If you have talent, they will find you.
No one flies under the radar.
At some level these are hockey’s greatest lies.
There are few constants with the NHL Draft, but one always bears watching: Someone will be a first- or second-rounder who entered major junior hockey undrafted. Just out west those over-looked and then in the spotlight include not just solid NHL players like Joffrey Lupul and Dan Hamhuis, but also future Hall of Famers like Jarome Iginla, Shane Doan and Shea Weber. In the OHL, former Olympian Rob Zamuner and Brandon Prust are in that number.
That said, none among those names really shot from utter obscurity to a priority for scouts faster than right winger Alex DeBrincat, who went from a twice-undrafted walk-on with the Erie Otters to a 51-goal scoring OHL rookie of the year in 2014-15.
At season’s end NHL Central Scouting ranked DeBrincat No. 21 among North American skaters, which, if accurate, would likely see his name go up on the big board at the draft in the late stages of the first round or near the top of the second.
With DeBrincat and these others, the question hangs there: How did no one notice before?
“I don’t know exactly,” says DeBrincat, who has spent the last couple of weeks prepping for the NHL Draft Combine and trying to get over a cold.
“We had scouts come out to games [at Lake Forest Academy, a Chicago prep school]. I’m sure they saw me but were probably looking harder at other players. Maybe my size [5-feet-7 and 160 pounds] made it easier to look at other guys. Honestly, though, I didn’t think about the OHL that much. I had already committed to U Mass—my brother plays at American International in Massachusetts. I was looking more at going to the USHL.”
At least until DeBrincat and his parents were approached by former Erie Otters GM Sherry Bassin.
“The key for us was the fact that [Bassin] offered a school package,” DeBrincat says. “That was important to our family. And then once I was there I saw how tight the team was and how respectful the players were. When we met my billet family and everyone else in the organization we knew it was the right way to go.”
Going to Erie in August of 2014, DeBrincat had heard about Connor McDavid but never had seen him play. “Some highlights on Youtube, but that’s about it,” DeBrincat says. But from the last pre-season game through to the OHL final in his rookie season, DeBrincat skated on McDavid’s right side.
“Connor just had so much speed that he had [opposing defencemen] scrambling to get position on him,” DeBrincat says. “I had to learn how to play the game at a faster pace than I ever played before. It wasn’t just skating to keep up with him and getting into open space. It was making decisions faster too. Connor’s speed and play-making forced me to be a better player.”
With McDavid’s departure from Erie for the Edmonton Oilers, some might have expected DeBrincat’s production to fall off in his sophomore season, but he again scored 51 goals. In fact this season he played in eight fewer games, time missed while he played with the U.S. team at the world juniors in Finland.
“I played with Dylan [Strome, Arizona’s 2015 first-rounder, third overall] pretty much the whole season,” DeBrincat says. “He plays a different game than Connor. Dylan likes to slow the game down to his pace and control the puck. When he’d draw the guys on the other team to him, that’s when I had to skate into the ice he’d open up and he’d find me.”
Suffice it to say that if DeBrincat had gone to the USHL he might be known by the U Mass coaching staff but not many others. Hard to imagine that he’d have landed No. 21 on Central Scouting’s list. Getting seen is just one of the advantages of playing beside a No. 1 overall pick one season and a third overall the next season.
DeBrincat doesn’t want to speculate on his chances to play in the NHL next season but, as a late birthday, he has a year of junior eligibility before he could move on to the AHL for a pro apprenticeship.
“If I’m back in Erie next season, I’d still be excited to play there,” he says. “I’m not trying to look too far ahead, not two or three seasons from now. I just want to end up in the NHL someday. It’s not how fast you get there, [it’s] just getting there—if teams ask me in the interviews [at the combine] that’s what I’m going to tell them.”
But if any teams at the combine ask DeBrincat how he flew under the radar before landing in Erie, he’ll have no easy answer. He can just tell them that it’s happened before and it’s going to happen again.
