Taking Quinton Byfield first overall was easy, Saturday came the challenging part for teams across the Ontario Hockey League including the Sudbury Wolves in 15 rounds of the 2018 Priority Draft.
General Manager Rob Papineau and his team had to decide who they envision best representing the blue and white
“We were just looking at our whole depth chart, wanting to make sure that we’re continuing to get deeper, stronger and create competition for jobs,” said Papineau.
Sudbury ended up taking five centres, five defensemen, three wingers and two goalies.
All Canadian born players except for one.
First for the Wolves came a delay.
They knew Byfield was the first overall pick, and had to wait the rest of the first round as other teams picked off guys.
Then with their first pick in the second round, the Wolves selected defenseman Jack Thompson from the Clarington Toros.
“After Q(Quinton Byfield) yesterday, we were going into the second round, and really, ideally we were looking for a defenseman, preferably a right shot defenseman and in our scouts mind, there were two guys in this draft who were guys we would love to have and at 30, one of them was there,” said Papineau.
“We kind of had a defenseman in mind for our second pick and Jack, in our minds, was a first-round pick,” said Wolves Head Scout Mike Taylor. “He wants to be here, he wants to play in Sudbury, he wants to be a part of our new era. He’s a great kid, and all the boxes checked off in terms of his skill level and character.”
In the third round, the Wolves went back to the centre position, picking Blake Butler from the Lambton Jr. Sting.
“He’s what you define as a complete player. He’s a 200-foot guy, he’s highly skilled, protects the puck well, he’s got a good shot. He has character through the roof, everybody you talk to through interviewing around Blake is a guy that one day in this league could be a captain,” said Papineau.
In the fourth round, it was back to the blue line for the Wolves snagging Nathan Ribau from the Oakville Rangers.
“This is a guy who had injuries this year, to start the year, but when he came in, he started to come in real strong. We talked to his coach up to the draft, and his coach is a guy who has some pro experience, and he just loves him. The coach feels this is a guy who could be a pro, he’s going to compete, and he says he’s going to surprise a lot of people in September,” said Papineau.
The 2018 draft was the first for Mike Taylor as Head Scout of the Sudbury Wolves.
He said the so-called “war room” can get a bit intense but it is nice to see the hours upon hours of scouting all come to fruition as the draft wears on.
“Generally speaking you try to draft the best player available, depending on how things pan out. Usually, in the draft, there tends to be a goalie run, so you’ve got to think about okay, maybe if you want to get the right goalie then maybe now is the time to pick the goalie because he might not be there,” said Taylor.
And that goalie run did begin in the fourth round, and the Wolves got their guy in the fifth round, 6’5” Jonathan Lemaire from the Kemptville 73s.
“In our mind, we kind of had an idea around the fourth, fifth round that’s where we would select a goalie and as it turned out that was kind of the round where goalies started to go. Jonathan was one of the top goalies we had rated on our list, so we’re very excited. He’s a big, physical goalie, a late birth date, so there’s time for him to develop,” said Taylor.
The draft takes a break after the first five rounds, giving teams a chance to collect themselves, grab a bite to eat before getting back into it.
It gives us a chance to look at some stats as well.
We took a look back at rounds two through five in the last three years of the draft for the Wolves, to see which players are still on the team having an impact.
Through 2015-2017 Sudbury had three second-round picks, Owen Gilhula, Shane Bulitka and Macauley Carson, all still on the roster and having a significant impact.
That’s a great sign for Jack Thompson.
Through 2015-2017 the Wolves had three third-round picks, just one is still on the team, Anthony Tabak in 2017.
The others were Owen Lane and Conor Ali.
Through the same time period, there were four fourth-round picks, the Wolves are pretty successful here.
Liam Ross and Philip Isaac were taken in 2017, Ross had a nice rookie campaign this season, while Dawson Baker and Nolan Hutchison were picked in 2016 and made their debuts this year for the local juniors.
The fifth round drops off for the Wolves as they had four picks in the fifth in the last three seasons and all but one either is not on the team or plays elsewhere.
Blake McConville is the only current fifth rounder on the team from the last three drafts.
Back to the 2018 draft.
Draft picks are shuffled around a lot in the OHL.
This year, if the Wolves didn’t trade any of their draft picks, because of their record, they would pick first in every round.
But because of trades they only picked first in nine of 15 rounds.
However, Papineau says there aren’t any greater challenges with that.
“Not tough, but I like to call all the players immediately after we draft them, it just makes some of that a little bit tougher, because we want to speak to the one guy who had the honour and got picked where he did, before making another selection. So it’s a little bit more difficult that way, but it was tricky having three picks in the 10th(round) to be able to pull that off. But it wasn’t what I would call difficult,” said Papineau.
In round seven, they went with a familiar last name to hockey fans.
The picked defenseman Kyle Aucoin from Chicago Mission 16U.
Aucoin is the son of longtime NHLer Adrian Aucoin who played 18 seasons.
Adrian Aucoin was born in Ottawa but went to Boston University so it will be interesting to see what kind of path his son will try to take to the NHL.
In round 13, the Wolves took their second goalie, Nicholas Heinzle from Glen Robertson, Ontario.
Then the round later they went local, picking Giordano Biondi from Sudbury.
Here is a breakdown of every pick from the Wolves:
Round 1 - Quinton Byfield C 6’3” 207 lbs - 34gp - 48g-44a-92pts - York-Simcoe Express Mmaaa
Round 2 - Jack Thompson RD 5’11” 161 lbs - 36gp - 17g-21a-38pts - Clarington Toros Mmaaa
Round 3 - Blake Butler C 5’10” 181 lbs - 33gp - 14g-18a-32pts - Lambton Jr. Sting Mmaaa
Round 4 - Nathan Ribau LD 6’0” 175 lbs - 22gp - 0g-13a-13pts - Oakville Rangers Mmaaa
Round 5 - Jonathan Lemaire G 6’5” 175 lbs - 21gp - 10-9-2 - 3.27GAA - Kemptville 73S Maaa
Round 6 - NO PICK
Round 7 - Kyle Aucoin LD 5’9” 142 lbs - 20gp - 2g-4a-6pts - Chicago Mission 16U
Round 8 - Michael Tiveron C 5’9” 161 lbs - 32gp - 17g-13a-30pts - Brampton '45S Mmaaa
Round 9 - NO PICK
Round 10 - Simon Labelle LW 5’9” 147 lbs - 40gp - 16g-25a-41pts - Rockland Nationals Maaa
Round 10 - Owen Robinson C 5’11” 165 lbs - 51gp - 22g-34a-56pts - Blind River Beavers
Round 10 - Darren Beattie RD 5’9” 161 lbs - 31gp - 3g-4a-7pts - Lambton Jr. Sting Mmaaa
Round 11 - Ryan Smith C 5’8” 140 lbs - 33gp - 11g-23a-34pts - North Central Predators Mmaaa
Round 12 - Robbie Stewart LD 6’3” 172 lbs - 31gp - 3g-9a-12pts - Niagara North Stars Mmaaa
Round 13 - Nicholas Heinzle G 6’1” 172 lbs - 21gp - 14-5-1 - 1.97GAA - Hawkesbury Hawks Maaa
Round 14 - Giordano Biondi RW 5’10” 141 lbs - 21gp - 9g-11a-20pts - Sudbury Wolves Mmaaa
Round 15 - Luke Strickland LW 5’11” 176 lbs - 31gp - 23g-6a-29pts - Markham Waxers Mmaaa
