It is that time of year again. I am yet again destitute and waiting eagerly for the opportunity to earn double media by writing about what I write about every offseason: the Edmonton Blizzard and their draft strategy. For this season’s iteration, I will try to do something that I have not actually done before and write a Part I article, this article, and follow it up after the draft with how right or wrong I was with my prognostications. It is important to note, I am not privy to any discussions of who Edmonton will select in the draft so if I am even remotely close I will chock it up as a win.
Before we can really get into what Edmonton needs in this draft, we have to look back at see how Edmonton fared this past season and hopefully that will help inform my predictions (plus help out my word count).
During this past season, the Edmonton Blizzard once again fell just short of greatness, ending the regular season third in the wild, wild Western Conference and exiting the playoffs after a tough semi-final series against the Hamilton Steelhawks in seven games. After such a tough loss in one of the league’s best and burgeoning rivalries, Edmonton appears poised for yet another run at the playoffs, and potentially another run at a championship. If they can add depth, broaden the scoring and find creative ways to stifle opposing players that is.
While the season may not have ended the way the Edmonton faithful had hoped, there were a lot of positives going into this draft. For one, Edmonton found itself leading the Western Conference in Goals For, again! Clearly there is something going right for the Edmonton Blizzard to consistently rank amongst the league’s top offenses. The high powered nature of the offense is clearly a cut above, however, it still needs to be improved. While it is true that Edmonton led the conference in offensive output, it was fourth in the league overall. Couple that with a defense that ranked sixth in the league in goals against and you have a very good team that is still on the outside looking in when it comes to progressing to the finals and winning a cup. And that identifies one of the greatest challenges this franchise has, getting that little bit of extra juice from the players to turn the franchise from great to best.
As I have said, the offense was clearly one of the league’s best this past season. A lot of the success from the offense came from the incredible scoring balance across the franchise. Seven players scored 40+ points with Julio Tokolosh pacing the team with 62 points off 33 goals and 29 assists. Tokolosh has been climbing the rungs to preeminence the last few seasons and he is clearly one of the very best offensive producers in the league. Unfortunately for Edmonton and Julio, while the scoring is relatively balanced in terms of point production, it is rather binary when it comes to actually scoring goals. Only two players, the aforementioned Tokolosh and Barrett Blackwood scored more than 20 goals this season, an underwhelming statistic. Indeed, it looks like Edmonton’s balance of scoring is actually one of its greater weaknesses since beyond Tokolosh, no one has really stood out as a pure scoring threat that defenses need to pay attention to. Instead, the Blizzard offense has been solid but not spectacular. I do not want to make it sound like the cupboard is bare, though. In fact, there are a lot of quality forwards on the team. Players like Barrett Blackwood, Jon Forty-One, James Truong and Jean-Paul Boivin all played exceptionally well this season, but none of them have been the pure scoring threat that defenses need to respect. Two players that could make that jump into being more of a scoring threat are two of the younger forwards: Guy LeGrande and Daniel Laforest.
LeGrande, a youngster with a great set of speedy skates, was a bit of a surprise this season. Playing only 17 minutes a game, he was able to provide a spark on the third line and 28 points on 13 goals and 15 assists. His ability to make the defense respect his shot as well as his passing prowess led him to be one of the more exciting young players Edmonton had and could see him grow into a greater scoring role in the near future.
Laforest, too, is an incredibly exciting young player that Edmonton saw plenty of last season. The Blizzard faithful, though, hope to see him produce more in the goal column next season than he did this season. With 16 minutes of ice time a game, the young Laforest was able to tally a respectable 3 goals and 29 assists, but it is the lack of goal production that is concerning. The lack of goals does not fall on Laforest’s shoulders alone, but it is just a symptom of the greater problem that faced Edmonton players this season, they just aren’t good at getting their shots past the goalie and the really good shooters are taking less shots.
One of the worst culprits this season, in terms of poor shooting was FR Finn-Rhys. While he has grown into a relatively dependable two-way defenseman, his shooting and poor decision making were lackluster at best this season. Indeed, he is yet another symptom of the Edmonton offensive philosophy not getting the best out of their best players. Finn-Rhys was third on the team in shots behind Karlstrasse Scholz and Barrett Blackwood. No knock on Sholz and Blackwood because they are two great players but to have two of your top three shot producers be defensemen is just not going to work if Edmonton wants to move up the ladder offensively. Instead, players like Tony Pepperoni, Jean-Paul Boivin, James Truong and Jon Forty-One need to take more of those shots. Indeed, just do some simple math and you can see that if Finn-Rhys and Scholz had each taken 30 less shots (60 total) and those 60 were divvied out amongst the aforementioned four players (15 each) you would have a net increase of 9 goals. This even includes the loss of goal production from Finn-Rhys and Scholz. Those nine goals may not sound like a lot but those goals actually jump the Edmonton offense from fourth in the league to second and put them over 200 goals for the season. When it comes down to making incremental improvements to radically change the outcome, it is clear that the Edmonton offense needs to get the puck to their best shooters and let them shoot.
This clearly can be accomplished in one of two ways, either adjust the offensive philosophy to be more balanced in terms of shots, and/or improve the offense by drafting a more “selfish” pure goal scorer. While I have no bearing on either of those methods, for the purposes of this article I can look a little more deeply into the latter proposition.
If Edmonton is going to look at drafting more of a pure goal scorer there are a few decent options, although Edmonton will be hindered by having only three draft picks this season, only one of which is in the first 30 picks. If Edmonton is serious about improving their offensive output in the future, I think they will need to use their only first round pick to draft a pure goal scorer. With that in mind, there are five first-round quality players that could potentially fit the bill.
1) Freyja Hellström – The diminutive left winger from Södertälje, Sweden made a lot of people take notice this season while playing for the Carolina Kraken. A solid firecracker, Hellström was able to accrue 21 points in her rookie campaign, tallying 13 goals and 8 assists. While she also sported a -5 +/- rating, the important statistic to note was her 17.57% shooting percentage. Admittedly, such a high shooting percentage is untenable in the long term, her skills as a gifted sniper are undeniable and she could be the type of shoot-first, ask questions later type of goal scorer that Edmonton needs.
2) Brennan Huff – A solidly built right winger from Quebec, Huff played out of position last season on the left wing for the Kelowna Knights. Even while playing out of his natural position, Huff garnered a solid 6 goals and 6 assists. While the haters will point out that he also tallied a -12 +/- rating and took too many penalties for the limited time he was on the ice (16 penalty minutes), you can’t shy away from the fact that he had a 12.77% shooting percentage on one of the worst teams last season. He is clearly a playmaker that can make things happen. The real question will be if he shoots more with better talent around him or if he defers? For Edmonton’s sake, lets hope he shoots more.
3) Pablo Salvatici – One of the more intriguing prospects that Edmonton may be able to make a run for is Salvatici. The Italian born Salvatici made the trek from his hometown of Milan, Italy to Anchorage, Alaska last season, and from the looks of his output, it seems that he has found a new home. The shifty center netted 9 goals and 7 assists last season on one of the league’s better teams. While prospective teams would like to see him make a few more plays for his linemates (as indicated by his 0 +/- minus rating), it is clear that this Italian stallion can not only shoot but shoot well. His 15.52% shooting percentage is amongst the best and his keen ability to get the puck on net could be what Edmonton is looking for.
4) Bás O’Bigbers – Another interesting prospect, O’Bigbers continues the trend of quality forwards coming out of Ireland. A native of Swords, Ireland, O’Bigbers played for the Newfoundland Berserkers last season and was impressive in his debut. The left winger was able to garner 9 goals and 13 assists. While his point outputs were impressive, especially for a rookie, his shooting percentage was a little lackluster when you compare it to some of the other candidates in this lineup. That said, 10.47% is a solid shooting percentage and I think that with a little more emphasis on shooting the puck instead of passing that O’Bigbers could be a viable candidate should Edmonton be able to take advantage of his services.
5) Rude Sniff – The final candidate in our lineup of potential score first minded players is Rude Sniff. He is an incredibly interesting prospect, not least of which is because he is a defenseman by nature but played right wing last season for the Nevada Battleborn. It is still too early to tell if Sniff is fully converting to being a forward but, even so, his play outside of his natural position was exceptional. Nevada may have found a pure scoring diamond in the rough in Sniff. Last season he tallied 7 goals and 3 assists and sported an astounding 20% shooting percentage. While there are still a lot of unknowns when it comes to Sniff, his ability and willingness to shoot first could be exactly what Edmonton is searching for in this draft.
While there are any number of potential players that Edmonton could target during this draft, I think the five above would meet the actual need that Edmonton has of finding players that are willing to put it on the line and shoot first. If my estimations are accurate, Edmonton will need to address its offensive output sooner, rather than later. The variable in all of this, however, is the talent that Edmonton already has stashed away in its prospect pool. That pool of potential goal scorers will likely see ice time for Edmonton sooner than any draftee will, but analysis of that cupboard will have to take place another time. What will be interesting, though, is if Edmonton does pull the trigger on one of these potential draftees, does it foretell of a change in offensive philosophy? Only time, and the draft, may tell.
FinnRhys
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