Top 5 Canucks prospects: Danila Klimovich has potential to be a star

VANCOUVER – In a lot of ways, Dmitry Zlodeyev is typical of Vancouver Canucks draft picks the last couple of years.

The National Hockey League team traded away its 2020 first-round pick to acquire J.T. Miller and surrendered its 2021 first-rounder in the Conor Garland-Oliver Ekman-Larsson blockbuster. Previous general manager Jim Benning also sacrificed enough other high-value picks trying to build out his NHL roster that in the last two drafts the Canucks haven’t had a single top-40 selection and just two at-bats in the top 112.

Amateur scouting director Todd Harvey and his staff have had to scour the late rounds for potential value and players, sometimes far from the spotlight, whose skills may allow them to outperform their draft position and overcome the shortcomings that dropped them there.

Zlodeyev, chosen 175th in the 2020 draft from Dynamo Moscow’s junior program, is a smallish centre who is neither flashy nor especially fast. But he is a bulldog competitor – like Canuck rookie Vasily Podkolzin and sophomore Nils Hoglander, who were much higher picks – and displays detail and defensive awareness in his game far beyond what you’d expect from a 19-year-old. Zlodeyev projects as a potential shutdown centre, a guy who kills penalties and wins faceoffs and defends leads.

But the Russian is atypical of Canuck picks in that he is the only prospect from the organization who will be playing at the world junior championship that starts in Edmonton on Boxing Day.

“We’re so excited that he’s going to get the opportunity to play on kind of the world stage here and show himself because, I think to a lot of people, he’s kind of an unknown,” Canucks player-development director Ryan Johnson told Sportsnet. “This will be a good chance for everyone to get some eyes on him on that stage.

“You can have these flashy picks that are an offensive juggernaut that everybody talks about. But you watch Zlodeyev … he just does a lot of things very well and has details in his game that maybe some of these young players don’t have. He already has those foundational pieces and it’s just continuing to work with him and grow them.”

Bouncing between three levels of Russian hockey this season, including a couple of games in the Kontinental league with Spartak Moscow, Zlodeyev is pushing his way up a Canucks prospects list that has been thinned significantly by the lack of high picks and the graduation to the NHL in recent years of several elite prospects.

We’re not yet ready to place him into the top five in the organization for Sportsnet’s report on the top-five Canucks prospects. But ask us after the world junior.

1. Danila Klimovich, 18, RW, Drafted 41st in 2021

AHL stats: 19 GP | G: 3 | A: 5 | PTS: 8

The Canucks took a mighty swing at the draft on this Belarusian winger after Klimovich had a scene-stealing performance at the Under-18 world tournament in Texas last spring, scoring six goals as a relative unknown. He has done nothing in his draft-plus-one season to make the Canucks regret their gamble on the highly skilled, six-foot-two scorer.

In the small sample of training camp in September, Klimovich was at least as impressive as Podkolzin, the highly regarded 10th-overall pick from 2019 who has since shown at the NHL level how much further advanced he is physically and in the development of his 200-foot game. Podkolzin is going to be a star. Maybe Klimovich will be, too.

The Belarusian showed enough that the Canucks decided to assign the raw teenager to their American Hockey League team in nearby Abbotsford rather than send him to the Quebec league to be a likely scoring star in junior. Klimovich has three goals and eight points in 19 games.

“This is the first time in my experience of seeing an 18-year-old that can even stay afloat at this level,” said Johnson, who doubles as Abbotsford’s GM. “It’s a huge compliment not only to the kid as a player, but the kid as a person. There’s a language barrier, a new culture, pro hockey, being around men every day. It’s different than anything he’s ever really seen. Every day for him is a learning process. But I even look at where he was in September and where he is now, and I’m floored with the progress he’s made. Are there growing pains? Absolutely. Did we expect that? Absolutely. He’s 18 years old.”

2. Jack Rathbone, 22, D, Drafted 95th in 2017

NHL stats: 9 GP | G: 0 | A: 0 | PTS: 0

AHL stats: 7 GP | G: 1 | A: 5 | PTS: 6

After the dynamic defenceman’s strong NHL cameo at the end of last season and his start this year on the Canucks’ blue line, we expected Rathbone to have graduated from the prospects pool.

But the offensive defenceman struggled at times on the third pairing in Vancouver (expected goals-for of 42.3 per cent), especially when former coach Travis Green was unable to protect him in matchups. After Rathbone bounced twice between Vancouver and Abbotsford, he was sent to the AHL to get his game and confidence back. Then, after six points in seven games, Rathbone sprained his knee. He is close to returning.

The five-foot-10 defenceman is going to be an NHL player. His ability to skate and move the puck, combined with his tenacity and willingness to compete, appear to be too great for him to fail as a pro. But with just 15 games in the AHL and 17 in the NHL since leaving Harvard University two years ago, Rathbone needs consistency. Expect him to be back with the Canucks – and off this list – this season.

3. Will Lockwood, 23, RW, Drafted 64th in 2016

NHL stats: 2 GP | G: 0 | A: 0 | PTS: 0

AHL stats: 16 GP | G: 5 | A: 4 | PTS: 9

After four years at the University of Michigan, Lockwood is in only his second season of professional hockey and has logged just 42 games as a pro, including two with the Canucks near the end of last year. Since his draft day, the five-foot-11 human missile has been projected as a depth forward who brings energy and physicality. Lockwood may eventually deliver a lot more than that.

He has five goals and nine points in 16 games with Abbotsford. In less than one calendar year playing in the Canucks organization, Lockwood has learned to channel his warp-speed physicality, which in college bordered on reckless and led to injuries. He is smart, mature, self-aware and understands what he needs to do to play in the NHL.

“He has taken another step from where he was last year,” Johnson said. “And he did a phenomenal job last year adjusting to the pro game and getting a chance to play some NHL games to find out where he sits. He’s right there. I would say if you were looking at our group for next year, it’s hard to imagine that group in Vancouver without him on it.”

4. Michael DiPietro, 22, G, Drafted 64th in 2017

AHL stats: 11 GP | GA: 33 | SO: 0 | GAA: 3.13 | SPCT: .901

NHL stats: 2 GP | GA: 8 | SO: 0 | GAA: 7.02 | SPCT: .742

The athletic, six-foot goalie from Windsor has been talked about for so long as an enticing prospect for the Canucks that it’s hard to believe he has played just 53 games as a pro. As the organization’s third goalie, DiPietro spent most of the pandemic season on the Canucks’ taxi squad and the year was pretty much a write-off developmentally.

This is a huge season for DiPietro and, so far, a challenging one. He is the AHL starter, but DiPietro is sharing the crease with two backups and being pushed on the organizational depth chart by Latvian draft pick Arturs Silovs, who is four inches taller and two years younger. DiPietro has a .901 save percentage in 11 starts.

The starter needs to find some traction in the second half of the season and get his march toward the NHL moving again under the instruction of Canucks goaltending guru Ian Clark and minor-league instructor Curtis Sanford.

“He’s got two very good goaltenders around him,” Johnson said, referring to Silovs and veteran minor-leaguer Spencer Martin. “So now he has a little bit of pressure to perform. But that’s the exciting part, to me, because it’s going to be a real important part of Mikey’s development.”

5. Aidan McDonough, 22, LW, Drafted 195th in 2019

Hockey East stats: 18 GP | G: 13 | A: 4 | PTS: 17

In his third season at Northeastern University in Boston, the area where he grew up, McDonough continues to be a point-per-game player but is filling the net as a scorer: 13 goals in 18 games. The six-foot-two winger has a long way to go before he’s an NHL player, but is expected to turn pro this spring and start his career in Abbotsford.

McDonogh is a little bit like Jonah Gadjovich, the power forward who had 15 goals in 18 games in the AHL last season but was lost by the Canucks on waivers to San Jose before this season. McDonough is less physical than Gadjovich but has a better shot. He has the size and disposition to get to the net, and is proving in college he can finish when he gets there. That’s a pretty good starting point for a prospect taken near the end of his draft.

[relatedlinks]