games with TPS in Finland’s junior league, but he did record six points in that time. He also got a taste of international hockey, scoring six points in seven games at the under-18s.
He’s been limited to just nine games this season for the USHL’s Dubuque Fighting Saints, which is nearly half as many as the team has played, but he’s still eighth in team scoring. At this point, health is a concern for the young player, but there’s no denying his natural skill set. The 6-foot-2, 194-pounder brings great speed and a knack for the two-way game.
Virtanen, unrelated to Vancouver’s Jake, was not listed on Finland’s WJC selection camp roster.
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Leon Gawanke, 18, D, Cape Breton Screaming Eagles
Drafted: Fifth round, 136th overall, 2017
Season to date: 29 GP | 2 G | 14 A | 16 P
Gawanke, one of those two defencemen the Jets have picked in the past two years under 6-foot-2 (he’s 6-foot-1 so not exactly small), won’t be at the World Junior Championship in Buffalo because Germany didn’t qualify for this year’s top tier. He is, however, representing his country in Division I at the WJC, which runs from Dec. 10-17 in France and where he and the Germans can work their way back to the top group next year.
With the QMJHL’s Cape Breton Screaming Eagles, Gawanke has been a big presence on the blue line. He’s the second-highest scoring defenceman on the team (tied for 21st in the ‘Q’) with two goals and 16 points in 29 games, which doesn’t project to improve much on last year’s 32 point total. Last season, he was the second-highest scoring draft-eligible blueliner in the QMJHL, behind only first-rounder Pierre-Olivier Joseph, who is nearly a point-per-game player this season.
There is reason to believe those totals will go up, though. Gawanke shoots a lot, already putting 89 pucks on net this season — seventh-most among QMJHL defenders — and converting just two goals. Through all of last season, Gawanke took 106 shots.
Arvid Holm, 19, G, Karlskrona
Drafted: Sixth round, 167th overall, 2017
Season to date: 22 GP | 3.63 GAA | .883 SP
The Jets made history when they selected Holm in the sixth round last summer, because he became the first player ever drafted out of the Karlskrona HK program to the NHL.
As always, goalies at a young age are nearly impossible to predict with any confidence, and that goes doubly for long shot prospects taken late in the draft. Still, it’s not a promising development to see Holm’s numbers take a dip in his first post-draft season still playing in Sweden’s junior league.
At 6-foot-4, Holm certainly fits the modern mould of an NHL goalie and he’s been known for the athleticism he brings to the net. He’s a long shot prospect at this point, as is anyone a season after being picked in the sixth round, but those two attributes could help him in future development.
Skyler McKenzie, 19, LW, Portland Winterhawks
Drafted: Seventh round, 198th overall, 2017
Season to date: 28 GP | 20 G | 17A | 37 PTS
An undersized scorer at the junior level passed over by everyone in his first year of draft eligibility: where have we heard this story before?
McKenzie falls into that category as a 5-foot-8, 154-pound left winger, but to be fair he wasn’t a prolific scorer until his first year of eligibility passed. On last year’s Portland Winterhawks, McKenzie more than tripled his offensive output from the season before, finishing with 42 goals and 84 points playing alongside Cody Glass. This season, he’s part of one of the CHL’s most dynamic scoring units with Kieffer Bellows (19th overall to Islanders in 2016) and Glass (sixth overall to Vegas).
The trio has helped Portland get out to a strong lead in the US Division in the WHL, though McKenzie was the only one of the three to not be invited to his country’s WJC selection camp. A long shot prospect going this late, it can only be a good thing to see him continue to put up monster numbers in major junior, but he’ll eventually have to prove he can produce without being surrounded by top-end talent.
Croix Evingson, 20, D, UMass-Lowell
Drafted: Seventh round, 211th overall, 2017
Season to date: 7 GP | 1 G | 1A | 2 PTS
Back to another massive defenceman taken by the Jets, there’s no question that the edge 6-foot-5, 214-pound Evingson plays with is his biggest asset. The question is whether or not he can bring any offence to his game, or keep up to the pace at higher levels.
An Anchorage, Alaska native, Evingson had already been passed over at the draft before the Jets took a flyer on him as a 19-year-old pick last summer. He has not gone a very traditional route either, starting in the NAHL with the Kenai River Brown Bears then moving to the Shreveport Mudbugs last season, where he upped his production to 52 points in 59 games.
While that offensive uptick was good to see, when he was given a look in the USHL with the Chicago Steel last season, he managed just one point in 16 games. He’ll be at Umass-Lowell for a few years yet and has missed some time this season to injury, but he has time to develop at both ends before the Jets have to determine where he fits into their plans.
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