It’s been less than a week since the Sudbury Wolves were eliminated from the playoffs, but there’s no break for the Pack brass as the Wolves held the seventh overall selection in the 2017 OHL Priority Draft.
In all, the Wolves had 15 picks and used them to fill a variety of positions.
All players taken were out of leagues in Ontario: four were defencemen, two were goalies and one player was from Sudbury.
Their first-round selection is a player out of Uxbridge, Ont., by the name of Blake Murray.
“Blake is a real rare combination of skill and power,” said Wolves GM Barclay Branch. “Those are both things that are big parts of his game. He’s a type of player that makes players around him better. He was part of a very successful championship run with his Whitby team this year. He’s a great person from a great family, so he checks off all the boxes for us as a person and does the same as a player.”
The 6-foot-2, 177-pound centre played with the Whitby Wildcats Minor Midget AAA team last year, scoring 29 goals, 26 assists for 55 points in just 35 games.
He was high on scouts' radar after 10 points in six playoff games and a strong showing at the OHL Cup.
Branch said he feels like the skill type fits the mold of how the Wolves are shaping up to be and can make an impact in year one.
“It’s a difficult transition for any young player to step into the OHL, but I think with time, with his work habits and his character, we will see a young player that just gets better and better as the season moves along next year,” said Branch.
The Wolves then had to wait to the third round before picking again, but used that selection to take another big kid up front, Anthony Tabak, a 6-foot-3, 182-pound winger from Oakville.
The picks kept rolling in for the Wolves and was a near perfect draft in the eyes of Branch.
“I know it sounds very cliche at the end of the draft to sit there and say ‘wow we couldn’t believe he was there or so-and-so was there when we picked,’ but that just seemed to be the case with most, if not all of our picks,” said Branch.
Last year, in his first draft with the Wolves, Branch and the front office took some chances with American players.
This year, all players selected were born and raised in Ontario, from Thunder Bay to Toronto.
But Branch said it wasn’t so much strategy as it was who was on the board.
“It’s just all about how we assessed the players that we chose, and we just went pick to pick and who we felt was the best player available, that’s who we went with. It had nothing to do with nationality or anything like that. It was just who we felt was the best pick for us at that point,” said Branch.
One pick had some local flare, as Joe Mazur, from Sudbury, was taken with the ninth pick in the seventh round.
Mazur spent last season with the Sudbury Minor Midget Wolves, putting up 33 points in 33 games, and had five points in four games at the OHL Cup for team NOHA.
“He’s an intelligent player,” said Branch. “That's what sets Joe apart right of the bat — he has a high hockey IQ. We were impressed with him as a player. He seemed to make things happen in a good way every time he was on the ice. He just fit all the criteria we were looking for.”
The Wolves will have some holes to fill on their roster this offseason, and this draft may be the first step in filling them.
It will be up to each player to make that first impression at orientation camp in two weeks.
Here is how the Wolves draft broke down.
Round - 1 Pick - 7 - Blake Murray Position - C Height - 6’1” Weight - 177
Round - 3 Pick - 53 - Anthony Tabak Position - LW Height - 6’3” Weight - 182
Round - 4 Pick - 63 - Liam Ross Position - LD Height - 6’1” Weight - 186
Round - 4 Pick - 80 Isaak Phillips Position - LD Height - 5’10” Weight - 149
Round - 5 Pick - 87 Kosta Manikis Position - C Height - 6’0” Weight - 158
Round - 6 Pick - 110 - Marshall Frappier Position - G Height - 6’0” Weight - 170
Round - 7 Pick - 127 - Drew Wawrow Position -RD Height -5’10” Weight - 155
Round - 7 Pick - 129 - Joe Mazur Position - C Height - 6’0” Weight - 198
Round - 8 Pick - 147 - Brendan Bowie Position - RW Height - 5’8” Weight - 150
Round - 10 Pick - 187 - Cameron Carvalho Position - G Height - 6’3” Weight - 226
Round - 11 Pick - 207 - Brodie McDougall Position - RW Height - 6’3” Weight - 164
Round - 12 Pick - 227 - Levi Siau Position - RW Height - 6’1” Weight - 191
Round - 12 Pick - 230 - Keegan Pulford-Thorpe Position - RD Height - 6’0” Weight - 160
Round - 13 Pick - 247 - Bryce Lewis Position - LW Height - 5’11” Weight - 143
Round - 15 Pick - 287 - Remy Dal Ben Position - RW Height - 5’8” Weight - 164
