On Monday, NHL Central Scouting released its final rankings for the 2019 draft. As expected, Jack Hughes and Kaapo Kakko remain atop the lists of North American and International skaters, respectively.
Click here for the full list. Round these parts, it's noteworthy that Vancouver Giants defenseman Bowen Byram probably moved even further out of the Canucks' range as he climbed from four to two on the North American list.
After a regular season that saw him lead all WHL defensemen with 26 goals and finish third with 71 points, Byram has continued to tear it up in the playoffs. After sweeping the Victoria Royals in their second-round series, the Giants are set to meet the Spokane Chiefs in the WHL's Western Conference Final, with Game 1 set for Friday at the Langley Events Centre.
Byram has continued to produce in the playoffs—the top defenseman and third-leading scorer overall with 4-9-13, including one game-winning goal, in 10 games.
As expected, the WHL figures prominently at the top of this year's draft list, although there have been some small slips. Big center Kirby Dach dropped one spot to No. 3, Dylan Cozens fell from three to five, and Peyton Krebs fell from eight to 10.
One other kid who has been playing in B.C. and made a nice move up was Alex Newhook of the BCHL's Victoria Grizzlies. A smaller forward, originally from Newfoundland, who is committed to Boston College next season, Newhook led the BCHL in scoring this season with 38-64-102 in 56 games, which fuelled a jump from 16 to 13 in the rankings.
Newhook should be a player to watch for Canada when the World U18 tournament kicks off on Thursday in Sweden. Byram, of course, is still with the Giants, and Dach won't be participating after suffering an injury with Saskatoon during the playoffs, but Cozens and Krebs are also on the Team Canada roster.
Click here for the full list.
Coming back from an injury, NTDP foward Alex Turcotte has just been added to the U.S. lineup. He's one of Jack Hughes' cronies, and moved up from five to four in the final Central Scouting rankings.
Elsewhere, former Canucks coaches are in the news. On Tuesday, John Tortorella will try to become the first coach ever to win a playoff series for the Columbus Blue Jackets as they attempt to complete an unfathomable sweep of the Tampa Bay Lightning. For all his shortcomings, Torts has done a pretty masterful job in this series—especially when he helped his players engineer that comeback win in Game 1 after they fell behind in 3-0 in the first period and looked like they were going to get steamrolled.
I was all in on the idea that this was Tampa's year and that they weren't going to succumb to the dreaded Presidents' Trophy curse, so I'm still not ready to write them off. But what the Blue Jackets have already done has certainly rewarded general manager Jarmo Kekalainen for this willingness to gamble big with his roster this year. Some would argue that it's unfair that a Tampa team that was so strong in the regular season should be put in this position. I'm more of a believer that the intensity of the game changes in the playoffs and while the Lightning did a good job of keeping their foot on the gas through the full 82 games, they haven't been able to find that extra gear—yet—that leads to postseason success.
Meanwhile, on Monday, Alain Vigneault's return to the NHL was made official when he was announced as the new head coach of the Philadelphia Flyers.
Vigneault had already signed on to lead Team Canada at the World Championship next month, and two players already confirmed for that roster are the Flyers' young goaltender Carter Hart and do-everything forward Sean Couturier. So that group will get a head start on getting familiar with each other. Former Flyers GM Ron Hextall is also part of Canada's management team, working alongside Ron Francis under Jason Botterill—whose Buffalo Sabres are still looking for a new coach of their own.
As for the Canucks players, they've already scattered far and wide. Bo Horvat and his fiancee Holly have started their pre-wedding tour with a visit to Italy's Amalfi Coast; Brock Boeser drove through the Canadian Rockies with his dog on his way home to Minnesota; Ben Hutton is partying it up stateside in Vegas and Palm Springs and Antoine Roussel said he's sticking around to explore Vancouver a bit—from a seated position, of course, as he rehabs after his ACL surgery.
Troy Stecher is also back in town after a weekend at Whistler, and made the media rounds of TV and radio on Tuesday morning to talk about his season and a new philanthropic project that he's putting together.
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