The Paper Feature is a weekly column and sidebars that appears in the print edition of the Vancouver Courier newspaper. Track it down! This week, it's a quick look back at the Canucks 2018 draft.
Jim Benning’s joy could barely be contained after selecting Quinn Hughes 7th overall at the 2018 NHL Entry Draft on Friday.
“I didn’t think he was going to be there,” the Canucks general manager said to Elliotte Friedman after making the pick, “but I’m so happy he was.”
Hughes represents the type of highly-skilled number one defenceman that the Canucks haven’t had since Paul Reinhart’s two seasons in the late eighties. The selection of the 5’10” defenceman was the first indication that the Canucks were all-in on skill over size, a theme that continued on day two of the draft on Saturday.
Jett Woo was the tallest skater selected by the Canucks at this year’s draft and he stands an even 6’0”. The Canucks picked the defensive defenceman in the second round with the 37th pick, making him the second-highest drafted player of Chinese descent behind the New York Islanders’ Josh Ho-Sang.
In the third round, the Canucks picked the 5’11” Tyler Madden, who weighs in at just 150 lbs. The centre has obvious offensive skill, but will need to add weight and strength in the NCAA. In the fifth round, it was 5’10” Finnish defenceman Toni Utunen, a steady leader who captained Finland’s U-18 team to gold at the World Under-18 Championships.
Their smallest pick of the draft, however, came in the sixth round with Artyom Manukyan. The 20-year-old Russian winger is just 5’7” and is listed at just 139 lbs, though the Canucks’ director of amateur scouting, Judd Brackett, assured the media that he weighs more than that.
Manukyan is a pure boom-or-bust type of pick, the type that more teams should try in the late rounds of the draft. If he works out, the skilled and speedy Manukyan could be a top-six forward for the Canucks; if not, it was just a sixth round pick.
It’s a pick that echoes the sixth round of last year’s draft, when they selected 5’6” Petrus Palmu, who has since signed with the Canucks and could potentially play NHL games this season.
The Canucks run of undersized players in the 2018 draft finally ended in the seventh round with 6’2” goaltender Matthew Thiessen. Of course, by goaltender standards, 6’2” is average height.
Excluding Thiessen, the average height of the five players selected by the Canucks was 5’10”. Their average weight, according to how they’re listed by the NHL, is 166 lbs. That is a very small draft class.
It stands in stark contrast to Benning’s first draft as GM of the Canucks.
In the 2014 draft, Benning went with size over skill with his first pick, taking 6’1”, 210 lbs winger Jake Virtanen 6th overall ahead of Nikolay Ehlers and William Nylander. In the third round, he drafted 6’7” Nikita Tryamkin, who had a decent debut with the Canucks before heading back to Russia.
Both were defensible picks and could still be great players for the Canucks, even if a smaller, more skilled player might have been a better choice. In the last two rounds of the draft, however, Benning and his scouting staff went with two larger players with limited upside: 6’4” Kyle Pettit and 6’5” Mackenze Stewart.
Late round picks are always a gamble, but it made little sense to take that gamble on such limited players. At best, Pettit and Stewart might have become fourth-line forwards — the Canucks tried to turn Stewart, a defenceman, into a winger — and fourth-liners are readily available on the free agent market on league-minimum contracts.
Taking a chance on someone like Manukyan, who has a significantly higher ceiling, seems like a smarter gamble.
Big Numbers
12 - The Canucks never would have drafted Quinn Hughes if the Arizona Coyotes didn’t go off the board with the fifth pick. Barrett Hayton was ranked 12th by International Scouting Services, but surprisingly jumped into the top-5, allowing Hughes to slide.
105 - 6th round pick Artyom Manukyan holds the record for most points in a season in the MHL, Russia’s junior league. He put up 39 goals and 105 points in 60 games during the 2016-17 season.
Stick-taps and Glove-drops
A tap of the stick to Jim Benning for trading down in the sixth round to draft Manukyan. The Russian winger likely wasn’t high on many draft lists, so Benning was able to add an additional sixth round pick in 2019 by moving down 25 picks.
Stick-tap to Quinn Hughes, who showed tremendous confidence after he was picked by the Canucks, suggesting that he could play in the NHL as soon as next season, and that his smaller size won’t be an issue. He might still return to the University of Michigan for one more year, but it’s great to see his faith in his own abilities.
