Tips have high hopes for mid-to-late round picks in draft

Published 1:30 am Friday, May 5, 2017

The excitement of the WHL bantam draft is most heavily concentrated on the first round.

However, sometimes the draft isn’t loaded with can’t-miss prospects projected to be NHL stars. That appeared to be the case prior to Thursday’s 2017 bantam draft, as Tyler Neisz of Western Elite Hockey Prospects told The Herald in an email this week, calling it a “good junior draft, but not really any NHL sure-fire guys.”

Then it falls on teams to identify and add depth in the later rounds, something at which the Everett Silvertips have had previous success. During general manager Garry Davidson’s first draft in 2012, the Tips took Noah Juulsen in the fourth round and Patrick Bajkov in the sixth round. A year later, Everett found Carter Hart in the eighth round and in 2014 the Tips took Riley Sutter in the sixth round.

“The last few years we’ve had some really good picks, especially in the mid-to-late rounds and I think we did that again this year,” Everett director of player personnel Bil La Forge said Thursday following the draft in which the Tips took 13 players.

The organization was thrilled it was able to get Ronan Seeley at No. 20 and has high hopes for forwards Jackson Berezowski and Nathanael Hinds. Then in the fourth round the Tips took defenseman Dylan Anderson out of Yale Hockey Academy, the same program that produced Juulsen.

“(Anderson) is a very skilled, cerebral defenseman,” La Forge said. “He’s not the biggest guy in the world, but we’re confident he can play for us regardless of how much he grows. We’re not going to let size take away from talent. He’s a talented kid, plays the game really hard, plays the game really smart and he is a fun kid to watch. He’s going to excite some people.”

The Tips used their second fourth-round pick on goaltender Blake Lyda.

“We weren’t really thinking about taking a goalie where we did, but when you see the guy you have rated as the best goalie in the draft sitting next you’ve gotta pick him,” La Forge said. “We were amazed he was there and really happy. He was our unanimous choice as the No. 1 goalie by our staff, so it was someone we think has a really big future.”

The Tips took goalie Dustin Wolf in the fifth round in 2016 and have all but named him their goaltender of the future after beating out the U.S. National Development Team Program and the NCAA when they signed him in January. Wolf, whom La Forge described as a first-round talent, fell to the fifth round because teams weren’t sure of his commitment the WHL.

“You gotta have two to play and as great as Carter’s been he’s not going to be here forever,” La Forge said. “We’ve got to start preparing for (life) after Carter, and (Lyda) is a guy we think is going to be a big-time goalie in the WHL and we’re very excited to have them both moving forward.”

The recruiting issue may have been one reason forward Brayden Morrison was still on the board in the fifth round. The son of former NHLer Brendan Morrison was ranked as the 90th-best prospect by WEHP.

The elder Morrison put up 94 points in 56 games while playing for Davidson with the Penticton Panthers of the BCJHL before becoming a second-round pick of the New Jersey Devils in 1993 and playing four years at the University of Michigan.

“(Brayden) is another 200-foot player who really played well in big games,” La Forge said. “He wasn’t one of those kids who piled up (stats) against weaker opponents. He was the one they went to when it was the tough situations. … We feel once he gets to see Everett and see the organization, we have and the building and the great fan support, we have a chance to show him this path is pretty successful for a hockey player as well.”

In the seventh round the Tips then chose forward Ryley Morgan, a player La Forge described as “one of the best skaters in the draft.”

“He’s not overly big, but he’s competitive and he sees the ice very well,” La Forge said. “He was another guy who put up numbers against good teams.”

Caleb Brownell, a “big, rangy” defenseman, was Everett’s next pick from the same Rocky Mountain RoughRiders program that yielded current Tips forward Brian King.

“He’s good now, but we think he’s got a chance to be really good moving forward,” La Forge said. “With the way we’ve been producing defensemen on our team, we think he is another guy that has a chance to be another really prolific defenseman moving forward.”

In the ninth round Everett took forward Kalen Ukrainetz, a player La Forge said “reminds us of Carson Stadnyk” and followed by taking forwards Kent Johnson and Nic Porchetta in the 10th and 11th rounds.

La Forge said Johnson has “the ability score highlight-reel goals” while making “players around him better.” Porchetta plays in every situation and “his coach absolutely raved about him as a human being and a player.”

Eleventh-rounder Maxwell Goldade was the final defenseman taken by the Tips, while Austin Spiridakis wrapped up Everett’s selections in the 12th round.

“There are always a couple that you draft and there might be a recruiting battle,” La Forge said. “For the most part I think they’ve all indicated to us that they’re going to come to training camp, they’re going to give our program a real serious look and I’m very confident in the program that Garry and (COO/Governor) Zoran (Rajcic) have built.”