The Athletic re-drafted the '16 class; Adam Fox ranked #9
- 21peter
giggity
9. Montreal Canadiens: Adam Fox
Actual draft pick: No. 66 (change: +57) to Calgary
My final ranking: No. 29 (change: +20)
Remember when I said that this ranking was going to be based on my evaluations? Well here we are at the point where a kid who has yet to play an NHL game gets ranked ahead of several who are a season or two deep into their NHL careers. I’m confident Fox is going to be that good. He’s one of those players who is going to spend so much time with the puck on his stick on offence that concerns over the ability of a smaller defender to be a No. 1 are quickly going to be muted. Fox is a stud who just had the most productive season by an NCAA defenceman (1.45 points per game!) since I began doing this whole scouting things six years ago (breaking the record of 1.08 points per game that he tied two seasons before). This is a kid, who, as a defenceman, posted 17 more points than his nearest teammate while playing to a plus-23 rating on a Harvard team that spent more time outside of USA Today’s national NCAA ranking than it did inside it. He’s going to immediately become an impact player for the Rangers and will probably go down as the second-biggest steal of the 2016 draft (if that’s possible for a kid who never played for the team that drafted him) to Alex DeBrincat. Like DeBrincat, I was considerably higher on Fox than the NHL consensus, so that’s good, but I was still too low on him. The kid led the NCAA in points per game (not just defencemen, everyone)!