Most people would be willing to wager that at least the top two picks in the 2016 NHL Draft, Auston Matthews and Patrik Laine, will be NHLers this season. Jesse Puljujarvi should make a strong case to fit on the Oilers as well. After that, training camps will determine how many other first-round picks stick with their teams, whether it’s for a nine-game regular-season tryout, or the full 82-game schedule.
Matthew Tkachuk, the sixth overall pick and a Calgary Flames prospect, is one of those youngsters who will make a strong case at camp to stick with his team. He scored 30 goals and 107 points in 57 games with the Memorial Cup-winning London Knights last season, but usually it’s safer to send a player back to junior and let him develop further. So Tkachuk knows he has a lot of work ahead of him if he wants to make the NHL on a full-time basis in 2016-17.
“I haven’t had my mind on anything other than that,” Tkachuk told Andrew Walker on Sportsnet 590 The Fan Tuesday. “I think I’d be unfair to myself to think anything other than that. For myself I think it’s a realistic opportunity. But that opportunity is not just given to me, it’s gotta be earned.”
Tkachuk was third in Knights scoring last season, behind previously drafted players Christian Dvorak (58th overall in 2014) and Mitchell Marner (fourth overall in 2014). He added five goals and eight points in four Memorial Cup games, including the overtime winner in the final.
The last time the Flames picked sixth overall they took Sean Monahan in 2013 and he surprisingly made the team right away. That decision proved to be the right one as Monahan scored 22 goals as a rookie, and has eclipsed the 60-point mark in each of his past two seasons.
Tkachuk, whose father is former NHLer Keith Tkachuk, is more used to hanging out in NHL dressing rooms than your average prospect would be. But he recognizes it’s different now that he’s a pro chasing his dream.
“As much as I’ve been around an NHL locker room it was the St. Louis locker room or the Arizona locker room,” he said. “It wasn’t Calgary so I’m walking into a different scenario. I’m not going there as a five-year-old or 10-year-old kid and hanging out. It’s all business now. It’s time for me to take control of my career.”
He also spoke about the rookie players who used to live in his house when his dad still played and what it might be like to face them now.
“We had three players live at our house: David Backes, Lee Stempniak and Phil McRae. They were rookies living at our place. It’d be pretty cool if I got a chance to play against them this year.”
Check out some of the interview in the video at the top of this page, where Tkachuk gives his scouting report on Maple Leafs prospects Auston Matthews and Marner, both of whom Tkachuk has played with.
