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Coyotes Top Prospects: Barrett Hayton

May 15, 2019, 4:25 PM ET [15 Comments]
James Tanner
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With last year's first round pick, the Coyotes selected Barrett Hayton fifth overall.

With every player ahead of him playing significant minutes right out of the draft - Rasmus Dahlin, Andrei Svechnikov, Jesperi Kotkaniemi and Brady Tkachuk - Hayton is the next on the list to make his NHL debut.

In fact, the two players taken directly after Hayton also played in the NHL this year, although only briefly.

He did make the team out of camp, but the Coytoes were just teasing, and they sent him back to junior without playing him in a game. They just wanted to give him a taste, and it sure didn't hurt, as Hayton went out and scored 66 points in 39 games in the Ontario Hockey League, which was a significant upgrade on his draft year.



The Coyotes passed on Filip Zadina and Quinn Hughes to draft Hayton, and so hopefully he turns out to be an astute pick.

The best thing about Hayton is that he's a centre - with decent size - who almost certainly will play in the NHL.

The only downside is that he appears to be more a playmaker, and the Coyotes don't really have any goal scorers. His ceiling is high, but unless the Coyotes get extremely lucky, he doesn't appear to be the kind of elite super-star that the Coyotes are desperate for.

That's no big deal though - those guys are hard to find, but if you do get one, it helps if you've got a nice roster of players to accentuate them.

What Hayton is, is a two way player with talent who, if all goes right, could be a nice #2 centre on a championship calibre team.

With Keller, Hayton, Galchenyuk and Schmaltz, the Coyotes have four solid top-six players all under the age of 25. It's not Eichel/Middlestadt/Rinehart or Matthews/Nylander/Marner, but it is still really good.
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