Sens draft LHD Jorian Donovan (6'2" 181 lbs) at 136th OA in the 5th Round.

2021-22 Team: Hamilton Bulldogs (OHL)
Date of Birth: April 5, 2004
Place of Birth: Calgary, AB, Canada
Ht: 6-foot-2 Wt: 181 pounds
Shoots: Left
Position: Defense
NHL Draft Eligibility: 2022 first-year eligible

Rankings

NHL Central Scouting: 81st (amongst NA skaters)
Recruit Scouting: 68th
Andrew Forbes’ March Rankings: 87th
Matthew Zator’s April Rankings: 78th
Bob McKenzie (TSN): 81st
Draft Prospects Hockey: 60th
FC Hockey: 79th

Jorian Donovan is probably already on a lot of NHL teams’ draft boards just for his explosive skating, offensive awareness and ability to move the puck quickly out of his own zone. As a defenceman in the modern NHL, you have to have all three to succeed, and Donovan has them all in spades. In only his first season in the Ontario Hockey League (OHL), he has already become a key part of the powerhouse Hamilton Bulldogs as he scored 3 goals and 22 points in 64 games with them this season. He also has two points in six games in the playoffs so far as the Bulldogs are now in the OHL Final against the Windsor Spitfires.

Selected sixth overall by the Bulldogs at the 2020 OHL Priority Selection, Donovan credits his upbringing for his work ethic and competitive nature. Being the son of former NHLer and noted competitor, Shean Donovan, who played 951 games and racked up 705 penalty minutes, certainly helps as he was able to get advice and pointers from him as he grew up.

“I was obviously born into a competitive family, and growing up being competitive you always want to strive for the best and chase whoever is ahead of you.”

Jorian is a better skater and has a lot more offensive upside than his dad, even though Shean did put up a career-high 18 goals and 43 points for the Calgary Flames in 2003-04. Despite that outburst, Shean wasn’t known for his offensive side, rather his physicality, penalty killing and strong defensive game. Having said that, Jorian does credit his father for his skating and why he is the player and person he is today.

“One thing he told me is that you just have to hate losing more than you like winning,” said Donovan of his father. “You obviously get your genes from someone and I definitely got my skating from him. I thank him for that. I’m blessed to have good feet.”

Jorian Donovan Hamilton Bulldogs

In the future, Jorian will be able to keep leaning on him for direction as Shean is now a player development coach for the Ottawa Senators. He was very young when his dad was an NHL player, so the time he’s spent around the Senators’ organization on the development side has been invaluable, as he’s been able to experience an NHL dressing room before being drafted. That’s something not all draft-eligible prospects are privy to. Not to mention access to a resource of a veteran NHL player who played close to 1,000 games.

Donovan definitely has the makings of a top-four defenceman. With his size, mobility and confidence with the puck, he is perfectly suited for the NHL game right now. Add in his willingness to drive the play and attack the net, along with his competitive work ethic, and whatever team gets him could have a bigger Adam Fox-type defenceman on their hands. He, of course, still needs to keep improving his strength, decision-making, and consistency, but that will come with time and coaching. The two-way toolbox he has is intriguing and will probably keep him in the running for the second round come July 8.

Jorian Donovan – NHL Draft Projection

Ranked anywhere from the mid-second to early third round, Donovan will probably fall between 50 and 65 when all is said and done. In a league based on speed and transition, I’m sure he is well-liked in the NHL scouting community. Too bad we won’t be able to glean more about his personality at the 2022 NHL Scouting Combine in Buffalo. Since the Bulldogs are currently in the playoffs and potentially will be competing for the Memorial Cup as well, he will not be attending despite being invited to the event. Regardless, scouts will still be able to watch him perform in the most pressure-packed of scenarios, the OHL Final, which could be more valuable than what information the Combine would ultimately provide.

Quotables

“Donovan is a quick, puck-moving defenseman with great mobility who can double as a power play quarterback. Compared to his peers, Donovan’s confidence with the puck stands out. He has a great first step and loves to jump into the rush. With the puck on his stick, he is not afraid to attack open lanes in the neutral zone and drive towards the net.” – Mat Sheridan, FC Hockey

“Donovan is an excellent puck handler and once he reaches top speed is difficult to contain and separate the puck and is excellent at using his body to protect the puck. While he can create space for himself, he has the vision, hockey sense and passing abilities to recognize where the next play is and usually makes the right decision. He has an excellent shot from the point that almost always finds the target and he shoots with a purpose – not always trying to beat the goaltender.” – Dominic Tiano, OHL Writers

“Another strong two-way defenseman, Donovan is a raw prospect that’s good at many things but not a star at anything particular. And that’s OK, because, as one Ottawa area scout described, “he’s an untapped talent ready for a huge boom.” Donovan is a smart puck-mover, but he needs to find a way to stay consistent and competitive shift-to-shift.” – Steven Ellis, The Hockey News

Strengths

Mobility
Explosiveness
Two-way game
Hockey IQ
Puck handling
Shot
Confidence with the puck
Work ethic

Under Construction (Improvements to Make)

Consistency
Decision-making

NHL Potential

If all goes well, Donovan has the potential to become a top-four defenceman in the NHL, or at the very least a solid bottom-pairing guy who can jump into the top four in a pinch. He will also be a contributor on the power play due to his mobility, hockey IQ and strong shot from the point. As I mentioned before, think a poor-man’s Adam Fox, except with more height.

Risk-Reward Analysis

Risk – 3/5, Reward – 4/5

Fantasy Hockey Potential

Offence – 7/10, Defence – 7/10

Awards/Achievements

Donovan was selected for the CHL/NHL Top Prospects Game where he played for Team Red. He also placed third behind Danny Zhilkin and Matthew Savoie in the “Reaction with Puck” test during the Top Prospects Game sport testing combine finishing with a rating of 9.920 seconds. Finally he was invited to participate at the 2022 NHL Draft Scouting Combine, but did not attend due to OHL playoff commitments.
- HoweHatrick

Kevin had this as happening in his blog earlier this week, he said ottawa would draft him. Pretty cool.

I see Debrincate's name being displayed on a Sens a jersey with the #12.

Hope it is not a bad omen for Shane Pinto.

Going to be hard to get Chychrun without giving up either Pinto or Greig.
- spatso

I am hoping DeBrincat lets Pinto keep the number and he wears #13.

My kids would be ecstatic as that is our number.

Kevin had this as happening in his blog earlier this week, he said ottawa would draft him. Pretty cool.
- PuckPix

Well, the connection is there. He is Shean Donovan's son.

Sens draft LH C Tyson Dyck (6' 170 lbs) at 206th OA in the 7th Round.

https://www.eliteprospect.../player/635386/tyson-dyck

Dippoop Dorion stocks up on LD. Probably the position we LEAST need help at atm. Why in the &$@? didn’t he draft a guy like Ty Nelson at 64?

And then another big, bruiser winger in Halliday. Power forward after power forward. And big LD after big LD. Apparently Pierre is allergic to skill, and anyone that shoots right.

This draft isn’t a disaster by any means, and I even had Hamara on my list in the late third round range. But a good handful of the picks were aggravating. Why do we just draft the same 2 or 3 guys over and over and over, year after year after year?

Dippoop Dorion stocks up on LD. Probably the position we LEAST need help at atm. Why in the &$@? didn’t he draft a guy like Ty Nelson at 64?

And then another big, bruiser winger in Halliday. Power forward after power forward. And big LD after big LD. Apparently Pierre is allergic to skill, and anyone that shoots right.

This draft isn’t a disaster by any means, and I even had Hamara on my list in the late third round range. But a good handful of the picks were aggravating. Why do we just draft the same 2 or 3 guys over and over and over, year after year after year?
- PavohnDatsvares

Question: How many of these players were drafted to address a current need?
Answer: Zero.

Only a Sens fan on this particular board could manage to piss and moan about the last two days. Good grief. It must be horrible to live life as a Debby Downer.

I am hoping DeBrincat lets Pinto keep the number and he wears #13.

My kids would be ecstatic as that is our number.
- HoweHatrick

The Cat has his #12.

How do you improve on this starting 9.

Shawn Simpson
@TSNSimmer
·
1h
Sens fans waking up to a beauty top 9.

Debrincat Stützle Batherson
Tkachuk Norris C. Brown
Formenton Pinto Joseph
- spatso

Tkachuk - Norris - Batherson
DeBrincat - Stützle - Giroux*

*Heavily dependent on a short term / fair dollar contract.

Tkachuk - Norris - Batherson
DeBrincat - Stützle - Giroux*

*Heavily dependent on a short term / fair dollar contract.
- HoweHatrick

D still needs some work.

The more I consider the rumored Murray / Sabres trade, the more I suspect that the details of the deal were not as reported. Is it possible the deal included a third team (Arizona / Chicago) that had other parts involved? That seems far more plausible.

It seems highly suspect as reported. When you consider how it panned out it makes it even less probable the PD was sending the 7th and Murray for a 16th.

With this Rogers outage across Canada today, being out west, if it wasn’t for wifi at Tim’s I never would’ve been able to follow the draft online or post in the blogs. What a mess

D still needs some work.
- spatso

Chychrun or Weegar would suffice. It's doable.

Dippoop Dorion stocks up on LD. Probably the position we LEAST need help at atm. Why in the &$@? didn’t he draft a guy like Ty Nelson at 64?

And then another big, bruiser winger in Halliday. Power forward after power forward. And big LD after big LD. Apparently Pierre is allergic to skill, and anyone that shoots right.

This draft isn’t a disaster by any means, and I even had Hamara on my list in the late third round range. But a good handful of the picks were aggravating. Why do we just draft the same 2 or 3 guys over and over and over, year after year after year?
- PavohnDatsvares

Since when has this team been drafting "big LD after big LD"? They may have Chabot/Sanderson in place at LHD in the NHL, but the prospect system was actually quite weak in LHD. Outside of Brannstrom & Kleven, there's almost nobody worth talking about vs. RHD where they have Thomson, Bernard-Docker, and Rogers lined up, along with Guenette. Plus, Nordberg and Hamara are hardly a pair of bruising D-men... but they do have very NHL-projectable styles and two-way upside. The Senators were also far from the only team to pass on Ty Nelson for ~20 picks after his consensus range, so there were obviously some deficiencies identified.

Not to mention that anyone drafted outside of the 1st round of the 2022 draft will have 2 years in junior/Europe, then maybe another 1-2 years in the AHL before we're even talking about having an NHL impact as a 21/22yo call-up (i.e. nobody drafted today was ever going to be helping them in the immediate term). The 6 years they have Chabot signed for may seem like a long time, but take 4 years off of that before any of these guys are even sniffing at regular NHL ice time, and you get a sense of why you can't just stop developing players at any position. Factor in the potential for injuries, and it's even more reason not to just develop prospect systems based on short-term needs.

Since when has this team been drafting "big LD after big LD"? They may have Chabot/Sanderson in place at LHD in the NHL, but the prospect system was actually quite weak in LHD. Outside of Brannstrom & Kleven, there's almost nobody worth talking about vs. RHD where they have Thomson, Bernard-Docker, and Rogers lined up, along with Guenette. Plus, Nordberg and Hamara are hardly a pair of bruising D-men... but they do have very NHL-projectable styles and two-way upside. The Senators were also far from the only team to pass on Ty Nelson for ~20 picks after his consensus range, so there were obviously some deficiencies identified.

Not to mention that anyone drafted outside of the 1st round of the 2022 draft will have 2 years in junior/Europe, then maybe another 1-2 years in the AHL before we're even talking about having an NHL impact as a 21/22yo call-up (i.e. nobody drafted today was ever going to be helping them in the immediate term). The 6 years they have Chabot signed for may seem like a long time, but take 4 years off of that before any of these guys are even sniffing at regular NHL ice time, and you get a sense of why you can't just stop developing players at any position. Factor in the potential for injuries, and it's even more reason not to just develop prospect systems based on short-term needs.
- khawk

Defencemen taken in the last three drafts...

2022 (NO RD drafted)
F. Nordberg - 6'4" LD
T. Hamara - 6'0" LD (not BIG, but another LD)
J. Donovan- 6'2" LD
T. Wallberg - 6'4" LD

Did you not watch the draft at all?

2021*
C. Romeo - 6'5" LD

2020 (NO RD drafted)
J. Sanderson - 6'2" LD
T. Kleven - 6'4" LD

In those three drafts, we only drafted one RD (in 2021*). And that was..... you guessed it! Yet ANOTHER "big, nasty" guy in Benjamin Roger - 6'4".

Just how many 6'4" LD do we need? We got SEVEN of em (with one being only 6' even). 7 out of 8 D men drafted shoot left, only 1 shooting right. That's not a very balanced prospect pool. You don't want to also have one or two offensive-defencemen? Some puck carriers who can skate? No? You just want tall guys on the left side over and over?

You're normally one of my favourite posters on this site. But wake up, man.

The last three drafts...

2022 (NO RD drafted)
F. Nordberg - 6'4" LD
T. Hamara - 6'0" LD (not BIG, but another LD)
J. Donovan- 6'2" LD
T. Wallberg - 6'4" LD

Did you not watch the draft at all?

2021*
C. Romeo - 6'5" LD

2020 (NO RD drafter)
J. Sanderson - 6'2" LD
T. Kleven - 6'4" LD

In those three drafts, we only drafted one RD. And that was..... you guessed it! Yet ANOTHER "big, nasty" guy in Benjamin Roger - 6'4".

Just how many 6'4" LD do we need?
- PavohnDatsvares

The majority of those picks were made today... your rant was that it's all they ever do, so get your story straight. Not to mention that you've conveniently ignored the previous 3 drafts where they selected just 1 LHD in any round... vs. the 2 RHD they picked in the 1st round. So I don't know what your problem is, but it's already getting tiresome.

The majority of those picks were made today... your rant was that it's all they ever do, so get your story straight. Not to mention that you've conveniently ignored the previous 3 drafts where they selected just 1 LHD in any round... vs. the 2 RHD they picked in the 1st round. So I don't know what your problem is, but it's already getting tiresome.
- khawk

OMG. pull your head out of your (frank)ing ass

OMG. pull your head out of your (frank)ing ass
- PavohnDatsvares

Of our 8 newest D prospects. 7 of them are tall lefties. that's a fact

Of our 8 newest D prospects. 7 of them are tall lefties. that's a fact
- PavohnDatsvares

It’s very possible the scouting team just didn’t find any RD worthy of their selection.

Again, the big take of the draft for the Sens, ended up having nothing to do with the draft.

Who knows, maybe some of these kids do well enough and you end up trading from a position of strength?

OMG. pull your head out of your (frank)ing ass
- PavohnDatsvares

Jesus, man... you're the one running around saying horse$hit like "Pierre is allergic to skill, and anyone that shoots right". Thomson, Bernard-Docker, and Roger are RH D-men drafted in the 1st/2nd round, Pinto, Boucher, and Sokolov are all RH forwards taken in the 1st/2nd rounds, they JUST traded the #7 overall pick for a RH-shooting winger, and their main target right now is a RH-shot D-man. Pretty bizarre conduct for someone who doesn't understand the value of skill or a RH-shot.

Yes, they drafted more than one LHD today... it's not a 911 emergency.

Of our 8 newest D prospects. 7 of them are tall lefties. that's a fact
- PavohnDatsvares

I think it is your arse that needs to be removed from your nether regions. On two counts.

It’s very possible the scouting team just didn’t find any RD worthy of their selection.
- Trilla

This. Exactly. Anyone who has played any amount of hockey knows what the deal is here.

"As a whole, about 64 percent of NHL players shoot left and 36 percent shoot right -- and both groups are creepily identical: They are 6-foot-1, 196 pounds."

https://www.espn.com/blog...aft/insider/post/_/id/143

Fun fact. As indicated by this (and dozens of other) articles, roughly 65-70% of all people who play hockey shoot left. I will let you do the math on how many righties that leaves.

I am a RH shot and it always helped me make teams. When I was playing, we were lucky to have 2 RHD on our team. Even now, as I coach, I am lucky to get 2 RHD and 2 RW a year. Finding quality RHD / RW is not easy. That is a fact. Also, news flash, the average size player in the NHL is 6'1" and 200 lbs. That is certainly changing, but the average player is over 6' tall. I would wager that the average D is slightly larger.

I don't have a lot of patience with folks who invest excessive amount of time trying to evaluate each draft selection to determine if a different player would have been the better choice. Better to just look at the roster and farm system in time series to determine if an adequate supply of quality players is being fed into the system. Because an asset is an asset and each asset is fully negotiable any player traded for an asset should be considered in your review. Most important NHL player assets are depreciable (like any other asset) so older assets need to be discounted in your evaluation.

Anybody who looks at the Sens roster and thinks the Sens have been falling down in drafting and managing young assets is either naive or wilfully ignorant. I have not included ancient warriors like Watson and Giroux (I now believe he is on his way to Ottawa). I have also left off Connor Brown who is surely on his way out as was Nick Paul who does not fit as a $3m player for 7 years on this team.

On the back end, I have left out an old guy like Zub (age 26) as well as Hamonic and Forsberg who are hitting the unbelievable age of 30. I think Zaitsev is headed out so I scratched him from the list. I did include Chychrun as I also believe that he is on his way.

Believe me, this is outstanding evidence of superior asset selection and development. It bothers me when folks pick an individual transaction to focus on as evidence of success and failure.

Tkachuk 22
Batherson 24
Norris 23
Stutzle 20
DeBrincat 24
Pinto 21
Formenton 22
Joseph 25
Gaudette 25
Grieg 19
Kestellec 23
Kelly 23
Chabot 25
Sanderson 20
Chychrun* 24
Brannstrom 22
Thomson 21
Bernrd-Docker 22
Gustaffson 24

I think it is your arse that needs to be removed from your nether regions. On two counts.



This. Exactly. Anyone who has played any amount of hockey knows what the deal is here.

"As a whole, about 64 percent of NHL players shoot left and 36 percent shoot right -- and both groups are creepily identical: They are 6-foot-1, 196 pounds."

https://www.espn.com/blog...aft/insider/post/_/id/143

Fun fact. As indicated by this (and dozens of other) articles, roughly 65-70% of all people who play hockey shoot left. I will let you do the math on how many righties that leaves.

When I was a kid, we were lucky to have 2 RHD on our team. Even now, as I coach, I am lucky to get 2 RHD a year. Finding quality RHD / RW is not easy. That is a fact.
- HoweHatrick

This is part of people wanting to manage rather than nurture and encourage skill which you have no doubt learned is the fun part of being a coach.

Masters and Johnson, in their classic studies on sexual behaviours were interested in the possibility that there was a left/right orientation in multiple forms of auto arousal. They concluded that there was not. I think of Masters and Johnson when I read some of the exotic over reactions and hyperbole as folks over react to individual decisions or transactions.

Trent Mann availability - July 8, 2022

https://www.youtube.com/w...ab_channel=OttawaSenators

"It's a little bit D heavy but, not planned, just the circumstance of the draft, and players where they were at the time."

Sens will be good soon. Well done.

Alex DeBrincat availability - July 8, 2022

https://www.youtube.com/w...ab_channel=OttawaSenators

Shane Pinto got a hold of him to welcome him to the team and offer up #12.