Heading into the draft, it's generally believed that the Vancouver Canucks will draft a forward with their fifth pick in the first round.
The need is there: the team must make plans for its top line as Daniel and Henrik Sedin wind down their impressive careers. We talk a lot about the team needing a top-line centre to slot into Henrik's role. Though it's generally believed that wingers are easier to find, replacing Daniel is just as important. Henrik is the franchise's all-time points leader with 970, but Daniel's not far behind at 942 and holds the franchise record with 355 goals. He has also been the Canucks' leading scorer for the past two seasons after a three-year run at the top by Henrik.
Until I listened to Jim Benning's interview with Farhan Lalji a couple of days ago, I was sold on the idea that the team's first choice would be to draft a centre, but it sounds like left wing Matthew Tkachuk is very much in the mix if he's still available with the fifth selection.
People make a fuss about how Auston Matthews will be the first Arizona-born player to be selected first overall but Tkachuk was born in Arizona too—in 1997, when his dad was playing for the Phoenix Coyotes.
Word is that Matthew's game is quite similar to his father's, so let's take a closer look at his dad's career.
Keith Tkachuk was a big power forward who scored 30 goals or more eight times during his 18-season NHL career. Drafted 19th overall by the Winnipeg Jets in 1990, he played in 1,201 NHL games, accumulating 1,065 points and 2,219 penalty minutes with the Jets/Coyotes organization, the St. Louis Blues and, very briefly, the Atlanta Thrashers. His 538 career goals rank him 31st, all time, in the NHL.
Tkachuk and Teemu Selanne formed a dynamic duo in their early days in Winnipeg. Selanne was all speed and skill, while Tkachuk was more about chippy play and brute force. He was also seen as a leader throughout his career. The Jets named him team captain in his second full season in the league as a 21-year-old, and he wore a "C" or an "A" in 15 of his 18 years.
The dark spots on the record of Tkachuk-the-elder are his lack of success in the playoffs and, to some extent, in international competition. He only got past the first round of the playoffs twice in his career—reaching the Western Conference Final with the St. Louis Blues in 2001-02 and the second round the following year. And he was part of the U.S. Team that had been favoured to win gold the first time NHL players went to the Olympics in 1998, then flamed out with a 4-1 loss to the Czechs in the quarterfinal and an embarrassing incident where they trashed a dorm room after the loss—though Tkachuk says he was not involved.
Click here for a refresher on that story, written in 2006 by Karen Crouse of the
New York Times.
Tkachuk did play in four Olympics in total, and won silver in Salt Lake City in 2002. As a member of the U.S. National Team before he started his pro career, Tkachuk played in the 1992 Olympics in Albertville, France, where the U.S. team finished fourth, as well as in Nagano, Salt Lake City and in Turin in 2006, where the Americans finished eighth. He won gold with Team USA at the first World Cup of Hockey, in 1996.
This spring, Matthew showed that he's not a player who has a problem dealing with playoff pressure. In his first season in the OHL, he led the London Knights with an astonishing 20 goals in 18 playoff games and finished second in team scoring behind the already-drafted Mitch Marner, with 40 points. The Knights won their third straight OHL Championship with ease, winning 13 straight games, then clinched the Memorial Cup thanks to Tkachuk's game-winning overtime goal.
Excelling like that in a high-stakes situation, Tkachuk's stock rose in the hockey world. Earlier in the season, there had been some talk that a lot of his success was as a result of his talented linemates, Marner and Christian Dvorak. Since the Memorial Cup, consensus seems much stronger that Tkachuk's play stands up on his own.
Tkachuk was also said to have interviewed extremely well at the Draft Combine. NHL.com has a great inside peek at how that process went when he spoke with the St. Louis Blues—one of 16 teams that he met with.
When asked which current NHL players he'd compare himself to, he cited Corey Perry, James van Riemsdyk and Jamie Benn. As far as the aspects of his game he needs to work on, explosiveness is something that can be improved, as well as his ability to keep skating hard right through the end of his shifts.
We're seeing a lot of second-generation players making their way to the NHL. Some of that is due to great genetics, some of it comes from opportunities to play and to get into the best programs, and some of it comes from the lessons that are learned and the moments that are experienced from a lifetime of being around the game.
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
Join the Discussion:
»