Strange as it may seem, the beginning of the NHL off-season is actually a lot of fun for a dedicated hockey fan. It’s full of hope, whether its for the potential of the recently drafted prospects, for the team’s latest free agent signing, or for the undrafted invitees to your team’s prospect development camp.
Okay, maybe that last one is just me. I love looking at the invitees to the Canucks’ camps, as there is always the possibility that one of those players is a diamond in the rough, just waiting to be unearthed.
One thing to know about the invitees to this year’s camp: there’s a lot of them. 15, to be exact, up from ten last year, with ten forwards, three defencemen, and two goaltenders. That gives us three groups of five players for these invitee profiles.
Let’s start off with the first five forwards on the list, featuring a couple late bloomers and a scorer overlooked because of his size, with all five potentially worth a contract.
Luke Burghardt - Centre
5’11” - 170 lbs - May 12, 1998 (18)
Bowmanville, ON
Guelph Storm (62-17-14-31)
Jim Benning chose to draft 19 and 20-year-olds in the final two rounds of the 2016 draft, but he still had his eye on some first-time draft-eligible players, and Luke Burghardt was one of them.
Burghardt’s statistics from last season aren’t particularly impressive—17 goals and 31 points in 62 games—but that was good enough for second in goals and fourth in points for the Guelph Storm, the lowest-scoring team in the OHL. Seriously, the next lowest-scoring team had 27 more goals than the Storm. They were terrible.
So, the question for Burghardt is one of cause and effect. Did a bad team drag him down, preventing him from showing scouts how good he can be, or was he part of the problem?
To his credit, he did play 54 games with the Guelph Storm at 16, though he recorded just one goal and four assists. OHL teams generally don’t keep 16 year olds on their roster unless the player can handle themselves. This past season was his second in the OHL and he just turned 18 in May.
When you combine his youth with his willingness to go to the net and finish plays, it’s worth taking a look at camp to see if there’s something there. While it's sometimes easier to see an elite talent on a terrible team, the opposite is also true. It will be up to Burghardt to stand out among the other talent at camp.
Michael Carcone – Right Wing
5’10″ – 170 lbs – May 19, 1996 (20)
Whitby, ON
Drummondville Voltigeurs (66-47-42-89)
One of six players invited to camp from the QMJHL, Michael Carcone is one of the most intriguing simply because of his numbers. Carcone scored 47 goals and added 42 assists for 89 points in 66 games. That tied him for second in the league in goals and eighth in points.
Carcone was heavily leaned on by the Voltigeurs, along with his linemate Alex Barre-Boulet, who also scored 89 points. The duo each had more than twice as many points as the next highest scorer on the team, defenceman Frederic Aube, who had 41 points and was also invited to camp by the Canucks.
There are a couple reasons Carcone went undrafted. One is his size, as he’ll be tied for the lightest at camp with Burghardt and returning invitee Curtis Valk. The other is that he played in Junior A in his first draft-eligible year and simply didn’t stand out with 37 points in 49 games.
Carcone was a dangerous scorer all season, so it’s pretty obvious why the Canucks would be interested: they struggle to score goals and need more goalscorers in the pipeline. The question is whether the rest of his game is well-rounded enough to survive at the next level.
Carcone seems well worth signing; guys like him who score that many goals, even in his 19-year-old season, have a chance at an NHL future. Plus, he can score goals like this:
Tyler Coulter – Left Wing
6’0″ – 195 lbs – September 10, 1996 (19)
Brandon, MB
Brandon Wheat Kings (69-22-37-59)
Tyler Coulter was a solid contributor to his hometown Brandon Wheat Kings, helping them to the WHL Championship with 22 goals and 59 points in 69 games in the regular season and 6 more goals and 14 points in 18 playoff games. While he had just one point, a goal, in the Memorial Cup, he wasn’t alone in that regard, with no Wheat King scoring more than two points.
An amateur scouting report from 2014 describes him as “competitive and tough,” with his coach noting his intelligence and strength on the cycle, while Dub From Above notes his versatility, as he can play almost anywhere in the lineup.
Coulter is likely to return to Brandon for his over-age season and could find himself on the top line alongside the likely first overall pick in the 2017 draft, Nolan Patrick. If that happens, Coulter will be in a prime position to pick up points and could have multiple suitors next off-season. If the Canucks like what they see at development camp, now would be the time to sign him before in increases his profile.
Coulter has a BC connection, playing at the Pursuit of Excellence hockey academy in Kelowna.
Alexis D’Aoust – Right Wing
6’0″ – 200 lbs – April 3, 1996 (20)
Trois-Rivieres, QC
Shawinigan Cataractes (68-44-54-98)
Like Michael Carcone, Alexis D’Aoust was one of the top scorers in the QMJHL this past season, racking up 44 goals and 54 assists for 98 points in 68 games. That was good enough for fourth in the league in points and he added 26 points in 21 playoff games, good enough for fourth in the playoffs as well.
Unlike Carcone, D’Aoust had a bit more help on a strong Cataractes team that finished first in the East Division. D’Aoust finished first in scoring, but had help from the likes of Anthony Beauvillier, Dmytro Timashov, Dennis Yan, and Samuel Girard, among others, all top prospects for their respective teams.
That said, D’Aoust out-scored them all in the regular season and has multiple teams interested in signing him. He has plenty of speed and decent size, typically things that hold back scorers in junior from making an impact in the NHL.
Jeremy Crowe noted D’Aoust in his article for NHL Numbers on potential draft day bargains, suggesting that, statistically speaking, he might have even been worth a second-round pick based on comparable players in his cohort. Even when you consider his age, his point totals are outstanding, especially when you consider how few secondary assists he tallied: just 15 among his 54 assists.
D’Aoust won the Scholastic Player of the Year Award in the CHL this past season and, according to L’Hebdo du St-Maurice, he completed his college degree in May, so he’s got some brains to go with his on-ice skill.
Everything points to D’Aoust earning an NHL contract from someone this off-season. Even if his point totals were partly propped up by his linemates, there’s no reason why that contract shouldn’t be with the Canucks. Of all the players invited to camp, he is the one I’m most excited about.
Kyle Maksimovich – Left Wing
5’9″ – 172 lbs – March 10, 1998 (18)
Oakville, ON
Erie Otters (68-27-44-71)
It’s immediately apparent why Kyle Maksimovich didn’t get drafted last week despite scoring more than a point per game in his first draft-eligible season: he’s 5’9”. Players as short as that tend to get overlooked unless they’re a truly elite talent.
Just look at his teammate, the 5’7” Alex Debrincat. He racked up 51 goals and 101 points in 60 games and was seen as a first round talent by several publications, but slipped into the second round where the Blackhawks nabbed him and will likely turn him into a key piece in a Stanley Cup run before trading him to Las Vegas.
Maksimovich was fourth in scoring on the Otters and was more of a playmaker, though he still tallied 27 goals. He was ranked by HockeyProspect.com and Future Considerations, both thinking he could be a sixth or seventh round pick, while he was ranked 103rd by Central Scouting among North American skaters.
The scouting report from Future Considerations describes him as a “skilled offensive player with smooth hands and impressive intelligence” and calls him a “ball of energy,” but notes that he is sometimes slow to make decisions and is outmatched physically.
Future Considerations also suggests he stays to the outside, while other reports call him fearless and say he battles hard in the corners and in front of the net. Dominic Tiano with OHL Writers notes that his speed and intelligence overcome his lack of size.
His highlight reel showcases his strengths, which include the ability to finish in multiple ways, as he rifles in one-timers, dekes goaltenders, roofs backhands, wires wrist shots, and bangs in rebounds. The few assists in the video illustrate some impressive vision as well.
Even with his flaws, you have to think that Maksimovich is worth a look with his array of offensive talents. He’s the type of player on which I would have been glad to see the team spend a seventh round pick.
