Ryan Johnson didn’t hide it: the Vancouver Canucks got a break in the first round of the NHL Draft.
Adam Novotny was still on the board at 24th overall, and that wasn’t the way Vancouver expected things to unfold. In a behind-the-scenes draft video released Friday, the Canucks showed just how close they came to another direction before landing the player they ended up taking.
Right before Vancouver’s pick, the Utah Mammoth moved 23rd overall to the Detroit Red Wings in a deal for goaltender prospect Sebastian Cossa. That set up a quick read from amateur scouting director Todd Harvey.
“It’s either one of them, RJ,” Harvey said in the video. “They take one of them and pick Novotny or [JP] Hurlbert.”
“Just wait and see.”
The prediction was right. Detroit took Hurlbert, and the Canucks were left with Novotny, a player Johnson said they did not think would be available.
“Getting Adam [Novotny] at 24, we really thought that that wouldn’t be a scenario that would fall to us,” Johnson said in the clip.
He also laid out what Vancouver liked about the pick.
“When you look at the player type again, size and strength and speed and skill, great skater, shoots the puck very well.”
Novotny entered the draft as the 15th-best prospect on Elite Prospects’ Consolidated Rankings, and Harvey pointed to the details in his game.
“Great details, good wall work,” Harvey said. “Kind of can play up and down and all over the map there for you.”
The Canucks didn’t stop there. Johnson said Vancouver came out of the first two rounds with four players who were all inside the team’s top 24.
“We end up with, in the first two rounds, four guys that were were in our top 24 on our list,” Johnson said.
“To be able to to get that, walk out of the first two rounds like that, we were pretty excited.”
That group included Brooks Rogowski, who was ranked 28th on Elite Prospects’ Consolidated Rankings and went to Vancouver with the first pick of the second round at 33rd overall.
The Canucks also took Niklas Aaram-Olsen, who was ranked 35th on the Consolidated Rankings, though only one public list in the consolidation had him as a first-rounder. Elite Prospects had him as low as 64th in its final ranking.
Aaram-Olsen comes with the kind of boom-or-bust profile teams chase when they have the capital to swing. The Norwegian winger’s shot stands out, but some scouts questioned what else he brings.
Still, he may have helped himself at the NHL Combine. Aaram-Olsen showed up near the top of several fitness tests, finishing first in the vertical jump and pro agility right, second in the pro agility left and Wingate test, and also ranking among the leaders in the 10-metre sprint, bench press and force plate no arm jump.
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